From the Eastern Daily Press, Tuesday, April 10, 2001
Man who fought for the underdog
Veteran Communist Wilf Page, a
lifelong campaigner for underdogs
ranging from farmworkers to
pensioners, has died aged 88 at
Cromer.
His commitment to trade unionism
won him a string of accolades and
admirers throughout a life which saw
him always relishing a challenge -
even when dogged by ill health in
later years.
Four years ago, on being presented
with an electric wheelchair by a local
farmworkers' union group, Mr Page
said: "I'll never give up campaigning."
That campaigning began when he was
inspired to join the Communist Party
while in the RAF, which the Catton-
bom man joined in 1932 as a pioneer
of aerial photography when it
switched from glass plate to film.
To Mr Page, Communism was "never
the big Russian bear, but the
community owning the wealth of the
community".
He joined the Labour Party in 1945
and became agent to farmworkers'
leader and North Norfolk MP Edwin
Gooch.
But the party did not meet his ideals
and he switched back to Communism,
even being reflected as a member of
the local rural district council on a
Communist ticket in 1946. He stood
down in 1974.
Mr Page was elected to the executive
of the National Union of Agricultural
Workers in 1969 and later the
Transport and General Workers'
Union, which swallowed it up.
A heart attack in 1980 halted Mr
Page's presidency of the European
Federation of Agricultural Workers.
To a lesser man it would have ended
all campaigning, but not Mr Page,
who soon became "totally fed up"
sitting at home and decided to "do
something for the pensioners".
In 1989 he got 10 people together in
Norwich for a campaigning
committee to improve pensions - a
movement which exploded into a
regional pensioners' association with
tens of thousands of members.
Mr Page chaired the county
association and was made national
vice-president at its first national
conference before retiring again from
the fray in 1995.
For much of his campaigning Mr Page
was helped by his late wife Christina,
a former leading member of the
shopworkers' union - with the couple
becoming a formidable, notable and
popular trade union partnership.
The couple lived at Overstrand for
many years, but for the past five years
widower Mr Page was a resident at
Halsey House, the Royal British
Legion home at Cromer.
Long-time friend Mike Ward paid
tribute to Mr Page as "a champion of
the ordinary man".
Mr Ward, secretary of the Trunch
TGWU branch where Mr Page was
chairman at the time of his death,
said: "He was a big man by stature
and big in his presence at any
meeting. He was a leader without
being bombastic, and would always
listen to and respect other views.
In return, he was respected by many
people regardless of their political
backgrounds."
© Eastern Counties Newspapers Transcribed by E.C.Apling, April 2001.
Wilf Page: Memorial tribute [EDP, 5th May, 2001]
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