My colleague Ken Fleet, who has died aged 87 from Covid-19, directed the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation for more than 50 years. He also became secretary of the Institute for Workers’ Control on its founding in 1968. As that eventful decade drew to a close, Ken brought his skills as a chartered accountant to the service of international peace and the Labour movement.
He was born in Chertsey, Surrey, the only child of Len, a coachbuilder, and his wife, Doreen (nee Tilson), and later moved with his parents to Buckinghamshire, and went to grammar school there. National service took him to Chilwell near Nottingham, where he eventually put down roots, marrying Mary Watson in 1959. He trained as an accountant and moved into industry, becoming senior accountant at the textile company Courtaulds.
In the mid-1960s, Ken enrolled in a class at the Nottingham Workers’ Educational Association taught by the activist and writer Ken Coates and a long and productive relationship between the two Kens began. As a young accountant, Ken had discovered the books of Bertrand Russell, so he was well disposed when Coates asked him to put the Russell Foundation, which had been set up in London in 1963, on a more secure footing in Nottingham. Ken took over as secretary in 1969, and also became a publisher as the foundation’s Spokesman Books imprint developed its list of publications on peace, nuclear disarmament, human rights and social justice.
In the early 1980s, Ken was instrumental in establishing the European Nuclear Disarmament campaign. The END appeal, drafted by EP Thompson, Coates and others, had a return address at Bertrand Russell House, and Ken struggled to cope with the huge mailbags arriving daily; it was at this time that I joined the foundation. Ken helped organise the annual END conventions which met throughout the 1980s.
Ken’s friendliness and comradeship sustained the Institute for Workers’ Control through its existence from 1968 to the early 1980s. He organised conferences, arranged workshops and lined up speakers.
He was particularly pleased that Ron Todd, general secretary of the Transport and General Workers’ Union, came to the IWC “What Went Wrong” conference at Nottingham in 1980 when, following Labour’s 1979 general election defeat, Tony Benn was preparing to challenge Denis Healey for the deputy leadership of the Labour party, which Michael Foot was by then leading. As a former marine, Ron also shared the Russell Foundation’s commitment to getting rid of nuclear weapons, and he and the TGWU sent big delegations to END conventions.
In 1989, Coates was elected to the European parliament and Ken became his parliamentary assistant, remaining in the role until Coates’s defeat in 1999, a year after his expulsion from the Labour party.
Ken continued as secretary of the Russell Foundation until his death. He was an everyman; like Russell, he had the common touch enlivened by a good sense of humour.
Mary died in 2017; he is survived by their three children, Kate, Jeremy and Robert, and a granddaughter, Hannah.
