ELINOR McKENZIE (nee Livingston) was one of the generation who carried forward the anti-nuclear campaign into the 21st century. 

She will be remembered for her work creating an effective coalition in Scotland against the Iraq war, for chairing the huge Coalition for Justice Not War rally in Glasgow in February 2003, and for her activism for equality and older people’s rights.  

Elinor was the first female Scottish secretary of the Communist Party (2000-02) and her lifelong activism for peace and socialism was driven by her communism. 

Born into a party family in Eaglesham, Elinor grew up understanding the importance of the struggle for peace. She joined the Young Communist League at the age of 14, along with younger sister Lesley.  

In her late teens as an active YCLer she was involved in the campaign against Polaris. In fact, Elinor and her fiance Jim actually missed their own wedding in 1961, having been arrested earlier that day at an anti-Polaris protest in Dunoon. Their nuptials had to wait until the following week. 

Following the births of her sons in the 1960s, Elinor was a community activist who achieved practical improvements in local housing and childcare.  

She returned to education while her boys were young, first to Clydebank College and then Strathclyde University, a path that led to her vocation as an FE teacher of social studies.  

Elinor achieved her degree while bringing up her sons alone after Jim’s death. She remained passionate about working-class women and men having access to further education and the importance of reading and political education.

As the branch secretary of the EIS Further Education Lecturers Association at Clydebank College she was immersed in trade union work. In the 1980s and ’90s she served on the EIS-FELA executive and as its president. She had by then found again the comradeship of a partner in Bob McCallum. 

Soon after Bob’s death in 1998, Elinor joined CND’s peace march walking from Aldermaston to Faslane. A Scottish CND activist, between 1999-2001 she threw herself into the resurgent campaign against Trident nuclear missiles, participating in the regular blockades of Faslane naval base.

In April 2001 Elinor was one of 11 peace activists arrested and charged with breach of the peace for disrupting proceedings in the Scottish Parliament. 

Elinor conducted her own defence and was cleared of all charges. After September 11 that same year, Elinor was quoted in the press speaking out against the bombing of Afghanistan by the US-led coalition: “The Western world does not have the right to act as judge, jury and executioner. I would ask people to consider what is being done in our name and where it could lead.” (Sunday Mail, October 2001).

As national secretary of Scottish CND from 2000-04, Elinor was at the heart of the movement in Scotland against the Iraq war. Alongside the late Alan Mackinnon (SCND chair) she worked to build the broadest possible anti-war coalition.  

Twenty years later she was one of the very much fewer people publicly and courageously opposing the war in Ukraine and making the link with austerity. 

In 2022 she told a Glasgow against Nato event: “We have the highest rate of UK arms spending since the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq 20 years ago, while lifeline community public services are being starved.” 

Isobel Lindsay has described her as “one of those sincere peace activists who was never interested in status but only in making a contribution.”

Elinor was the first female Scottish secretary of the Communist Party, from 2000-02, also serving on the CPB executive committee and on the party’s Scottish committee for many years. 

She stood as a communist candidate in Glasgow in 2005 and 2007 and ran Unity Books, taking it on the road to labour movement conferences. 

Since 2005, she poured her energy into the Scottish Pensioners Forum, serving on its executive. Fiercely principled, she stood up for the rights of elderly people during Covid and demanded an inquiry. 

She campaigned around the state pension age review, supported the Waspi women, opposed digital exclusion, and demanded a real national care service. 

She was a public campaigner right up until her recent illness, doing TV interviews at SPF protests outside Ofgem. She told a People’s Assembly rally in George Square last year: “We need a government willing to take on energy giants, the food industry, the private health and care providers and the arms trade. 

“The cost-of-living crisis is a class issue not a personal problem. We must fight for a future based on solidarity and dignity.”

An adoring granny and great granny, proud to receive care from the grandchildren she’d cared for, Elinor was a source of encouragement and insights for younger people and a strong feminist mentor to many women. Passionate, committed, caring, a communist to the end. 

SUSAN GALLOWAY