Reuben Skyrme

Skyrme was an engineering worker and active member of the Amalgamated Engineering Union in South Wales, in the No. 3 AEU Treforest Estate branch. He was a delegate from his union branch to the Pontypridd Trades Union Council (TUC) for very many years.

Skyrme joined the Welsh Communist Party in 1931. In the same year he was jailed for six months for campaigning against the Means Test. Later he took charge of the Daily Worker circulation in Cardiff. Those were the days when the paper was under a wholesalers’ ban and circulation depended on the voluntary, dedicated and long labours of readers and supporters.

He went to work at the Austin Factory at Treforest in 1939 and raised the sales of the Daily Worker there to an astonishing 200 copies a day.

He and his fellow members of the AEU branch, which he founded, were so well supported that they could use a lorry belonging to the firm to pick up the Daily Worker supplies every day from the railway station.

Michael Walker

Source: Daily Worker 22 September 1967