Tributes to
much-loved
campaigner

A LIFELONG Comm-
unist who was a stalwart
of the squatting move-
ment and campaigned
on behalf of the home-
less after the Second
World War has died at
the age of 85, writes Kay
Shelley.
   Johnny Morten, who had been
in hospital for  several months,
was admitted to UCLH in
February after a stroke and
allowed home but never really
recovered. He was re-admitted to
St. Pancras hospital in March,
and died on Saturday.
   Mr. Morten, a well-known
activist, speaker and raconteur,
was arrested so often during
demonstrations, he joked that
he'd been in every prison in
London.
   He became something of a
celebrity during the post-war
housing battle in Camden when
he was filmed being arrested dur-
ing the squatter's occupation of
the Ivanhoe Hotel, Bloomsbury.
   The Movietown newsreel,
showing food being thrown to
squatters on window ledges and
Mr Morten being led away, was
incorporated by King's Cross
filmmaker Chris Reeve's into his
film Their World This Time (see
feature page 14).
   Widowed ten years ago, Mr
Morten was a chef by trade but
l;ater sold evening papers near
Centrepoint. He then became a
roadsweeper for Camden,
Westminster and finally Lam-
beth. His wife Pat was a shop
steward at Collett's bookshop.
   In the 30's he was involved in
the anti-Fascist campaign against
Moseley. A stalwart of the New
Left Book Cluib set up by
Gollancz, he became an authori-
ty on Shakespeare and dickens.
   Although he was a member of
the Labour Party for a time and
had talks with Aneurin Bevan
when he lived locally, Mr. Morten
was active in the Communist
Party until the late 60's when he
quit, but remained a Marxist.
   He lived in a flat in Chenies
Street WCI with his only child,
dental nurse Pat Futatsugi, and
her husband Tom, who changed
his Japanese surname to Morten.
   Pat's son Ian lives in Kentish
Twon and her ten-year-old
grandson Jack lives in
Hampstead. Mr Morten also
leaves a brother Walt and sister-
in-law Alma.
   The funeral will be held at
Golders Green Crematorium on
Wednesday August 19 at 3 pm,
when a celebration of his life
will be held in the chapel before cre-
mation.
   Pat said her father had been ill
for several years, but still went to
the Lamb pub in Lamb's
Conduit Street where he loved to
talk and meet friends.
   "He was a bit of a character,
very outspoken and very articu-
late," she said. "One of those
self-taught working-class men.
He lived in the library and never
stopped reading.
   "He loved cooking too. He
was just a lovely man."