News
Tribute to Roy Grantham CBE
We are sad to report the death of Roy Grantham
CBE, a former Chairman of the Alliance House Foundation who was closely
involved with the IAS since its inception.
Derek Rutherford
has provided the following tribute to Roy, which he gave when he was asked to
speak, as a friend, at his funeral:
The last occasion
that Marion and I had the privilege of conversing with Roy was on Friday 19
July when we spent an afternoon with him in the nursing home.
Roy and Marion
particularly reminisced about their days at Eastwood Grange, a Youth Conference
Centre in Derbyshire owned by the British National Temperance League. It had been purchased as a home for the
National Temperance Summer School.
Some 60 years ago
Roy knocked on the door of Eastwood Grange to ask if it were possible to have a
bed for the night – he had been walking in Derbyshire. Herbert Jones, one of the visionaries of the
Temperance Movement, invited him in and found him accommodation. Roy was to be greatly influenced by Herbert
Jones. The Centre was full of young
people attending one of the weeks of the Summer School. The warmth of the welcome, the happy
atmosphere of young people enjoying themselves without alcohol left a lasting
impression upon the 26 year old. Many
young people who came into contact with Herbert Jones had their lives changed
and Roy was no exception. Roy returned
to Eastwood Grange on many subsequent occasions and the once social drinker
became an abstainer. A keen and
dedicated Trade Unionist and Labour Party member, he was to espouse another
cause – temperance. Little did he realise
at the time that he was emulating some of the founders of the Labour Movement,
Keir Hardie, Arthur Henderson and the great Miners’ Union Leader, Thomas
Burt. The early Labour Movement was very
much influenced by the politics of temperance.
Roy has been absolutely loyal to all the causes he espoused.
My own connection
with Roy goes back 40 years when I left teaching in 1968. I was on a list of Labour candidates and
needed a new union to join. Marion
insisted that I contact Roy and join APEX, which I did. I thought no more about the outcome until
1973 when the treasurer of Altrincham & Sale Labour Party informed me that
I had received a donation from Roy’s Union towards my General Election expenses
in fighting the Conservative Chancellor, Tony Barber.
I had the
privilege to begin to share the friendship established between Roy and Marion
in 1983, when Roy accepted my invitation to join the Board of the United
Kingdom Temperance Alliance, now the Alliance House Foundation. He dedicated a great deal of his time to the
Alliance and during his 30 years’ membership he held the post of Vice Chairman
for five years and Chairman for twelve years. Over the years he has made an invaluable
contribution to its work.
As Chief Executive
of the Alliance, Roy was very supportive to me in my work. I feel this was due to his own experience of
being a General Secretary and he was aware of the vital relationship required between
a Chairman and Secretary. Roy brought to
our policy discussions gifts he had gained from his long experience in the
struggle for social reform and social justice.
In his annual address to the Alliance in 1992 he reminded us that our
efforts to reduce alcohol related harm had “the character of a marathon rather
than a sprint.”
I have recently
been asked if Roy was an idealist. My
reply was that he had both heart and head.
Roy was committed to his ideals but knew he had to be pragmatic to
achieve them. As we have seen from
several press obituaries he was a key figure in advocating reform within the Labour
Party. Likewise with the Temperance
Movement. He saw the need to modernise
and was a key supporter in establishing the Institute of Alcohol Studies. He
used his contacts as a member of the Independent Broadcasting Authority to
organise a seminar for the IAS at the IBA on the “Presentation of Alcohol in
the Mass Media” in 1985. At that time, television
drama and soaps were saturated with drinking scenes which ignored the harmful
consequences. Whilst the former complaint remains true at least we have, on occasions,
storylines of alcohol-related harm.
Aware of the
consequences of the harmonisation of excise duties in the EC and the impact it
would have on alcohol related harm in the UK, he led one of only two
deputations to DG 21, the Directorate for Excise Duties. In all this he saw the need for extending IAS
influence into Europe.
20 years ago he
greatly assisted me in establishing EUROCARE, an organisation of alcohol and
health agencies in Europe. He demonstrated
his international vision in his concern about the targeting of developing
countries by the global alcohol industry. As a consequence, he supported the
establishment of the Global Alcohol Policy Alliance in Syracuse, New York
State. Since its inception, GAPA has worked very closely with WHO. I did not have the chance to report to him of
the 900 delegates from 54 countries who attended the GAPA Conference in South
Korea a few weeks ago.
Marion and I
enjoyed a very close friendship with Roy. It did have one hair-raising moment
when Roy was staying with us one winter and he decided we should pay a visit to
mutual Eastwood friends Margaret Hall and Muriel Daniel. So we set off in his brand new car to
Sheffield. On driving home in freezing
temperatures and ice bound roads, the car skidded and we all ended up in a
ditch. Fortunately it was directly
opposite Bassetlaw Hospital. We were
able to walk up the driveway to the hospital and find shelter and drink plenty
of coffee until the AA arrived and extracted the car from the ditch.
What more can be
said? Time does not allow so let me sum
up.
Roy was a man of great
courage and tenacity, a man of integrity and honesty, who was not prepared to sacrifice
his principles for personal gain. He was
firm in his convictions. He gave unstinted
loyalty to his friends. He had great
strength of character.
I find it
significant that he was born in 1926 – a year that is indelibly etched in the
minds of trade unionists and those who, like myself, were born into trade union
families.
It is not
surprising, then, that he described our struggle as a “marathon not a sprint”. That belief no doubt sustained him in all he
strived to do.
As we gather to
celebrate his life, we can give thanks that we had the privilege of meeting Roy
in our lives and that he undoubtedly touched our hearts. Roy will continue to do so whilst we have
breath in us.