My husband, Graham Trickey, a journalist and campaigner, who has died aged 73 of mesothelioma, was a quiet person who was often the motor behind, and sometimes the leader of, political and environmental campaigns.
He first became active in student politics in the 1960s at Newport College of Art, and later joined the Communist party. In 1976, Graham took a job with the CP daily newspaper the Morning Star, and he soon became chief subeditor; he was a skilled production journalist. But rifts within the party were deepening: the leadership and most members had opposed the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and turned towards “eurocommunism”; the Star, however, had become the centre of a faction hostile to democratic socialism. Graham’s determination in the ensuing events was well regarded. Along with other colleagues, he resigned from the newspaper in 1985.
Born in Raynes Park, London, Graham was the second son of Winifred (nee Hardy), a primary schoolteacher, and Tom Trickey, a businessman. He attended Mitcham grammar school for boys, the experience igniting an already-dissident spirit. Graham enrolled at Sutton School of Art and in 1968, Newport College of Art.
There, in 1969, Graham and his colleague Rich Coates organised a protest against the tour of the apartheid-era South African Springboks’ rugby team to the UK. Graham had previously campaigned for facilities for the college’s student union. Newport town council eventually decided to fund buildings and a full-time officer; and in 1971, Graham was elected to the post. The following year, he enrolled on a PGCE at Liverpool Polytechnic, where he was again elected as union president, serving two terms before he joined the Morning Star.
After leaving the Star, Graham became a freelance subeditor. He and I met in London in 1986 and in 1989 we had a son, Adam. Later we moved to Marple, Stockport, and in the 1990s, Graham took an editing job at the Manchester-based Graduate Prospects.
His passion for horticulture was evident in the glorious garden he designed on our often-sodden, north-facing plot. He was a devoted father, attending every football match Adam played, despite having little interest in the sport.
Upon retirement, Graham’s campaigning skills again blossomed. In 2012, he called the first meeting of an NHS campaigning group, Stockport NHS Watch, which particularly opposed cuts to hospital beds in the later-abandoned “Stockport Together” scheme.
Next, he launched the Goyt Valley SOS! campaign against a road cutting through rare green spaces in the Goyt Valley in Offerton, Stockport: Graham proved able to rally people with differing backgrounds and views. Along with organising numerous public meetings, he led colleagues in persistently opposing the A6-M60 “bypass”; eventually the plan was dropped. Another campaign concerning a warehousing proposal on greenbelt land in Stockport and Tameside, for which Graham had to learn about transport and planning law, was also successful – although, by then, he was ill.
Throughout these endeavours, Graham showed great independence and a wicked sense of humour. He remained immensely kind and dedicated to the end of his life, never seeking the limelight.
He is survived by me and Adam, and his brother, Alan.
