My father, John Alexander, who has died aged 91, was a history teacher who in retirement became active as a rambler and was known by friends in the Ramblers’ Association as “Access Alexander”. He was also a lifelong socialist.
He was born in Romford, Essex, third of six children of Henry, a print worker, and his wife, Winifred (nee Jones). John was brought up in south London and, with a scholarship, went to Sir Walter St John’s grammar school, Battersea. He worked briefly for the Sun Life insurance company, then in 1942 was conscripted into the Royal Signals, serving in Europe and India. He told the story of how during the Nazi retreat his unit tapped into German telephone lines and made contact with the enemy high command, who informed them that British troops would face a “sanitation problem” at Belsen.
In 1949, John went to Southampton University, graduating with a degree in history. There he met Ivy Hicks, a fellow socialist, and they married in 1951. John became a schoolteacher and worked first in London, then from 1958 in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, where he was president of the local branch of the National Union of Teachers. In 1970, having obtaining an MA in education at Southampton, he was appointed a senior lecturer in history at Portsmouth Polytechnic (now the University of Portsmouth).
Although he retired officially in 1979, John continued as a lecturer at King Alfred’s College, Winchester, for a further three years. In full retirement, he was active in the Ramblers’ Association, attending rallies and writing countless letters to ministers and MPs, and articles and letters in the local press, always well argued and coherent. At the association’s annual meeting in 1998, he proposed the establishment of the New Forest and South Downs national parks, a call that eventually succeeded.
John voted Labour in every election from 1945. After the failure of the “Benn for deputy” campaign in 1981, he became disillusioned, and in his last year he came to the conclusion that he was a Trotskyist. By then he was a member of the Dorset Socialists. To the end of his life, he continued to read history and engage with what was happening in the world. He had been encouraged by accounts of Jeremy Corbyn’s success.
John’s last Sunday at home was particularly happy: sun shining, garden lovely, good meal cooked and eaten, family all around. He wore a new T-shirt with a picture of Karl Marx and the quote: “From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.”
John is survived by Ivy, his three children, Clare, John and me, and three grandchildren.
