It’s encouraging to know that, 3 years after his death, the vision of my dad, the alternative thinker Colin Ward, is still alive. It seems that his funeral and memorial in 2010, while signifying the end of his life, also marked the beginning of a process of celebration and reinterpretation of his ideas. Since he died, 5 books of – or related to – his work have been published, the latest 2 being launched at a special event at Housman’s bookshop, near Kings Cross in London last Saturday night.

I couldn’t make it to the event but there are 2 excellent online accounts of it, one by Ross Bradshaw and one by Robin Kinross, the respective publishers of ‘Talking Green’ and ‘Autonomy: The Cover Designs of Anarchy’.

In 2010 Ross put out a collection of the speeches given at my dad’s funeral and memorial. The journal ‘Anarchist Studies’ devoted Vol 19 No 2 to him in 2011, a year which also saw the publication of ‘Autonomy, Solidarity, Possibility: The Colin Ward Reader’ (AK Press). This is a comprehensive, awe-inspiring collection covering the entire 60 year span of my dad’s writing on various subjects, expertly edited by Chris Wilbert and Damien F White.

It’s great that people like those mentioned above, along with my dad’s fellow social historian Ken Worpole and the Anarchism scholar David Goodway, are keeping his spirit going.

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