Eric Gordon at work at the old Camden Journal

• I GOT quite a shock when looking at the front page of the April 9 Islington Tribune, (Tributes to the editor who gave Islington a new campaigning voice).

My first thought was it can’t be true that Eric Gordon has died, for forward-thinking people give off an aura of eternal youth.

The old adage is that “the best can be done without”. But that is no longer true in the phoney radicalism of our times when real politics is needed, and was supplied by Eric.

I first met Eric back in 1954 when he was engaged in radical politics. We were part of group of young men and women who sought a change of society.

One of the most important things was to defeat fascism. Allowing it to regroup after the death camps of WWII was a disgrace.

This was done under the excuse that a democracy must still be able to see all sides of the argument, so fascist parades led by Sir Oswald Mosley had heavy police protection.

But during this time, in the early 1950s, a leftist demo, I was on, with the slogan; “No Arms for the Nazis” was attacked by mounted police waving heavy batons. A close friend of mine got three months in prison for trying to defend himself.

There were also a number of small fascist groups springing an even more extreme than Mosley. The whole cry of the media at the time was this was only a small minority, while warning the country of the communist threat.

I had come to London from a Northern Ireland which was ruled totally through the Unionist Party. It was Westminster-created pseudo-state with a paramilitary police force with armoured vehicles and guns in the street; and with repressive laws that white-Africa said they envied.

There was no constitutional means to reverse that situation, the Special Powers Act saw to that.

Coming to London I saw the fascist slogans on the walls. One said: “Ban Jap Goods” and another was for a united Europe, (a Hitler idea then) I saw their grey-painted, open-top, lorries crowded with chanting males, and I could scarcely believe it.

They held regular meeting in Trafalgar Square, that were policed, and also policed by heavy-set Mosley adherents. The whole idea by the media was to leave them alone and they would disappear.

Eric continued the fight through his fighting media. He at least lived long enough to see new laws brought in to control and punish such extreme right-wing groups and individuals.

Condolences to his wife and family.

WILSON JOHN HAIRE, N19