“Red” Ray Davies was a Caerphilly County (Wales) councillor
and tireless peace activist whose energy and passion for justice were unabated
to the end.
Ray was born during the depression in the Welsh mining
village of Llanbradach. His father George was blacklisted for his union
activities. Ray experienced hunger and disease during his childhood, including
TB and diphtheria. The fire in his belly was ignited by the loss of his mother,
who died in childbirth, for lack of a hospital bed or a blood transfusion.
He went to work as a boy miner in 1943, witnessed death at
first hand underground, and organised a strike of boy miners after he saw Bevin
boys recruited for the war effort receive hard helmets and boots while he had
to wear a soft cap and his uncle’s cast-off shoes.
Ray got his Labour party card in 1958, and although he was
often at loggerheads with the leadership, his loyalty to its founding socialist
principles never wavered. He won his first local election in 1965 and went on
to serve for more than 50 years.
Elsewhere, he threw his heart into campaigning for the
Palestinian right to self-determination. In Palestine in 2003 he was shot in
the head at Balata refugee camp after being caught in crossfire between the
Israeli army and Palestinians while escorting ambulances to hospital. At 79 he
was knocked unconscious by police during a march in London called to protest
against the bombing of Gaza – and received damages.
For more than 60 years he was opposed to nuclear weapons,
and in 1991 became vice chair of CND Cymru. He cut the fence at Aldermaston; he
broke into Faslane nuclear submarine base, and, aged 85, led the singing at
dawn at the blockade of Burghfield atomic weapons establishment in Berkshire.
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