(en) Britain, Anarchist Federation ORGANISE! #84 - Obituary:

 (en) Britain, Anarchist Federation ORGANISE! #84 - Obituary:

Colin Parker was born in the pit village of Crook in Co. Durham on 15th December 2014. His
father Martin was a miner. He apprenticed as a fitter-turner after leaving school at the 
age of fifteen. He worked as a lathe operator in the local factory owned by Marshall 
Richards, a manufacturer of wire and tube making machines. ---- At an early age he joined 
the local library and became an avid reader of books on politics, art and history. With 
three of his brothers he joined the local Labour Party and was associated with the 
Militant Tendency within it. He and his brothers were expelled for confronting a local 
Labour Party official, Colin being the most vociferous of all. He subsequently joined the 
Communist Party. ---- He was sponsored by his union to attend Ruskin College in Oxford in 
1969. After the end of the course he moved to London to study a politics degree at East 
London Polytechnic. He then went to the London School of Economics and got an MA in 
politics in 1974.

The following year he took a teacher
training course and in 1976 became
a teacher at Barking College of
Further Education where he worked
until his retirement in his early sixties.
As his son Martin noted: “He aimed
to reach out and empower working
class people to achieve greater educational
success and get more from their lives”.
In the meantime he had left the CP and flirted
with various Trotskyist groups. The Workers
Revolutionary Party considered him an important
enough catch to send around Vanessa Redgrave
to his council flat in central London, but he was
not convinced. He then attended Socialist Workers
Party branch meetings but started asking too many
questions about their politics. All of this was part
of his evolution towards class struggle anarchism.

He began producing a duplicated magazine named Virus and subtitled For Militant Anarchism 
in 1984 during the height of the miners’ strike. He contacted the Libertarian Communist 
Discussion Group the following year and suggested that Virus become the mouthpiece of the 
Group. Regular meetings were held at Colin’s flat and a network of contacts was built up 
around Britain, leading to the founding of the Anarchist Communist Federation in March 1986.

He was active in the ACF, subsequently renamed the Anarchist Federation, until his death.

He took an active part in support for the miners’ strike and then attended many 
demonstrations during the Wapping printers struggle. He threw himself into the struggle 
against the Poll Tax and refused to pay. He was arrested during an anti-Poll Tax demo and 
subsequently fined. He was a stalwart of the London group of the AF for many years, always
warmly welcoming new contacts and providing an uncomplicated introduction to its ideas.

After his retirement he returned to Crook. He died as a result of a brain aneurism on 
January 22nd 2015.

He passionately hated the police, the various Leninist outfits, and former radicals who 
had sold out, which included some of his workmates who had accepted management positions. 
He remained devoted to revolutionary anarchist ideas to the end.

He was a warm and generous person, with a wide knowledge of politics, history and art, 
which he had acquired through his own reading. I was fortunate enough to have him as a 
close friend and comrade for thirty years. His death has come as both a loss to me 
personally, to the AF and anarchism.