John Watters
Like his younger brothers Frank (see separate entry) and Mick, John was a stalwart of the Communist Party all his life. (Mick, who died aged 81 in July 1994, was for a long time associated with the Blantyre miners’ welfare.)
Unlike them, John stayed all his life in Shotts the village midway between Edinburgh and Glasgow, in Lanarkshire, that the family had occupied since their father Paddy Watters had settled there. He had been victimised in 1926 and this marked the family out from then on.
John Watters was himself a miners’ union activist, a long-term member of the Scottish committee of the Communist Party, a local election candidate, and sometime Communist councillor.
In 1968, a report on work for John Watters as Communist candidate revealed that a Saturday morning door-to-door canvass in just a few streets over two hours saw 52 copies of the Morning Star sold.
This was very good but the remarkable thing is that an incredible 18 recruits to the Party who were made! [Supplement to Weekly Letter No 3, Report No 8]
John died in December 1982.
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