Billy Strachan

In January 2020 the Marx Memorial Library in London held an event to piece together the life of Billy Strachan, with the event attended by historical researchers and members of the Strachan family.

Billy Strachan died on the 26 April 1998, after a battle with a motor neuron disease.

Strachan was a close friend of both Cheddi Jagan, the first chief minister of Guyana and the first person of Indian descent to become leader of a country outside of Asia, and Guyana's president Janet Jagan. During one trip to Guyana in 1996, Billy Strachan began to feel ill and it was soon discovered that he was suffering from a motor neuron disease. He was cared for by his wife during his final years alive.

Despite suffering terrible pain from an injury he sustained after being shot in the hip by a German during WWII, Strachan greatly enjoyed horse riding. Strachan became a key figure in the creation of the Riding for the Disabled Association, a British charity that provides horse riding lessons to disabled people. Strachan strategically allowed the British princess Anne, the daughter of British Queen Elizabeth, to serve as the charity's president, while he himself served as the charity's vice-president. During the 1970s Billy Strachan and his wife Joyce got divorced. During the 1980s while horse riding, Strachan met a woman called Mary Collins, whom he married in 1983, becoming his second and final wife.

After returning to Britain from his tour of the British West Indies, Strachan began to self-study law while also raising his young family. He intensely studied law using books he borrowed from the library, and in 1959 he was called to the bar. He earned his Bachelor of Law degree in 1967 and eventually rose to become the first clerk of courts and then chief clerk of court at Clerkenwell. Due to the political persecution of communists in Britain he could no longer continue to be an open communist, so it was decided by the CPGB leadership that he should no longer hold a party card but could still support the party in other ways. In 1971 Strachan was elected president of the Inner London Justices Clerks Society. Strachan led a highly successful legal career, and became the author of many defining legal guides on a variety of subjects including adoption and drink driving.

In 1948 Billy Strachan helped to found the London branch of the Caribbean Labour Congress, an organisation dedicated to promoting workers rights and universal suffrage in the Caribbean. Strachan served as the secretary of the London branch from its founding in 1948 to 1956. Come the start of the Cold War, reactionary Caribbean leaders began persecuting their communist allies and ordered the London branch to dissolve. Strachan and the other members of the London branch refused this order to disband, and instead in 1952 began to publish a socialist and Anti-imperialist newspaper called Caribbean News which was published between 1952 and 1956. Fellow Caribbean communist Ranji Chandisingh helped Strachan run Caribbean News and served as the paper's editor. Billy Strachan's biographer, David Horsley, described Caribbean News as "the first Black British monthly newspaper dedicated to the ideals of Caribbean independence, socialism, and solidarity with colonial and oppressed people throughout the world."

Returning to Britain in 1947, Billy Strachan joined the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) and quickly became an active member, holding weekly street meetings and selling the Daily Worker. Strachan would from then on support the communist movement for the rest of his life, and was also an avid supporter of both the Soviet Union and the Chinese Communist Party. As more West Indians arrived in Britain, the more radical elements of the black community also joined the CPGB, with many of them seeing Strachan as their leader. His communist activism as a CPGB member put him into contact with many influential British communists and socialists including Kay Beauchamp, Palme Dutt, and Cheddi Jagan. Strachan also lived temporarily with another Afro-Caribbean communist leader living in Britain called Trevor Carter, the cousin of famous Black-British civil rights activist Claudia Jones who founded Britain's first major black newspaper. Culturally he also came into contact with the works of communist musicians including Alan Bush, A. L. Lloyd, Ewan MacColl, and the dramas of Bertolt Brecht. Strachan also became an important member of the CPGB's International Committee, and their West Indian Committee.

Sometime during the war, Strachan married a woman called Joyce Smith. By the end of WWII, Billy Strachan was a married man and a father of 3 children. The Strachan family briefly moved to Jamaica in 1946, and he resumed the civil service job he held before WWII. Racism would continue to plague Stratchan's civilian career, as he was denied promotions in the civil service based on his race. While in Jamaica he met British communist Dr David Lewis, who introduced Strachan to Marxism, leading to Strachan becoming a life-long communist. Dr David Lewis admired Strachan's leadership skills and invited back to Britain to help create the London branch of the Caribbean Labour Congress, an organisation dedicated to promoting workers rights and universal suffrage in the Caribbean.

Aged 18, he was sent to an RAF base in Blackpool for military training. Strachan was trained as aircrew and first flew in 1941. He first became a radio operator, then he became a gunner, flying a tour of operations in RAF Bomber Command as an air gunner on Vickers Wellingtons with 156 Squadron. After completing his first tour of 30 operations, he remustered and retrained as a pilot, flying solo after only 7 hours of training. He flew 15 operations as a pilot with 576 Squadron flying Avro Lancasters from RAF Fiskerton in Lincolnshire. He felt unwell on his last operation on 14 April 1945, jettisoning his bombs over the North Sea and returning to base. He later explained that he had almost flown in to Lincoln Cathedral. He was prone to "joyriding" and attempting dangerous tricks which his instructors did not approve of. He survived a serious airplane crash which left him with life-long hip injuries, which were not operated on until 1952 when Strachan befriended a communist doctor in Prague. Strachan rose to the rank of Flight Lieutenant within the RAF, a rare achievement for a black person in Britain in the 1940s. Strachan completed 45 bombing operations against Nazi Germany, another rare achievement considering that the average life of an RAF bomber crew during WWII was 6/7 operations.

In 1939 following Britain's declaration of war against Germany and the outbreak of World War II in Europe, Strachan left his job in the civil service to join the British Royal Air Force (RAF). He was told by the British that he would have to pay for his own journey to Britain, so Strachan sold his bicycle and saxophone to pay for his voyage. Strachan was one of the first volunteers to arrive in England in March 1940. He arrived in Britain with little money and a suitcase containing only one spare change of clothes. After spending a night at the YMCA he travelled to the Air Ministry in Kingsway and attempted to join the RAF.

William Arthur Watkin Strachan (16 April 1921 – 26 April 1998) was a leading British communist, black civil rights pioneer, charity worker, and British legal expert, most famous for both his wartime achievements with the Royal Air Force (RAF) during World War II, and his reputation as a highly influential figure within Britain's black communities. During WWII, Strachan survived 33 bombing operations against Nazi Germany. After the war he became a communist and a human rights activist, campaigning for universal suffrage and worker's rights. Between 1952 and 1956 he published the newspaper Caribbean News, the first monthly Black British newspaper.

Strachan was born in Jamaica on 16 April 1921 to a family of former slaves and was raised within a predominantly white and relatively privileged area of Kingston. In 1938, Strachan witnessed the creation of the People's National Party.