A STUDENT investigating the life and times of a Chester Communist is appealing for information to help her complete a PhD.
Frank Percival Forster, who was born in Hawarden in 1910, kept diaries chronicling his thoughts and experiences within Chester’s modest Communist community while living at 14 Belgrave Avenue, Saltney with his parents from 1934-1938.
He died in Chester in 1998, but Catherine Feely, a PhD candidate in history studying at The University of Manchester, has found a fascinating historical resource in his tales of the Spanish Civil war and the rise of Nazi Germany through a Cestrian’s eyes.
A casual labourer by trade, Frank was heavily involved in various left-wing political activities in the city.
His diaries include unique details about the day-to-day organisation and rank-and-file membership of left-wing and anti-Fascist organisations during the interwar period.
They also provide insight into how one young man experienced both international crises and everyday life in Chester, including visits to the city’s various cinemas and dance halls in pursuit of women.
His accounts form an extraordinary record of the meetings he attended, the films he saw, the spaces he inhabited and the books that he read, as well as his inner feelings and disappointments.
Catherine said: “Frank’s diaries are fascinating in the way that they constantly mix the personal with the political and for their acute social commentary.
“They are complex sources, as they appear to have been written with a future audience in mind, perhaps even future historians.”
Catherine says she would be particularly interested to hear from anyone who was related to or knew Frank, or any of the following people mentioned in his diary: Roger Simon, Joe Gallagher, Vicky Madders, Joan and Ruth Guest, Bob Williams, Gerald Sanovsky, Dan Reynolds, Beatrice Cox, Gwilym Williams, Frank Holland, Eileen Mathewson, Dan King, Harry Wyatt, Len Harrap, Charlie Read, Frank Bradford.
Catherine would also welcome any information or material on the operation of groups in Chester during the 1930s including the Chester branch of the Communist Party of Great Britain, Chester Left Book Club, Chester Debating Society, Chester Spanish Aid Committee, National Council of Labour College classes, Workers’ Educational Association classes, Chester Unemployment Association, League of Nations Union and the Labour League of Youth.
