I SHALL be going to Kensal Green Cemetery tomorrow for the funeral of a outstanding comrade, polymath, historian and friend. 

Eddie Adams was a lifelong communist in North Kensington, where he achieved many things for the people who lived alongside him in his beloved part of our capital city.

The Morning Star letters page has carried a good few tributes to Eddie from various people who were involved in the many diverse facets of this remarkable man’s life.

Let me tell you a little personal story that illustrates just how wide Eddie’s interests were.  

Some decades ago my wife Ann and I had made several visits to Kensal Green Cemetery. We were looking for the grave and memorial to England’s greatest engineer — Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and his son, another fine engineer, Marc. We could never find the tomb in the huge and overgrown cemetery.

Finally we booked a guided walk led by one of the history volunteers at Kensal Green. To our amazement when we arrived the volunteer was none other than our old mate and fellow communist, Eddie.

He led a wonderful educational and entertaining couple of hours’ walk around the cemetery. He showed us the graves of music hall entertainers — Kensal Green being the nearest burial ground to London’s West End. 

He also showed the large and impressive black marble tombs of some of London’s biggest gangster families. He explained that they looked so good because they had a weekly polish by a number of cleaners.

He showed some political graves too. One of his favourites was Feargus Edward O’Connor, the Irish-born Chartist leader, who had fought for electoral rights and established the Chartist Land Company that built houses for working people to own.  

The cemetery tour also visited the graves of many stars of the Edwardian London music hall as well as more recent actors, musicians and artists.

Eddie did solve the mystery of the Brunel memorial. He took us to the very back of the cemetery. There, almost hidden by a huge compost heap of floral tributes removed from graves all over the cemetery, was the Brunel family memorial. I was horrified by the placing of the tomb in this hidden back corner but Eddie explained.

Brunel had specifically chosen that plot because just beyond the grave was a cutting and, as if on cue, we heard the main line express out of Paddington Station pulling up the incline — Brunel Snr wanted to hear the trains of his beloved Great Western Railway forever.

Eddie completed his tour with a reading of GK Chesterton’s famous poem, The Rolling English Road. 

These are the last two lines: 

For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen,
Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green.

Later Eddie would write a book describing the cemetery and telling some of those fascinating stories he had learned over the years. It was just one of many local history books that Eddie penned.
 
I knew Eddie and worked with him on many political campaigns for over 60 years. My wife Ann who will speak at the funeral about Eddie’s work, including as full-time London organiser of the Young Communist League (YCL), knew Eddie before she met me. Eddie signed Ann up for YCL membership when she was just 15.
 
Eddie came from a Roman Catholic family and went to a Catholic school. By the time he left aged 15, a communist teacher at the school had sown the seeds of both social responsibility, left-wing politics and learning from local history.

After school Eddie tried various jobs, including on building sites and in the docks. Eventually he followed in his father’s footsteps, becoming a skilled electrician.

By the time Eddie left school in 1951, by his own account, he was a “bit of a roughneck” in his teenage years, being a member of the Moorhouse Boys gang of Teddy Boys.

The local Communist Party campaigned hard to undermine racism and held poster parades around the area, the theme being “There is only one race — the human race.” 

This activity convinced Eddie to become a long-term member of the Communist Party and he was the communist candidate in the 1981 Greater London Council elections for the Kensington area. 

In late August and early September of 1958, Eddie witnessed in North Kensington some of the worst racial violence this country had ever known  — the so-called Notting Hill race riots. 

Over 100 people were arrested and numerous people injured in nights of violence. 

West Indians who arrived in Britain on the Empire Windrush in 1949 have been much in the news lately, but less well known are the violently racist young white “Teddy Boys” who were whipped up by post-war fascists like Oswald Mosley and the rump of his Nazi-supporting blackshirt movement.

Eddie was a bit of a “Ted” himself. However he soon realised the racists needed to be opposed. 

“I remember when black people first moved to the area. There was a mixed reaction,” he recalled. 

“The group that I belonged to were quite progressive but there were others who were very anti-black people. 

“White gangs were attacking black people going around the area and picking on houses where black people lived.” 

The streets of North Kensington at night were alive with Teds out looking for black people to attack. The first night left five black men lying unconscious in the street.

Predictably the police played down the racial tensions behind the violence, putting it down to simple “hooliganism.”

Of the 108 people arrested and charged with offences relating to the riots, 72 were white and 36 were “coloured.”

It wasn’t until the blatant murder of a black man the following year that the area and all of Britain would be brought to a standstill. 

Kelso Cochrane was murdered on Southam Street in 1959, in what police chose only to call a “scuffle.” Eddie threw himself into the campaign to find the killer.

At that time Eddie worked with other local communists like the legendary Claudia Jones to found the Notting Hill Carnival. The carnival is still bringing the many ethnic communities together, as well being one of Britain’s biggest tourist attractions.

At every carnival Eddie and his late wife June would move their chairs to the end of their street and watch the colourful parade.   

The obscene and criminal behaviour of slum landlords like Peter Rachman in North Kensington encouraged Eddie and others to establish a housing centre, offering advice to abused tenants. 

The centre did much useful work. Much of its work was offering legal advice and it is no surprise that this centre led to the establishment of a law centre that is still doing amazing work. 

Eddie gave long-time service to these establishments alongside his other political efforts and historical research and writing.   

When the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) ceased to exist, Eddie joined the Alliance for Green Socialism and was its candidate in the 2005 elections in Kensington and Chelsea.

I’ll finish this tribute with perhaps Eddie’s bravest political actions. On two occasions he travelled to apartheid South Africa to work undercover alongside the African Nation Congress (ANC).  

Eddie was one of the London Recruits, volunteers who worked alongside the ANC and the South African Communist Party. 

They were recruited through the British Young Communist League and Eddie travelled into apartheid South Africa in November 1969. 

Acting under the orders of an old comrade, Ronnie Kasrils, he set off a number of (non-lethal) leaflet bombs and a street loudspeaker broadcast in Cape Town. 

In August 1970, he did the same thing again, this time in Johannesburg. London Recruits were doing this in five cities simultaneously. 

It made headlines in the South African media, demonstrating that the ANC had not been defeated by the Rivonia trial. Eddie and those other heroes’ actions demonstrated that the ANC was alive and fighting back. 

Dr Snuki Zikalala, president of the ANC Veterans League, sent a message of condolences to Eddie’s family: “The leaflet bombs, which were activated by unforgettable comrades such as Eddie Adams, reignited the spirit of mass resistance against the atrocious system of apartheid. 

“Our people owe a great deal to internationalists such as comrade Adams and their courageous solidarity in action, which played a significant role in assisting our people in overthrowing the brutal apartheid regime. 

“We lower our banner of freedom in salutation to this gallant fighter and comrade for whom we remain forever grateful. May his life inspire us!” 

I think all those, like me, who mark Eddie Adams’s death tomorrow at Kensal Green, all around Britain and the world, will all say a hearty amen to that.

These are my rambling memories of a truly impressive comrade. For those seeking a more formal obituary I understand the Guardian plans one in the near future.