AT 11.50pm on Wednesday December 31 2014, Mac O’Connell went out with a bang.

Well that’s the report that Lorraine, his wife and lifetime partner, gave — fireworks were set off all over London.

Mac (Malcolm, but never known as that) was born in Islington in 1949.

He suffered from a complex condition for many years and shuffled off this mortal coil after a short hospital stay. His family extends their thanks to the staff at the North Middlesex Hospital for their care.

Some readers will think: “Mac O’Connell — how do I know that name?”

This will be from his later life, when he was the man in our paper’s ads department and the face on the Fighting Fund appeal column.

But like so many, he had a rich life before working for the Morning Star.

Mac was from a large family near Highbury stadium — which, I understand, is the home of a football team. However, Mac knew better and was a fanatical Spurs supporter.

He was also a proofreader, apprenticed with Strakers when he left school. This was a fine career for a literate man, for a person who loved reading and words, and for one who was, on occasion, proud to describe himself as a pedant.

But even better for us, he got a job in the reading box of the Financial Times and became an NGA (National Graphical Association) workplace leader.

In those “very interesting days” — industrially and politically — of the 1970s and ’80s, Mac was first a member of the Labour Party before joining the Communist Party and was a key figure in the broad left of the NGA, the Shoe Lane progressives.

The respect in which Mac was held by the union was demonstrated when he was elected as a calls office assistant for the London region NGA.

Older readers will remember the days of the “closed shop” — when the union controlled the allocation of jobs. Mac’s position gave him an authority that he used with honesty and integrity — and humour and realism.

The changes brought to the trade union world by Thatcher’s attack on the closed shop eventually hit our union and Mac made yet another significant move — this time to the Morning Star, his last place of employment.

Here he was able to use his exceptional knowledge of the trade union movement. The nature of the man meant he didn’t only understand union structures, he knew the key people and never hesitated to use that knowledge for the benefit of the paper.

Mac was a man for whom people were the reason. Socialism was not an abstract. It was rooted in the reality of improving working-class lives. And this began indoors. For Mac, his love for his family, and their love for him, was central.

So there wasn’t a progressive comrade in our union who knew Mac — whether NGA, GPMU, Amicus, or Unite — who wasn’t kept up to date with his family’s progress and achievements.

Mac is survived by Lorraine, son and daughter-in-law Steve and Karen, and daughter Jenny.

Mac O’Connell was an incredibly funny man — sharp, witty, knowledgeable and down to earth.

He was without fear, full of principles and never courted popularity. He was also a very kind man and will be missed by us all.