• I AM researching for publication the life of Tom Barker, who was first elected to St Pancras Council in 1949 and later re-elected to the new Camden Council in 1964.

At one time a member of the Industrial Workers of the World, or the “Wobblies”, he must have been the only councillor in London to have met Lenin and Mikhail Borodin in Moscow. As mayor he presided over the notorious raising of the Red Flag above Camden Town Hall in 1965.

If any of your readers have knowledge of Tom Barker, or his wife Bertha who was from Poland, I would be most grateful. I understand that they may have lived in Caversham Road.

In particular I am trying to track Jim Buckland, a member of the St Pancras North Labour Party, or any of his relatives. I believe that Mr Buckland lived at 23 Torriano Cottages and set up something called the Tom Barker Scholarship, an educational charity.

I look forward to hearing from anyone with information on Tom Barker and, of course, anecdotes of his time in Camden.

GERRY HARRISON
Little Acre Cottage
Church Lane
Laughton, Sussex BN8 6AH