My father, Ernest Rodker, who has died aged 87, was a passionate and committed peace and justice campaigner, a skilled cabinetmaker and a loving father.
After working on the fittings for the Partisan Coffee House in London – the Soho venue set up as a meeting place for the “new left” – Ernest was one of the 100 people invited by Bertrand Russell in 1960 to form the anti-war civil disobedience group the Committee of 100. He later helped organise the Aldermaston marches of the 60s. In 1972 Ernest and others were convicted for blocking a bus taking the British Lions rugby team to Heathrow en route for apartheid South Africa; their convictions were quashed 50 years later, after the Undercover Policing Inquiry discovered that the case was compromised by the presence of an undercover policeman among the defendants.
Around 1990, Ernest joined the campaign to release from solitary confinement the Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu and became one of the main campaign organisers, staging vigils outside the Israeli embassy every Saturday.
Ernest was also active locally in south-west London, a constant presence when Wandsworth council were making cuts or approving inappropriate developments that did not benefit local people, for example, the redevelopment of Battersea power station. For many years he helped run Pavement, a community newspaper.
He was involved in many campaigns, from support of the coal miners during the strikes and the Stop the 70 Tour, to fighting the closure of local schools and hospitals.
Ernest was born in Odesa, Ukraine, where his mother, Joan Rodker, was part of a Russian theatre group. His German father, the actor Gerard Heinz (then known as Gerhard Hinze), was a member of the troupe and had been active in the anti-Nazi resistance in Germany. Joan travelled back to London by train with her baby son and soon after Heinz joined them he was arrested because of his nationality and sent to an internment camp in Canada.
Joan travelled to New York to try and secure Heinz’s freedom. When he was released he returned to England – their relationship did not last the war – and Joan and Ernest remained in New York, only returning to London when Ernest was nine. He attended Burgess Hill and St Christopher’s schools, in Hampstead. It was at Burgess Hill that he met Sonia Markham, his lifelong partner and my mother.
Ernest studied furniture design at Shoreditch College and then made furniture with Martin Francis, a colleague from the course, until 1967. Ernest went on to teach furniture design and worked as a cabinetmaker for over 50 years, producing kitchen and bedroom units, beds and cabinets, a chess table and a synagogue ark.
He loved travelling. In the 1950s he cycled and hitch-hiked around Europe and Morocco. He joined the Moscow Youth Festival in 1957 and in 1959 and 1960 volunteered with projects of the Italian social activist Danilo Dolci in Sicily. In 1964 he joined the archaeological dig at Masada in Israel. The Dordogne became a favourite family destination.
As a father he gave me and my brother rich experiences, with an emphasis on connection to nature, beautiful craftsmanship and the value of human imagination and endeavour. He adored his grandchildren.
Ernest was devastated by the death of Sonia in 2016 but his extraordinary spirit was never completely extinguished. He is survived by his sons, Oliver and me, and by two grandchildren, Isaac and Rosa.
