Ken Sprague

I very much appreciated the obituary on Ken Sprague [2 August] but feel that Karl Dallas missed an important side to Sprague's life, writes Sid Brown.

I very much appreciated the obituary on Ken Sprague [2 August] but feel that Karl Dallas missed an important side to Sprague's life, writes Sid Brown.

I took over Ken's job at the Daily Worker when he left in 1959. Ken took with him a very bright man, Ray Bernard; they both walked out, for different reasons, in frustration. Together they formed an agency, Mountain and Molehill, which provided a promotion and publicity service for the trade-union movement.

Either by luck, or judgement, Ken always managed to surround himself with very able people. This was certainly true when he became editor of the Transport and General Workers' journal and, with John Oxenbould, made it the most successful tabloid trade-union paper of its time.

Ken's work for the labour movement, in the 1960s and 1970s, was at a time when a lot of people were pulling in the same direction. He was part of something and he revelled in it.