The Deputy Leader was Gordon Brown who supported the decision of Party Leader and Leader of the Official Opposition Hugh Gaitskell in 1961. At their instigation Patrick Walker provided MI5 with a handwritten list of 16 names on House of Commons notepaper.
I was reminded of their action when writing about the reasons why special branch and MI5 kept not only me but those who visited my home in Wallington 1959 and 1962 in the context of writing about the significance of the Challenor Police Scandal, the Portland, Vassal and Profumo spy scandals in relation to the unsolved murder of my friend Ann Haldane in 1963 who had worked at the Admiralty for five years since leaving the Hackbridge Secondary Modern School aged sixteen years. The unsolved murder should be regarded as one of the worst failures to arrest and successful prosecute a killer in British policing history. Twenty people were close by, when the killer struck, providing detailed descriptions and some seventy people were estimated to be surrounding her body when two street patrolling constables arrived at the murder scene minutes later.
Possible reason why the murder has remained unsolved forms the first four sections of Coincidence, Connections and Contradictions.
One of those who visited the home of the three aunties with whom I lived at Maldon Court in Bute Road was the daughter of the Member of Parliament for Morpeth, 1954-1970, Will Owen who was acquitted of selling low level information to a Soviet State. Christopher Andrew in the authorised history of MI5 discloses the information on page 413 of the 1000 page history. Her states "Though Owen was acquitted, he was almost certainly, guilty as charged." Andrew explains that it was not until Josef Frolik was questioned by the United States intelligence service in 1969 during the Wilson Government, that information was provided that John Stonehouse and Will Owen had both been recruited by Czech intelligence Pages 541-543.
Will stayed on at his London home in 1970 and became leader of the Labour members on the London Borough of Sutton when as Vice President of the Association of Child Care Officers, I had chaired a committee which recommended the blacklisting of the Borough because it had amalgamated its Children Department services under the control of the Health Committee and Medical Officers Health in an attempt to stop the removal of local democratic control of health services, something which I shared, but not at the expense of diminishing the professional social work standards being reached in the provision of statutory Child Care.
Future Prime Minister, Jim Callaghan and a future leader of the Social Democrats Roy Jenkins had advised of the need to take action if the Wilson government was to be able to get through Parliament Social Services Legislation as had already happened in Scotland with the Social Work Scotland act. I had been introduced to the two Labour Home Secretaries when arranging a drinks party at Parliament to celebrate the passage of 1969 Children's and Young Persons Act when it was evident they had been briefed about my background working for the Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War, helping to organise the Whitsun 1961 civil disobedience demonstrations at Holy Loch, and a member of the Committee 100. It is not known if they were aware of my meeting at Scotland Yard with George Clark before the Aldermaston march where we were introduced to representatives from the Home Office and Admiralty, but not others who I assumed at the time were from the US Embassy/CIA. In accordance with the principles of Satyagraha I had been open about our plans and intentions as I was subsequently with senior polices and local authority officials on both sides of the Clyde, agreeing to making a formal statement which merit a letter of warning from the Commander of the Flagship, Scotland. The response of the authorities was remarkably varied. Those at Dumbarton on the North bank refused to talk. The Police at Clydebank asked how many officers we wanted to assist in our march and also said the traffic would be stopped when I said we would follow the usual rule keep to one side of the roadway and allowing for breaks in the march to allow traffic to cross route roads. The politicians at Greenock and Gourock arranged for the Clerk, Treasurer and chief Education officer to meet and offer what help was needed in terms of overnight accommodation, food and safe passage.
I was subsequently invited to a meeting of the Labour Party group of Sutton Council to talk about social services after I had been appointed Director of Social Services at South Tyneside. Sadly the Party only came close to power and with the rise of the Liberal Democrats there have been no Labour Councillors since 2006.
A coincidence is that in 1969, the Attorney General,. Sir Elwyn Jones, a future Lord Chancellor, authorised a search warrant and police interrogation of Will Owen who admitted receiving untaxed money but not to disclosing classified information. I had met his daughter twice during the communist led youth Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament marches between Liverpool and Hull Christmas to New Year 1959 1960 and I960 1961. We met again on a hillside overlooking Holy Loch on Whit Monday when I was checking to see that those who remained camping out overnight were able to return to their homes. I invited her attend a meeting of the Wallington Youth CND which she did.
There would also have been interest when the group accepted the invitation of two of the sons of Ritchie Calder, Angus wrote the People's War, to meet at their home in Cheam. Ritchie Calder was President of the National Peace Council and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Ian Dixon, a member of the Director Action Committee and of the Committee 100, a former journalist for Peace News, also came to speak at a meeting.
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