Francis Colley (9 Jun 1925 - 12 Feb 2016)

Dad was born in Newcastle Upon Tyne on the 9th of June 1925 to parents Sarah Jane (nee Skinner) and Foster Colley. Dad and his younger brothers Foster, Bill, Bob and Bert (who passed away in 2004) had childhoods blighted by deep poverty and entrenched social inequality especially during the Great Depression of 1929 to 1939. This early background shaped dad’s life.

In 1939 at the start of the Second World War dad left school aged 14. He joined the Home Guard after lying about his age and was briefly recruited into the navy before volunteering to work down coal mines as a ‘Bevin Boy’ for the war effort. Like others of his generation dad joined the British Communist Party in the early 1940s with the aim of improving the life chances of working people, campaigning for social equality and to fight Hitler’s fascism. Dad was an excellent public speaker and at age 16 was addressing large political rallies around the Newcastle area. He met his wife Muriel through the Communist Party. Speaking about Muriel at her funeral in 1996 dad said “I was seventeen when I met her. I would have walked barefoot over broken glass just to gain her friendship. She was an active rebel against the existence of a grossly inhumane society and the economic, political and social institutions which presided over it.”

Dad left the coal mines after the Second World War to work in a laboratory at the ‘bone yard’. This was a glue making plant operated by British Glues and Chemicals located near the River Tyne. Animal carcasses were rendered down to extract bones to make glue which created a highly noxious smell that wafted across the whole area which was known locally as “Lavender Bank”. My parents spent part of their early married life living in a flat near the bone yard where they sometimes hosted members of Joan Littlewood’s ‘Theatre Workshop’ group which dad joined for a while as an actor. They moved house several times and eventually bought their first home in Longbenton in Newcastle where their children Sarah and Robert were born and grew up.

Dad studied at night schools at Rutherford College, Newcastle on Tyne and achieved a National Certificate in Chemistry (1949) and First Class grades for Advanced Fuel Technology – Gaseous and Solid Fuels (1958 & 1959). He worked in the scientific department of the National Coal Board before changing role into technical training and sales training and gained promotions. He also gained additional professional qualifications in fuel technology and in sales training and marketing in the 1960s.

During the 1960s dad and mam owned an open-topped Sunbeam Alpine sports car and organized frequent family trips to the local beaches at Whitley Bay and further afield in Northumberland.

After resigning from the Communist Party dad remained active in the Trade Union Movement and as a union official made trips to the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia in protest at the 1969 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. Frank and Muriel remained interested in eastern block countries and organized family camping holidays to Yugoslavia, Romania, Czechoslovakia and Russia driving thousands of miles with children and masses of camping gear squashed into various small and ill-suited family cars which invariably broke down in remote places with no spare parts

In the 1960s dad and the family relocated from Newcastle to London when dad took up a new job at National Coal Board Head Office at Hobart House in Victoria. He eventually became head of sales training in the marketing department. Our family lived first at Kew and dad and mam then bought themselves a large house on Richmond Hill near Richmond Park – my mother also worked full time and was by then Head Teacher of a special-needs school in Ealing West London.

When Margaret Thatcher forced the closure of the National Coal Board in the 1980s dad took early retirement on a generous pension and he and my mother migrated to Noosa in Queensland, Australia to live nearer dad’s brothers Bert and Bill who had migrated to Australia several years previously. Bert built them two houses in the area including one located near a stunning rolling surf beach at Sunshine Beach. While dad always enjoyed visiting Australia and seeing family members he was not really a ‘surf beach’ kind of guy. My parents returned to live in the UK after a couple of years and moved to West Ealing and then Teddington.

After my mother’s death in 1996 my dad eventually moved to Rugby to live nearer his son Robert who by then was working at Rugby School. Dad settled into Rugby and made new contacts and friends in the later stages of his life.

He was active, independent and still living in his own home until his sudden death aged 90 after a short illness on 12th February 2016.

Sarah Colley March 2016.