Brian Oldrey

 

Born on June 9th 1947, Brian Oldrey began his working life with British Telecom in London. He became involved in trade union activities with the Civil and Public Servants' Association and probably first joined the Communist Party in the mid-1960s.

 

Awarded a trade union scholarship to Ruskin College, Oxford, which he attended during 1968/9, he was certainly a member of the Oxford student branch of the Communist Party. On graduating, he became a full-time official with the National Union of Public Employees and he and his wife Anne, whom he married in 1970, moved to Erskine in Scotland.

 

At some point during the 1970s, Oldrey left the Communist Party, for, in addition to his work as a union official, he became a local Labour councillor for Erskine in 1984.

 

This work expanded and after the formation of Unison, he took early retirement to devote his energies to being a full-time councillor.

 

Oldrey died on February 2nd 2003. 

 

Source: Glasgow Herald 11th Feb 2003