Hilda Meers, nee Kunes, was born in Coventry in 1924.

Her parents Pauline and Simon Kunes were Lithuanian Jewish refugees who came to England as children at the turn of the 20th century.

Her early years were subject to the hardship and poverty that was common during the ’30s.

Work was scarce but her father managed to secure some as a labourer in an engineering and metalworks factory, Fishers and Ludlows.

Her mother worked as an ambulance attendant during WWII and her father was an air-raid warden.

At the outbreak of the war Hilda found work in a factory not organised by any trade union where she was paid 1d per gross for metal nuts she produced by piece work.

She attempted to secretly organise the other factory women into a union but when management found out she was sacked.

Later Hilda found work in the Austin car factory doing general machine work on car parts. This factory was organised by the Engineering Union and following her efforts to challenge the piece work rates she was elected as shop steward — a role she enjoyed and loved attending the meetings with management along with Dick Etheridge, who she described as a real “Black Country chap.”

Etheridge, the union convener, was well-respected by management and workers alike because he knew all the collective agreements inside out.

Hilda met her future husband Fred Meers while working in the factory.

When she became pregnant Hilda continued working until she was no longer able to reach the handle on the machinery.

She left the factory to have her first child Sinde and another child Brian was born two years later.

Although Hilda left school at 16 she decided in her late 30s to take up education again and trained to be a teacher.

Her interview for teaching training in Birmingham was very interesting. It was conducted by a director of education, a history lecturer and the head of the training college who according to Hilda was a Tory.

Hilda was asked by the lecturer whether she agreed that trade unions were as good as defunct and no longer required. She answered very firmly that this was not true — they were very much needed as long as bosses paid low wages and poor working conditions existed.

She presumed she had blown the interview because they hadn’t got the answer they may have preferred but two days later a letter arrived offering her a place on the training course.

She stood her ground and remained loyal to her principles as she did all her life.

At around this time her husband Fred had left his job as a draughtsman to become the manager of the Communist Party (CPGB) bookshop in Birmingham and was the subject of the usual vilification by the right-wing local press.

He also worked for several years at the Daily Worker, now the Morning Star. It is the only socialist daily newspaper in the English speaking world.

Hilda and Fred were active members of the CPGB in Birmingham and were involved in the “pavement” protests where pro-trade union and left-wing political slogans and messages were chalked on the streets.

When Hilda qualified as a teacher she chose to work in a deprived working-class neighbourhood in an infants school, where she specialised in teaching children with learning difficulties and different cultures.

These were the happiest years of her working life.

Later she went back to university to enhance her education qualifications, in particular in the field of child educational development, and went on to teach trainee teachers at college for six years — during this time she wrote a book Helping our Children Talk.

Hilda was active in her teachers and lecturers union NATFHE and despite her left-wing views and Communist Party membership she was elected head of the student body at the teacher training college in Birmingham.

She also attended many union conferences and contributed to debates on education and union policies on many matters affecting union members and their families.

In the early ’80s she taught for a number of weeks in Jordan. While in the Middle East she was once imprisoned in Israel for protesting against the country’s foreign policy towards Palestine.

She told how she was crammed into a cell with a group of women. When the guards told the women they could go, they refused to leave until the men, in another cell, were also released.

In addition to her professional teaching career she continued with her political activism.

She introduced her daughter Sinde to the Greenham Common peace camp set up in the ’80s to protest against the siting of nuclear cruise missiles on British soil.
Hilda then visited her daughter at the protest camp on a regular basis over many years.
She retired after approximately 17 years’ work combining teaching on the front line with teacher training in child development.
In retirement she remained active in political matters and in particular in the Labour Party in Swanage.
She moved to the Fraserburgh area about 25 years ago for some peace and quiet by the sea and so that she could travel regularly to Aberdeen for political campaign meetings — where she moved to about 15 years ago.

Hilda was in regular attendance at the many meetings and protests held in Aberdeen and the northeast of Scotland between 2007 and 2013. She earned the title “the wicked witch of the north” from the Establishment and was delighted to be a known subversive.

She was a dedicated supporter of the local CND and Palestine Solidarity groups, a member of Jews for Justice for the Palestinians and the International Brigade Memorial Trust commemorating those who fought against Franco.

An active anti-fascist and anti-racist, she was instrumental along with others in preventing the National Front from marching in Aberdeen on St Andrew’s Day in 2004.

Also an accomplished writer, Hilda’s books include For the Hearing of the Tale, for the Future of the Wish about prisoners who resisted in the death camps during WWII.

She composed many poems and was involved in the Slam poetry sessions at Drummonds bar where she won the top prize the Slammer’s Slam Winner during the Word festival in 2005.

Her collection of poems Pathways was published in 2012.

In 2014 Hilda moved into a sheltered housing flat in the Torry area of Aberdeen.

Although much more physically frail she was able to send a message of support to last year’s protests in St Nicholas Square against the indiscriminate bombing of Gaza. 

Then early in March this year she was taken into hospital and died peacefully on Sunday March 29.

We who knew and worked with Hilda are proud to have done so. She would want us to look forward to many more years of working and campaigning for all the good and worthy causes for the people of Aberdeen, Scotland and the world.

We salute you Hilda as a true champion for peace and a better life for all people.

•  Tommy Campbell is Unite regional officer for Aberdeen.