Green Royston

Royston Green

Roy Green (pictured) was raised in Somerset and Dorset into a farming family. He was a pupil of Yeovil Grammar School and then moved on to Exeter where he gained a degree. Being very fond of Cornwall from when he regularly visited relatives near Bodmin as a child and a young man, he would spend much of his life associated with what he saw as a Celtic nation.

As a young man, Roy’s interest in politics led him to join the Communist Party, of which he remained an active and devoted member all his life. In 1946 he married his wife Blanche.

In the post war years, Roy became a teacher. At one point, he lived for three years in Wales and felt it a duty to learn to read in the Welsh language. As he put it in a piece in `Comment’, a Party journal: "Socialists should in some circumstances try to embody a national movement themselves and certainly should never oppose the right of people nationally to be what they choose.”

Eventually, he and his family returned from living in St Helen’s, Lancashire to Cornwall in 1959, where he taught Geography at Cornwall Technical College.

Green was the District Secretary of the Communist Party in Cornwall for a very long period, living in Redruth. His love of Cornwall led him to study the Cornish language of which he became a Bard of the Gorsedd in 1964, with the Bardic name of Trevesyk or “Countryman”.

Often involved in teacher exchanges and schools in the German Democratic Republic, in 1972, Roy and Blanche travelled to East Germany, where he taught English until his retirement in 1976.

Green was also the first Secretary of the Cornwall Branch of the Celtic League from 1962 to the early 1970s and was active within Mebyon Kernow – the Party for Cornwall a member of the Celtic League General Council, holding the post of Treasurer for many years.

He was also the author of `The national question in Cornwall : a historical review’ for the History Group of the Communist Party in the 1980s.

His life-time companion Blanche died in 1999 with whom he was buried alongside his son David who predeceased him by some 20 years.

Royston Green died on the 5th October 2002.

 

Sources:

Comment (CP journal) 15^th January 1966

Celtic League Press Information October 1st 2003

http://www.manxman.co.im/cleague/index.html

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/celtic_league

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

was the District Secretary of the Communist Party in Cornwall for a long period.

 At one point, he lived for three years in Wales and felt it a duty to learn to reds in the Welsh language. As e put it in a piece in `Comment’, a Party journal: "Socialists should in some circumstances try to embody a national movement themselves and certainly should never oppose the right of people nationally to be what they choose.” [15^th January 1966 – thanks to MW for reference.]

He was also the author of `The national question in Cornwall : a historical review’ for the History Group of the Communist Party in the 1980s and was often involved in teacher exchanges and schools in the German Democratic Republic.