David Finch obituary

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/mar/19/david-finch-obituary

Version 0 of 1.

If you asked David Finch when he was born, he would say "three years after the Russian revolution". Not 1920. Such was his lifelong commitment to revolutionary socialism.

Born in Stoke Newington, north London, David was one of six children of Jewish immigrants from Poland and Ukraine who worked in fur factories though often could not find employment. He studied his way out of the family's poverty to get a chemistry degree from University College London.

Having renounced religion at the age of 12, he became a fervent Trotskyist, and in 1944 helped found the Revolutionary Communist party. After the war, he was among those led by Gerry Healy who left the RCP to pursue "entryism" within the Labour party, organised around their journal Socialist Outlook. David became a Labour councillor in Lambeth, south London, and chairman of the constituency party in Norwood.

But in 1954 Labour's national executive proscribed Socialist Outlook, and expelled David and two Norwood colleagues (including the young Ted Knight) for advocating "principles … opposed to those of the Labour party". He stuck with Healy for two decades, in the Socialist Labour League and its successor, the Workers Revolutionary party, though eventually they fell out.

During the second world war, he had been in a reserved occupation, as a scientist with Philips. But subsequently, under the policy of "proletarianism", whereby Healy's followers took working-class jobs, he briefly became a miner in Staffordshire (until injured by a roof fall), then later, a shop-floor electrician. As secretary of the Brixton branch of the Electrical Trades' Union, he fell victim first to the ETU's communist leadership, then to the rightwing Frank Chapple, who banned him for life.

In the 1960s David pursued a new career, teaching science at John Newnham school in Croydon, where his activity in the teachers' union, the NUT, led council staff to joke about the "People's Republic of John Newnham". He was an NUT activist for more than 40 years, operating through the Socialist Teachers Alliance, a constant nuisance to NUT leaders on issues including pay, pensions and union investments. He worked as a tutor until two years ago, often teaching "difficult", excluded pupils.

David was a kind and humorous man, and an inspirational teacher, but his family often suffered from the incessant politics. His first marriage, to Dorothy, ended in divorce. His second wife, Betty, died in 1984. He then spent 23 years with my late mother, Pat, who shared his NUT work, but also encouraged a more rounded lifestyle as they explored literature, music and art together.

He is survived by a daughter, Sue, from his first marriage; a stepson, Andy; and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.