Public Memorial Meeting

In Memoriam

Tom Graham

1918-2004

Tom Graham

With deep sadness RCPB(ML) announces the death at age 85 on September 18 of Thomas Graham, one of its stalwarts, known to many by his pen name John Maharg. Our Party extends its heartfelt condolences to his family, his friends and his comrades both at home and throughout the world.

Tom was born to working class parents of Irish extraction in Scotland’s capital Edinburgh on October 4, 1918. From his teenage years when he volunteered for the Spanish Civil War only to be arrested and deported by the French authorities in Paris, to his last days of extreme frustration at his incapacity to carry out political and cultural work, Tom was an activist and fighter for the working class, for the freedom and independence of nations, for the cause of the world’s people. He never lost his conviction that another world was possible from that in which he had grown up and he never gave up the struggle for a new society. He was a loyal member of the Party and its predecessors from 1970 until the day of his passing. For many years he managed the Party’s bookshop in Wandsworth Road in South London and became a much-loved and respected local personality.

A self-taught writer, poet and playwright, as well as a singer of some distinction, under the name of John Maharg he wrote tirelessly, notably producing the massive epic poem Don Juan of Pimlico, published on his 80th birthday, and his two plays Tiocfhaidh Ár Lá (Our Day Will Come) and Ann Devlin in support of the Irish struggle for freedom from colonial rule and annexation, as well as his anti-war poems. He worked with the Progressive Cultural Association, including the joint work with the Canadian Cultural Workers Committee. He last read his poetry in public at the Not In Our Name concert in London in September 2002.

A man of great vigour and warmth and sharp-witted good humour, a man of unwavering integrity and conviction in the cause of socialism and communism, his was a mischief which will be sorely missed. Tom Graham, John Maharg, represented the very essence of living by one’s own decision and inspired everyone who had the good fortune to know him.

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Public Memorial Meeting

for Thomas Graham, otherwise John Maharg

Marx House, 37a Clerkenwell Green, London EC1R 0DU

Saturday, October 9, 2004 – 6.00 pm

Organised by RCPB(ML)

All Welcome

Funeral Ceremony

West Norwood Crematorium, 3.00pm, September 30