My father-in-law, George Leslie, who has died aged 93, was a socialist and trade unionist, born in Islington, north London, when the area was still overwhelmingly working-class. His father suffered from shell-shock during the first world war and was rendered unemployable. George grew up in poverty with five younger sisters during a time when food was scarce. His earliest political experiences were accompanying his father to May Day marches and to the end he felt his proper place was in the labour movement, protesting against injustice.
George left school at 14, and got odd jobs in the market around Caledonian Road; he recalled shifting sacks of potatoes in the backyards of King's Cross. In the late 40s, he got involved with a national strike of market workers, and despite his lack of formal education, showed a marked aptitude for organisation. He rapidly became a member of the national strike committee. This was the beginning of a commitment to the Transport and General Workers' Union.
Through the TGWU, he met Sheila Lahr; they married in 1950 and had four children, Georgina, Adelaide, Mark and Esther. Both George and Sheila joined the Revolutionary Communist party (founded in 1944), a completely different organisation from the 80s entity: a banner displayed at George's funeral had "Trotskyist" sewn on by way of explanation.
George was wary of the sectarianism that split the Trotskyists, and though close to former RCP members such as Ted Grant, who went on to form Militant Tendency, and courted by Tony Cliff, founder of the Socialist Workers' party, he adhered to the T&G. However, he kept his working-class principles, even (successfully) leading a strike by T&G office staff when they had a grievance.
He admired the T&G general secretary Jack Jones for his staunch working-class perspective (though when it came to the Spanish civil war, George preferred George Orwell's views to Jones's loyalty to the Communist party); and became Jones's righthand man. At his suggestion, George became secretary of the retired members' organisation for Region 1 of the T&G. Right to the end, George fought to defend public pensions.
He is survived by Sheila, his children, and six grandchildren, Flora, Rosie, Hannah, Rebecca, Iris and Mordecai.