I wasn't at the rally when he was killed. Blair was a down to earth bloke who liked nowt more than to go for a pint or three after an East London Teachers' Association union meeting, not necessarily to talk politics. He taught in a special school and his kids loved him to bits. He had no big ego and had a lovely sense of humour. He wasn't a big bloke, slightly built and he had a bad stammer which would occasionally leave him momentarily when he was particularly impassioned (often when railing against racism, a matter on which he was well ahead of his time). He was absolutely unswerving in his socialism. As the wiki article says, he was a member of the SWP, but he never proselytised about it. I've never heard of the "Socialist Teachers' Association" which wiki mentions, but there was a Socialist Teachers Alliance (STA) which he was, most decidedly, NOT a member of. The left-wing NUT group we were aligned with was Teachers' Rank And File. We were allies on the committee of ELTA and were delegates to the Inner London Teachers' Association, ILTA, basically the London NUT. I was active in the East London branch alongside Blair from 1974 until his death in 1979. I left shortly after that. We all knew straight away what had happened to him at the hands of the police, and nothing can diminish the feeling of anger at the lies, the cover-ups, the closing of ranks and the demonisation of the anti-fascist left that went on for decades.

I have only good memories, Dave. Except for that terrible wallpaper in his flat that appears in some of the somewhat unflattering photos of him that we have. I have to assume that he inherited it and probably never even noticed it!