Ron Todd

Born: 11 March, 1927, in east London.

Died: 30 April, 2005, in London, aged 78.

RON Todd was the powerful and yet not uncompromising leftish-wing leader of Britain’s then biggest trade union, the Transport and General Workers, for seven eventful years until his retirement in 1992.

In its heyday, the T&G, with its 1.25 million members, was far and away the most influential union in Britain. It has since been eclipsed in membership by the giant unions, Unison and Amicus.

Todd’s leadership of the T&G coincided with most of the Margaret Thatcher years, a period that could be counted as one of the most difficult ones for the trade union movement this century. In fact since Mrs Thatcher effectively shut out the trade unions from her domestic economic policies, most of Todd’s negotiations, not always amicable, were with the then Labour leader, Neil Kinnock.

Sometimes he was at odds with Mr Kinnock over Labour’s plans to reform trade union legislation, but he was equally occasionally at odds with his trade union colleagues.

The ongoing row was generally over Labour’s plans for "selective" reform of so-called union-bashing legislation passed during the Thatcher years, while many trade unionists wanted the entirety of this legislation to be wiped from the statute book.

In 1990, Todd found himself accused of double standards. At the TUC he agreed that his union would support the Labour line while at the same time agreeing to back a motion which conflicted with it.

It was also around this period that he mounted an attack on the moderates within his union, who, he claimed, were trying to oust him from office before his retirement in March 1992.

"I will continue to carry out my responsibilities to the full until that date," he bluntly told the plotters. And he did.

His election to the general secretaryship in 1984 was disfigured by allegations of ballot-rigging. As a result, a further election was called the following year.

Ronald Todd, the fifth of six children, was born in Walthamstow, east London. His father was a stallholder in Walthamstow Market.

Oddly, the seeds of his adult atheism were sown when he attended St Patrick’s Catholic School, Walthamstow, which was run by nuns who could not hide their irritation at his persistent questioning, as a child, of their beliefs.

He since swore it was an accident when, as an altar boy, during the stations of the cross, he set fire to the priest’s cassock with his candle. He was obliged to kneel and say numerous Hail Marys, punctuated by whacks from the nuns while the entire school prayed for him.

During the war, a German bomb which landed on the family’s air-raid shelter knocked Todd out cold. He said that when he came round, he and his mother sang for two hours before they were dug out.

He later worked as a plumber’s mate, largely repairing war damage, but he received his call-up in 1945 just as Germany was surrendering. He wanted to join the Royal Navy, but found himself instead in the Royal Marine Commandos, posted to Hong Kong, at one stage in the same camp as his father.

It was the spectacle there of starving, diseased children which drove him to socialism. He said later: "I began to think ‘Where’s the power of prayer now?’ I became convinced that the only route to people’s improvement was through collective action."

After the war, Todd, following a brief return to plumbing, joined the Ford motor production line at Dagenham, where he discovered that he could earn more than twice as much money. It was there that his active trade union career began.

He eventually became the chief negotiator for the company’s huge labour force and from there graduated to become the head of the nation’s biggest trade union.

Todd was always a blunt public speaker who did not encode his speeches. He said once: "I tend to speak very plainly and simply. I don’t wrap things up. I don’t try to con people. I come across as being very open."

He was also an avid collector of Victorian music covers as well as fossils - a passion which earned him the sobriquet Toddosaurus.

Todd was also a vociferous supporter of nuclear disarmament and of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa.

He continued living in east London after retirement, retaining a close association with the TGWU.

A widower since the death of his wife, Josephine, he is survived by his son and two daughters.