My friend Mick Gosling, who has died aged 68 of cancer, was a lifelong socialist and trade unionist.
Born in Plymouth, the son of Cesarina (nee Mariani) and Ernest Gosling, a toolmaker, he joined the Labour party’s Young Socialists in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, at the age of 14. After leaving Alleyne’s grammar school in the town, he went to Kent University, joined the International Marxist Group and immersed himself in political campaigns around Vietnam, apartheid, Chile and Ireland.
He was a staunch supporter of the miners’ strike of 1972, up at the crack of dawn to join the picket line at Betteshanger Colliery in east Kent. He also organised a student sit-in to support campus catering workers striking against job cuts.
Gifted academically, despite constant activism and a year off from study he achieved a first-class degree in politics, sociology and government. After university, he honed his journalistic skills through working on the newspaper Socialist Challenge, covering issues such as the Common Market and the Grunwick strike.
He was a talented organiser, and in 1977 worked with Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Grant to build the massive anti-racist demonstration against the National Front in Wood Green, north London.
In 1978 Mick stood as a Socialist unity candidate in Islington council elections and later went to work at the Ford car factory in Dagenham, Essex. He was an active union member, shop steward and finally chair of the TGWU Ford paint, trim & assembly branch, 1/1107, one of the largest TGWU branches in Britain. He was sacked in 1989.
He was an organiser for the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom (1989-91) and chief press officer (1991-97) for Hackney council, whose Hackney Today magazine he set up. Again, he lost his job, going on to work at Southwark council from 1999.
More recently he played a key role in re-forming Hackney Trades Council, where he was treasurer, and in both Hackney’s Stand Up to Racism & Fascism and its People’s Assembly, as well as the Labour party.
Mick had a wide variety of interests – history, literature and football (he was an ardent Spurs fan), which he could and often did talk about at length. He was widely admired for his enthusiasm, sense of humour and eloquence, his sharp intelligence and encouragement of others, and his passionate support of left unity against all sectarianism.
He is survived by his wife and fellow activist, Kathryn Johnson, whom he married in 2004, and his two children from a previous relationship.
• This article was updated on 4 June 2021 to amend some personal information.
26 September 1952 – 7 April 2021
