It is with great sadness that we inform readers
that our old comrade, Dave Quinnen, passed away due to cancer on Monday,
November 11, 2024. Our Party extends its deepest condolences to his family,
particularly his two daughters, and his friends and comrades in this country
and in Namibia.
Whilst living in Winson Green, Birmingham, Dave became an
activist for the Party during the Second International Sports and Cultural
Festival held in Coventry and subsequent regional events. Since joining the
Party in 1982, Dave quickly became a stalwart of the Party’s Birmingham
Branch.
A popular personality, Dave had many talents. A musician who played
piano and guitar, Dave performed songs, poetry, and organised local festival
events in Birmingham and Nottingham. He also performed solos at events such as
at the picket lines during the 1984/5 Miners’ strike, particularly at the
Daw mill mine mass picket in Birmingham, including songs written by himself.
Dave was also a technical expert in electronics, who worked
in radio and television repair and mastered the use of computers in the early
days of mass use, and became a shop steward in the Radio and Television branch
of the electricians’ union. He later ran a small business in Namibia.
In his earliest days with the Party, Dave joined the
region’s work of distributing the then printed Workers’
Weekly, building a network of links. He moved to Handsworth to take up the
work in the area of consolidating the basic organisation as well as that of the
Communist Youth Union. He supported the work in the car factories, writing for
and disseminating the Workers’ Unity bulletin.
Dave was in the forefront of the Birmingham Branch’s
anti-war activity, which he took on as his main responsibility. It was this
role in particular that saw him become a significant personality in the life of
the Birmingham Branch at that time. He exposed the transportation of nuclear
materials by train, tracing the chain from Namibia’s uranium mines to
power stations and reprocessing plants. He organised mass vigils, photoshoots,
and organised anti-war groups. Dave became well-known and the campaign was
acknowledged by trade unions as well as socialist and environmental groups such
as Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and the Green Party. He organised meetings
and rallied these organisations to educate the public on plutonium production
and reprocessing for nuclear warheads. The media could not ignore the issues.
Dave himself appeared on local news programmes including the BBC and ATV Today.
He gave lively interviews. Articles and reports in the Birmingham Evening
Mail and other newspapers frequently saw his face and highlighted his
reputation as a fighter for humanity. He formed the Campaign Against Nuclear
Transport at the headquarters of West Midlands CND, and was a key member of a
contingent who visited the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant on a learning
mission.
Alongside this, Dave participated in national anti-war
demonstrations, particularly against then US President Reagan’s visit, and
organised Birmingham contingents to Lakenheath during the bombing of Tripoli.
He also visited Greenham Common and the famous anti-war camp at Molesworth.
We remember Dave for his internationalism. He actively
participated in the Irish people’s struggle, visiting with the
Party’s Birmingham Branch multiple times. He accompanied Irish comrades in
the Easter demonstration in Dublin, participated in the historic meeting at
Trinity College with Comrade Hardial Bains, and visited the Irish camp in
County Wicklow. Further, he physically defended marchers from fascists in
Birmingham.
He took an active interest in Africa and married into
Namibian life and politics in the early nineties, living in Windhoek for 10
years, where he brought up two daughters. On return to Britain, his
internationalism saw him involved in various Palestinian support rallies and
continuing to send in investigative material for Workers’ Weekly,
and again attending Party events such as the forum on The Future of Society in
the region in 2017.
Farewell comrade. May you rest in peace and in power.
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