My friend Keith Toms, who has died aged 82, was a committed socialist and political activist. He was a Labour councillor in Harrow, north-west London, for 32 years and spent his life campaigning, protesting and helping others in need. He was also a consummate reciter from memory of beautiful classical poetry, an avid birdwatcher and a serial buyer of Lada cars.
Keith was born in what he described as the poorest part of the village of Cwmbran, south Wales, now a new town, to Amy (nee Honess), of Spanish-Gypsy heritage, who worked in a barbed wire factory during the first world war, and Albert Toms, a glass blower, coal miner and communist. Both his parents left school at 12 and valued education highly. Keith won a scholarship to Abersychan grammar school.
He trained as a teacher at Newland Park College in Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire, and met Nye Pitt, also a trainee teacher. They married in 1961 and lived in Stepney, east London. Keith taught history at Shoreditch comprehensive and then Queen’s school in Bushey, Hertfordshire. Later he studied at Reading and Brunel universities to be a school counsellor.
After his election in 1974, Keith devoted his time to being a Labour councillor in Harrow, involving himself in many campaigns to protect public services. One was a protest and occupation against the threatened closure of Northwood and Pinner district hospital in 1983. The campaign was successful and the hospital remained open for another 25 years.
He served as a councillor until 2006 (when he was made an honorary alderman in Harrow), including as deputy leader from 1998 to 2002. He received the freedom of the borough in 2020.
Keith took pride in growing a wide variety of fruit and vegetables, nourished by used bath water channelled through a specially built pipe into his back garden. He was particularly proud of his leeks, which he waved around whenever anyone popped into his kitchen.
He loved the ethnic, religious and cultural diversity of the borough and particularly enjoyed hosting citizenship ceremonies. In a video interview given in 2014, he said that in politics he was more of a combatant than a persuader and he wished things had been the other way round.
While he was uncompromising in his political beliefs he enjoyed cordial relationships with councillors from other political parties, all of whom had great affection for him.
He called me a few months ago to pass on two rare books about the Holocaust published in the years following the second world war. They had been entrusted to him by an old comrade and he wanted them to be deposited in an archive to ensure that the horrors of Hitler would be remembered by future generations.
He is survived by Nye, their three sons, Gareth, Daniel and Adam, and by a niece, Diane.
