Obituary: George Powe (1926 - 2013), by Jill Wesby, as published in The Guardian

[This obituary was written by my aunt Jill, about her husband George.  It was published in The Guardian on November 4, 2013.]

GEORGE POWE

Link to on-line version

George Powe moved to Nottingham in 1971 and was later elected as a Labour member to the county council

My husband George Powe, born in Kingston, Jamaica, volunteered to join the RAF in 1944, when he was only 17. Trained in radar, he was stationed mainly in Devon and Cornwall. George, who has died aged 87, went back to Jamaica in 1948 when he was demobbed, but returned to Britain within a few months and stayed for the rest of his life.

In the 40s he experienced widespread racial discrimination, initially in London, and fought against it, joining the Communist party, probably the most active group promoting the rights of disadvantaged and exploited people at that time. He later joined the Labour party, and in 1963 was elected as a Labour district councillor in Long Eaton, Derbyshire. He moved to Nottingham in 1971, and was later elected as a Labour member of Nottinghamshire county council.

For most of his working life George was an electrician; but in the 70s he retrained and became a maths teacher, taking early retirement in 1983. He divided his spare time between political campaigns and in helping people to be treated as they were entitled to be by the police, education system and in places of work. He played a leading role in setting up the Afro-Caribbean Centre (ACNA), Nottingham, opened in 1978 as a community centre and social club, and until a few years ago acted as its company secretary.

The Immigration Acts of the 1980s threw up many problems for those from ethnic minorities. George helped many hundreds of people, often when a relative was refused a visa to visit Britain. I cannot remember when any cases that went to appeal with his help were turned down. Having both Jamaican and British citizenship, he moved freely and successfully in both societies. He never forgot his roots. He was not religious, but had a strong morality.

I met him in 1962, through the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and we married in 1982. He is survived by me; by four children, Malcolm, Daphne, Desmond and Cynthia, from his first marriage, to Barbara Poole, which ended in divorce; and by seven grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. His daughter Susan, from an earlier relationship with Lilian Willis, died in 1982.