Clare Joan

Joan Clare

A long standing Communist Party member in Birmingham, she had been in the Handsworth branch of the CPGB and after re-establishment of the party was in the Sandwell and then the Birmingham CPB branches.

In her time in the Party, Joan was a Branch activist and a member of the District Committee. Always good with people, she was a teacher of the entry class of Infants for her entire career.

Married twice Joan raised her son Steven as a single mother, whilst holding down her teaching post and hosting Party meetings in her front room.

She was one of the early campaigners in the Birmingham Campaign Against Racial Discrimination.

During the Miners’ Strike she was, along with Brian Allbutt, and others one of the mainstays of Handsworth Miners Support Group, collecting on the Soho Road weekly with great success.

In her retirement she was active in Birmingham Anti-Apartheid, a volunteer at West Midlands CND office and always happy to talk people into signing the petition on her clipboard.

Joan was also a stalwart of residents work in her area of Handsworth always helping those who needed it and was on the Management Committee of the local advice centre in the 80s and 90s.

Never one for the limelight but carried out her work as a Communist with quiet dignity.

She died on Saturday 10 January 2015.

Andy Chaffer