My Communist Grandfather – Jimmy Kemp
I grew up with the story that my paternal grandfather, Jimmy Kemp, was a card carrying communist. I’ve never been able to prove it, partly because I’ve no idea how I could.
Recently I’ve spoken with a few of the older family members and heard some interesting family history stories. I love hearing family history stories from people, but I don’t necessarily believe them all. However they’re a good start point, and if lots of people independently tell you something it adds to the credibility.
Jimmy Kemp’s story
My grandfather was Jimmy Kemp, he was born and died in Old Kilpatrick. He worked as a gardener at Dalnottar House, and during the war years he was an ARP volunteer. The family were bombed out in 1941, and lived in the Vale of Leven until the early 50s. He died in 1964, years before I was born, so I never knew him personally.
I got talking to one of my Dad’s older cousins about his Uncle Jimmy, my grandfather. He said some really interesting things. Notably that Jimmy Kemp used to look after the kids, often cut their hair and was a quiet atheist. My granny Kemp, his wife, was an active member of St. Patrick’s Church. So it was a bit of a surprise to me that Jimmy Kemp didn’t attend, and more to the point subverted others.
Some of Jimmy’s friends included someone called Boyle who ended up as a local councillor and another man who was a card carrying communist. Jimmy had a strong socialist tendency but it’s not certain whether or not he was also a card carrying communist. He’d certainly described himself as a communist before the 1956 crackdown in Hungary. Most of the locals recognised that socialism had left the communist party by that point and it’s popularity waned.
My Dad’s family all seemed to be devout Catholics, not only regularly attending mass but also helping out as volunteers for the parish. I was surprised to discover that Jimmy Kemp was an atheist, he apparently never went to church. Not only that, he used to tell anyone that asked that there were other ways to think about the world. My Dad’s cousin cited Jimmy Kemp’s influence as one of the reasons he left the seminary.
I’m still not convinced that Jimmy Kemp was a card carrying communist, but he certainly seems to have been a fellow traveller if he wasn’t. If I ever have time I guess I’ll go look up some of the others, mentioned, especially Baillie Boyle. I’ll also need to look up any ARP records for the Old Kilpatrick area, I know there are some in the national archives and some in Clydebank library.
Well, that’s interesting. I’d really like to know the answer to that. All mine were firmly on the left. I think that there are no surviving membership records for the Communist Party. I’m pretty sure they were destroyed locally on a yearly basis. There wasn’t a central register as far as I’m aware. What would his boss at Dalnottar House thought of his membership? I can’t find any newspaper records for the CP in Old Kilpatrick but I’m reading through articles on them in Glasgow and I’ll let you know if I find anything..
James, not heard of him being a Communist but he was definitely not an atheist. Your dad told me that when his dad was dying and unable to go to mass he listened to mass on the radio. He also did not live all his life in OK because they were bombed out in 1941. They lived in Bishopton when your Uncle John was born in 1935. The VoL from 1941 to summer of 1953 when they returned to OK.
Talking about Catholics this Bishop John Murdoch is one of yours. He’s something like a cousin of Jean Murdoch married to Alexander Kemp. I can’t remember exactly but I’ll send you the file on it later on today. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Murdoch_(bishop)
Awesome! Getting a full spectrum from atheist to bishop!