Alf Filer's killer jailed for drunk driving

Alf with  students defending  the Harrow Mosque from the EDL in 2009

 The man responsible for the death of Alf Filer,  local activist in Brent, member of Brent Fightback and a lecturer at Harrow College before he moved to Worthing, has been jailed for drunk driving. Alf is greatly missed and often crops up in our conversations. If he was still alive he would be in the forefront of the current battles against cuts and austerity.

Here is the item as carried by the BBC:

A drink-driver has been jailed for six years for killing a man who was standing by his broken down car in East Sussex.

Joseph Lavelle, 36, of Worthing, West Sussex was two-and-a-half times over the drink-drive limit when he hit Alf Filer, 58, on the A27 in Hangleton. 

He was jailed at Lewes Crown Court having admitted death by careless driving under the influence of alcohol.

The painter was also banned from driving for five years, police said. 

Mr Filer, also from Worthing, died at the scene on 23 June last year.

The political activist and former lecturer had only moved into the area from London in the past year.

Sgt Neil Walker, from Sussex Police, said: "This is another tragic example of the way in which drink-driving wrecks lives. This terrible incident has robbed a family and the community of a well-respected and much-loved man."

Celebrate the life of Alf Filer

There will be a celebration of Alf's life on Saturday at the 'Tin Tabernacle' in Kilburn. Alf was a great Brent comrade and I am sad that I am unable to go as I will be at the Green Party's Conference in Sheffield. As a college lecturer and someone committed to education and social justice Alf would have been really pleased with the ESOL news reported below.

The celebration promises to be a memorable event and full details are HERE

A tribute to Alf Filer - Brent activist

I am sorry to have to record that Alf Filer, a  Brent socialist activist, died last night in a car crash. Alf had recently taken early retirement from his job as an FE lecturer in Harrow and moved to Worthing. He apparently  died when a another car crashed into his broken down vehicle on the Brighton-Worthing road.

Alf, a member of Socialist Resistance was active in the Coalition of Resistance and a supporter of the Palestinian cause. He had a long history in Brent going back to the Grunwick strike and was a supporter of Brent Fightback until he moved to Worthing, where by all accounts he shook the place up!  On a personal level he had undertaken the challenging task of bringing up his two sons on his own.

Alf played a leading role in the defence of the Harrow Mosque when it was threatened by the English Defence League and Stop the Islamisation of Europe. He referred back to the Battle of Cable Street to emphasis the importance of mass community mobilisation against the extreme right.

Alf invited me as a Green Party representative  to a student hustings at his college at the General Election and I was able to see at first-hand the regard in which he was held by his students. Students were polled beforehand on their voting intentions and then afterwards when they had heard contributions from the candidates. This very practically demonstrated his conviction  that debate and education could change ideas and change minds.

Alf will be much missed and my thoughts are with his sons Leon and Lawrence at this difficult time.

LINK to Tony Greenstein's tribute

Save OUR College - Kilburn unites against closure

The community and the generations unite to save Kilburn Centre

A bustling Kilburn High Road, thick with Saturday traffic and shoppers, witnessed early resistance to the cuts when lecturers, students and their children, trades unionists, Brent Trades Council and local supporters marched to demonstrate against the closure of Kilburn Centre. The College of North West London is closing the £5.5m centre only three years after it opened in order to save money.  At the same time it has an unused building in Wembley Park worth £4m that it is refusing to sell off because it is waiting for the property market to recover.

Sarah Cox of Brent Trades Council, addressing the open air meeting in Kilburn Square rightly said that the CNWL should be educators, not property speculators. She emphasised the importance of the Centre as a local resource and the necessity for a building within easy walking distance for parents with young children.She remarked that the political parties had been vocal at the public meeting in support of the Centre during the General Election campaign but only the Green Party were present today.

Alf Filer of the UCU and Harrow College delivered a message of support and spoke about how the impact of cuts and recession had hit his own family. Hank Roberts of the NUT spoke about education cuts in general and called for direct action citing the occupation of Wembley Playing Fields in opposition to the building of the Wembley Academy. 

 

Not speaking, but evident from the posters - and very welcome, was the support of the Kilburn Times for the battle to save the Centre.

Standing in for Pete Murry, ex-CNWL  lecturer and Secretary of the Green Party Trade Union Group, who had a meeting elsewhere, I pledged the support of Brent Green Party for the campaign.  I said that Further Education was particularly important to me because as an '11+ failure' who had left school at 16, attending FE evening classes in my 20s had enabled me to get the qualifications to enter teacher training.

Further Education is a lifeline, a second chance, and has the capacity to change lives. That is why we must defend it. At the same time at the other end of the age spectrum Children's Centres, which are geared to improving life chances in the early years, are facing an uncertain future. Funding is only guaranteed for one year and with 20 Centres on stream, Brent may be faced with mothballing new buildings.

These buildings in our borough have been paid for by our taxes. They are OUR buildings and as such rather than letting them be mothballed and useless, we should take them over for community use. I could have added that with the policy on so-called 'free schools' we should be wary that they might be the target for private companies or charities to set up their own schools, funded by us, but outside any democratic accountability.

If we are to fight climate change and create a low carbon economy, we need to invest in education and training. It will be a scandal if the people of Brent, with its high unemployment rate, should miss out on such opportunities.

Sign the Campaign Petition HERE   Contact the campaign to offer help at cnwlkilburn@googlemail.com