1. Vic Allen was a British communist, human rights activist, political prisoner, sociologist, historian, economist and emeritus professor at the University of Leeds who worked closely with British trade unions, and was considered a key player in the resistance against Apartheid in South African.
Vic Allen was known for being a key activist within the Communist Party of Great Britain, and for spending his life supporting the South African National Union of Mineworkers.
In 2010 Vic Allen was awarded the Kgao ya Bahale award, the highest honour awarded by the South African NUM.
Son of Jane and Samuel Leonard Allen, Victor Leonard Allen was born in Shotton, Flintshire and raised in Connah's Quay, Flintshire.
Vic Allen left school at fourteen with no qualifications and became an apprentice bricklayer.
Vic Allen worked as a bricklayer before and after service in the RAF during World War II.
Vic Allen originally took up boxing in response to being bullied at school.
Vic Allen became more politicised after being sacked from a site for joining a trade union.
Vic Allen was the official historian of the British National Union of Mineworkers, a confidant of Arthur Scargill, Ken Gill and Mick McGahey and an adviser to British trade unionists for over 40 years.
Vic Allen aided trade unionists and campaigners in the fight against apartheid in South Africa from the 1960s onwards and, after the fall of the regime, wrote a three-volume history of mineworkers in South Africa on behalf of the South African National Union of Mineworkers.
Vic Allen was a member of the national committee of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament for many years, and in 1985 he came last in a ballot to choose the chair of the organisation running on a pro-Soviet, unilateral disarmament ticket.
Mandela and Vic Allen shared a long car ride discussion of world politics and the two activists bonded over their shared love of boxing.
Vic Allen was revealed in September 1999 to have been an "agent of influence" for the East German Stasi secret police, from material contained in the Mitrokhin Archive, possessing the code name "Barber".
In 2010, Vic Allen was awarded the Kgao ya Bahale award, the highest honour awarded by the South African NUM.
Vic Allen went up to the London School of Economics in 1946 and gained a BSc in Economics in 1949 followed by a PhD.
Vic Allen was appointed a Lecturer in Industrial Relations in the School of Economic Studies at the University of Leeds in 1959, becoming a Senior Lecturer in 1963, Reader in 1970 and Professor of the Sociology of Industrial Society in 1973.
Vic Allen retired from Leeds in 1988 with the title emeritus professor.
Vic Allen wrote and published three volumes of the history of the National Union of Miners in South Africa, described by academics as "one of the strongest and most insightful produced to date".
Vic Allen's funeral was held at a rural inn called the Craven Heifer, close to Skipton in the Yorkshire Dales.
Vic Allen was married three times during his life, and fathered five children: Jane, Nick and Julian with his first wife Margaret, and Sophie and Lucy with his second wife Sheila Allen.
Vic Allen had 8 grandchildren and 9 great-grandchildren by the time he died.
Vic Allen taught us to make sure we appreciated each other, never to leave anything to chance.