TRIBUTES TO ELLEN LUBY - A socialist fighter

Published: 22 July, 2010

• I AND my family are so very sad indeed at the passing of Ellen Luby… we knew her for over 45 years in the rough and tumble of politics in the old St Pancras Borough and then Camden.

She was a very determined and caring socialist fighter right to the end of her long life.

She fought hard and long for tenants’ rights; she fought against the pomposity of local politics and she was frank and honest about what we need to do to vastly improve the world and people’s lives and she hated any negativity she saw in local government and policy makers.

I knew her from the St Pancras Rent Strike when she fought hard and strenuously alongside Don Cook and Arthur Rowe and all the thousands of tenants in St Pancras fighting the then Tory differential rent scheme; I knew and worked with her as a young Labour councillor for the old St John’s ward  when she was secretary of the Kennistoun House TRA; and over the years worked and helped her in her many campaigns.

She was determined for all to be right; one night she appeared at my flat covered in blood having been beaten by two youths on the Regent’s Park estate when she remonstrated with them for causing damage; and none of us will forget the disgraceful sight of her being dragged from the council chamber by two burly policemen at one meeting.

There are so few left of those who fought for better conditions for tenants and indeed all people in Camden.

There are so few left with the socialist principles Ellen had all her life; there is a saying that when you go, take your shadow with you.

Ellen’s shadow of fighting for a better society will always remain in my mind and heart and what we can do is to continue Ellen’s fight for equality and decent housing and people’s rights for the rest of our lives.

She never stopped caring. There are so few left with her values and fight. Rest in peace, comrade Ellen.

CLLR ROGER ROBINSON
Labour, St Pancras and Somers Town ward