My mum, Julie Boston, who has died aged 88, was an educator, an agitator and an organiser.
Julie grew up on a farm in Edenbridge, Kent, with her parents, Janet (nee Vessey), a potter, and Frank Boston, an RAF pilot, dairy farmer and school cook, and her younger brothers Christopher and Richard. She went to Ashford school for girls and then Exeter University, in the early 1950s, where she studied English literature and became a campaigning socialist. There she met Will Fancy, a fellow socialist. They married in 1957 and settled in south-east London.
The life of a suburban housewife did not completely suit Julie, as she expressed in an article in Peace News entitled The Home As a Prison. But she made the family’s house and garden feel like an adventure playground, full of creativity. With other mothers, she set up nurseries and holiday play clubs. She was active in the Labour party but was expelled in the early 60s for standing up for unilateral nuclear disarmament, against the wishes of the party leadership.
Julie taught at Sherington and other primary schools in Greenwich and was active in the National Union of Teachers, contributing to the Rank and File teacher group and magazine. The house was a hive of union activity, hosting meetings in the living room, striking miners and even a family who had been evicted when their father was sacked by a local dairy.
In the early 80s she left home, though she did not divorce or formally separate from Will, and returned to being Julie Boston. She visited the Greenham women’s peace camp and supported Women Against Pit Closures, travelling the country singing songs and sharing poems.
Julie moved to Bristol in the late 80s and worked in nursery schools in the city. After her retirement, in 1994, she learned Spanish and travelled alone to Bolivia, Nicaragua, Cuba and Mexico, gaining inspiration from the countries’ social movements and public services.
Back home in Bristol she threw herself into the live poetry scene. Seeing the decline of the local railway branch line, Julie and Will – who had by then moved into the flat above hers – formed the Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways. She stood proudly on the recent RMT picket lines. She also campaigned for better public libraries, public toilets, buses and – being a lover of walking – public footpaths.
Will died in 2009. She is survived by her three children, Stuart, Rachel and me, 11 grandchildren, five great-grandchildren, and by her brother, Christopher.
