In Memorium
Ryan Kemp
16 Aug 1949 – 3 Feb 2009
The Community Bulletin Board just received the following message from Sue Cartwright. the partner of long-time, well-know community activist Ryan Kemp.
It is my sad task to announce that Ryan Kemp, my partner of 24 years, died of renal cancer peacefully at home on 3 February 2009.
Ryan had lived in the Caledonian area for over thirty years and was well known as a community activist. For many years he was the Chair of the successful Cally Forum, the last neighbourhood forum to survive in Islington, which sadly had to closed in 2002 when Islington neighbourhood forums were disbanded. Ryan was proud that the Cally Forum was an inclusive organisation and people from both sides of the Caledonian Road participated together to make our area a better place. Although it closed, many of the people involved went on to support other activities and organisations which sprung up in our locality.
Always fighting for improvements in the local community, Ryan strongly believed that residents should have a say in what went on in their area. He was therefore a community representative on many local organisations such as Team Cally, Islington Community Network, Kings Cross Development Forum, Caledonian Ward Safer Neighbourhood Panel and the Friends of Regent’s Canal. He also regularly attended the public meetings of West Area Committee and West Area Planning Committee. In 1996/7 Ryan was instrumental in lobbying for the building and funding of the Killick Street Health Centre and worked with the Kings Cross Partnership for the funding of a community health worker to be employed there. Ryan was a very active participant at meetings, frequently challenging information and often wanting to add relevant points. He often had extensive knowledge of the background to matters at hand which, as many Chairs will know to their cost, he just had to share with everyone. He always tried to attend every meeting and frequently turned up late trying to fit in two in at the same time.
Ryan spent his childhood in Brighton, coming to London for his first degree at UCL, then an MSc at Birkbeck and then spent some time doing part-time teaching at Oxford Poly. He started a PhD in very large databases at UCL in 1978 but unfortunately got sidetracked and never completed it. He worked as a lecturer, then senior lecturer at South Bank University from 1983 until he was made redundant in 2006. There he joined Natfhe, now UCU, and became an active member. Over the years Ryan was Branch Chair, Secretary, member of his branch’s coordinating committee, local negotiator, membership secretary and delegate to Regional Council. He was also, until his illness, Regional Treasurer of Natfhe Inner London and then London Regions.
Always interested in all types of politics, Ryan joined the Labour Party in the eighties and has since been a staunch member including holding the Chair of Caledonian branch for many years.
Ryan was fun to be with; he had a sunny disposition and an upbeat optimistic outlook. He never bore grudges, had an endless curiosity about everything and a boundless enthusiasm for life. He greatly enjoyed attending all types of events, festivals, music gigs, (usually rock bands), exhibitions as well as being interested in history and architecture. As his many albums and thousands of digital photos testify, he was an ardent photographer. He loved to travel and to explore other countries. Until he was prevented from driving due to illness, Ryan could be seen tearing round Islington and beyond in his much loved car. He had very quick reactions and never caused an accident but enjoyed driving fast and I was sure that this would be the end of him.
Ryan was diagnosed in August 2007 and for almost the first year he was able to enjoy his life. Things gradually changed especially of course during the past month but we have had good doctors at the Royal Marsden, excellent support from our GPs at Click Street and a wonderful palliative care team who not only effectively controlled his pain but who really got to know us both and who have been incredibly supportive. I can’t praise them enough.
I would like to thank all our kind friends and neighbours as well as Ryan’s family, especially his brother Fraser, who have been and continue to be so supportive.
Ryan was very special. He was bright, open, affectionate and enduringly positive. It’s hard for me to imagine how life will be without him; certainly it will be a sadder and duller place. I and his brother and family will always miss him terribly but I am comforted in the knowledge that my loss is shared by many others in the Cally area.Everyone is of course welcome to attend the cremation which will be held at East Finchley crematorium in the next couple of weeks, date to be announced shortly.
Sue Cartwright
Should you wish to make a donation in Ryan's memory, please contact one of the following charities: MacMillan Cancer Support www.macmillan.org.uk or Kidney Cancer UK. www.kcuk.org
Postscript from Sue:
I'd like to thank everyone for their comments about Ryan on the website and for their letters, emails, cards and phone calls. A lot of people will smile at and share in the anecdotes about Ryan and it's wonderful to know that he will be fondly remembered by so many.
Thanks also to more than a hundred people who came to the cremation ceremony and reception and made it a real celebration of Ryan's life. As someone wrote recently "You are never dead while you are remembered with love."
I think Ryan will not be forgotten for a very long time.
Sue Cartwright
Please feel free to record your memories of Ryan below in the "comments" section as a tribute to his dedicated community service over the years.
Kings Cross Environment 
I saw Ryan at countless community meetings over the years and am very sad that he has passed away. Ryan at meetings was living proof that you need grit in the system to make it work – so many times his contributions led to new insights and he excelled at making the emperors new clothes observations that others wouldn’t.
Ryan will be sorely missed my condolences go to his family.
Lisa Pontecorvo, Phil Jeffries and now Ryan. Our community has lost yet another committed activist. I first came across Ryan in the eighties, at a meeting in Camden about Kings Cross. When Cally Neighbourhood Forum was established, he was one of its founding members, and he worked tirelessly to bring the community East and West of Caledonian Rd to work together to improve our area. During his time on the Forum, he made sure that all groups in the community could have their say on issues affecting them. He ensured that the community budget was distributed fairly and was not afraid to challenge the powers that be if he felt local people were being ignored or let down.
Ryan was a regular at a large number of meetings, and he had the ability to keep interested when others wilted.
As a neighbour, he would often be passing. I shall miss the interesting conversations and Ryan’s take on life in our community. He was also interested in what our family were doing, what our children were studying, what their attitudes were, and what we were getting up to.
Ryan was one of the reasons I joined the Labour Party in the eighties, and our Ward meetings will never be the same.
Sue did a wonderful job looking after Ryan when he was ill, and I am sure that thanks to her care, he was able to continue activities for so long. Condolences to Sue. We will be thinking of you during this difficult time.
Rupert and Ann
I knew Ryan for over 20 years from the Labour Party where he acquired a legendary reputation as a delegate to the Islington South & Finsbury General Committee and where he famously was the most long-standing and diligent attendance secretary ever known. He was a bulwark of the Labour Party in Caledonian Ward and served as its chair many times over the years.
Ryan’s politics would once have been described as leftwing and, in the fractious late ’80s and early ’90s, he and I were placed on different sides of the ideological divide within the Party. But by the late 1990s I found myself pretty much agreeing with Ryan pretty much most of the time. I am not sure which of us adjusted our views the most but it might have been mutual.
What I liked about Ryan was his ability to span the international, national and local. Much of what animated him was suffering and injustice in the world or the perils of nuclear armament but he also knew that making change in his locality mattered too. And he always had a very common-sensical stance on the myriad small things that can make life tough – or better – for many people around here. He was a ferocious critic of lazy bureaucratic responses to environmental clutter, waste, anti-social behaviour. What infuriated him was the tendency for things in our neighbourhood to “just happen”. Road closures, “safety” works, new “improvement” schemes, CCTV cameras suddenly appearing … all these things infuriated Ryan not because they were necessarily bad but because no-one checked to see if they were really needed. He had a phenomenal argumentative stamina and a determination to winkle out the truth and these two characteristics made him a splendid thorn in the side of dozy bureaucrats.
And after a damn good argument about something you could be sure that Ryan would break into a big grin.
As a champion of residents’ involvement in public decision-taking, Ryan was infuriated by the self serving way in which the Islington Strategic Partnership short-circuited the Government’s expectation that local people would be involved in Strategic Partnerships. Just last September, Ryan wrote a blistering letter to the Council’s new Chief Executive denouncing the way that “the council had removed all links with local residents from the ISP” and created instead a “structure which involves mainly paid workers from Voluntary Sector organisations”.
Ryan battled his cancer with immense fortitude over nearly 18 months. He continued attending meetings and argued his views vigorously. It was just ten days ago that Sue sent Ryan’s apologies for missing the Safer Neighbourhood Panel saying “I’m afraid he is extremely ill and won’t be able to attend the meetings in future.” My heart plummeted when I saw this message.
The place won’t be the same without Ryan fighting for something.
It’s so lovely to be able to read the above and find out more about Ryan. Wow, he did a lot! I only really got to know him recently through the neighbourhood panel meetings, where I witnessed his passionate concern about community issues. He was so stoical about his illness. I shall miss his cheeky smile.
Growing up I was never really aware how much my uncle did for his community. Reading about all the good work he did makes me really proud. Although i didnt get to see him as often as i would have liked, he meant a great deal to me and still does. I will really miss him. When i was younger i didnt appreciate how interesting and knowledgable he was. The last couple of times i visited him i felt like i got to know him so much more and really enjoyed discussing my course with him and talking about his and my fathers childhood.
Ryan was an interesting and unique person who i wish i had more time as an adult to get to know. He will be sorely missed by myself and my family.
This is very sad news.
I knew Ryan for years via Natfhe/UCU (our trade union) to which he was enormously committed and for which he did a lot of work.
I agree that he had a permanently sunny personality.
All my thoughts are now with Sue.
Jill Jones
I never knew Ryan was a fast driver – for some reason I always imagined him to be a non-driver – but I do remember him as living at a fast pace. The Norbreck Castle Hotel on Blackpool’s North Shore was the setting for several NATFHE conferences. I remember shuffling in to breakfast, to find Ryan tucking into his third full English, having already had his early morning swim, showing no ill effects from being up well into the small hours to discuss pretty much anything on the agenda. Sometimes that would be Conference agenda, but just as often the agenda of life. We’d start to chat but it wouldn’t be long before Ryan had to rush off to an organising meeting for the day ahead – having of course first cleared his plate! Trade union organising and politics was rarely a fun scene in the early nineties, but Ryan’s enormous enthusiasm and zest for life made it so much more bearable. Thanks Ryan.
Ryan was a long standing and much liked member of the London South Bank academic community and we will miss him. The tributes and comments I have read here would resonate with all at the University who knew him.
I met Ryan about 25 years ago.I had only been living in the Caledonian area for a short while when I joined the local Labour Party Ward.Ryan joined very soon after.
He was unique-both in his physical appearance and in his personality. I was to discover over the years that he was refreshing. Many people in politics are ambitious for office and can be devious.Ryan was completely open and honest.He never had a hidden agenda.His principles which led him to work so hard for the people in his community ,never wavered.
He was one of the very few people I knew that enjoyed meetings.He often attended several in one day and he couldnt understand why many found them boring.He was interested in everything to such an extent that he hated missing news bulletins.he loved having the latest information on everything.
His enthusism for life was infectious. I loved to see his big broad grin .He love life and we are all the richer for having known him .
I knew Ryan and Phil from the 1980’s before my exile in the south (Ryan gave me a (fast) lift back to Waterloo after Craig’s funeral in 1988). Lisa I got to know on my return and Kings Cross, and Islington, will be the poorer for their passing.
Like Wren and St Pauls “if you would see his monument, look around”, Kings Cross is a better place as a result of their efforts and we must continue to improve it to build on their legacy.
I knew Ryan Kemp as a lecturer when I was doing the foundation year at London South Bank University BSc. course in Computer Science. He was a helpful, effective
and inspiring lecturer who I can say helped to encourage
me to continue on my chosen course. He will be sorely
missed for his friendliness and the generosity with which
he imparted his knowledge.
My sincere and deepfelt condolences to his partner, relatives and friends. May they, in their own way, continue Ryan’s good work; that would be the best memorial to him.
As the current Chair of Islington South and Finsbury Labour Party I was often subject to Ryan’s questions and interventions at meetings.These were never malicious or ill intentioned but were always about either his desire to know more or to make a well thought out political point.In November last year,even though he was very ill,he insisted on attending a meeting at which I was giving my feedback on the Obama camapign which I worked on for 7 weeks.As usual his desire to know more shone through despite his illness and asked,at least ,six searching questions about what had happened,why and when ! Typical of the great activist and person he was.
I knew Ryan for many years, through union activism in NATFHE and UCU.
He always stood up for the rights of members, and for true democracy within our union. Ryan was never afraid to speak out against the union leaders when appropriate, but he always did this in a comradely manner.
I felt a true affinity with Ryan, because like me he was never afraid to go against the grain.
Whenever I went to national union events, Ryan was always the first person I sought out because I knew I could expect a warm welcome, and a friendly smile.
This is a sad loss, and Ryan will be sorely missed.
Jeff Fowler
Sunderland University
I knew Ryan as a party animal back in the 70s but I didn’t realise he was also a Labour Party animal and worked so hard for his community. He was always a great laugh, had a wicked sense of humour and a lightning mind. The last time I saw him was 1999 at Nick Dearden’s do in Hurstpierpoint and cannot believe that he is gone. Wherever he is I’m sure he’s livening everything up and that no one is allowed to get bored. I’d like to pass on my condolences to his family and partner and say that we will all miss him, no matter how short our friendship was with him.
Cheers Ryan, continue to be outrageous.
LOL
Cathy (Gillespie)
P.S. You once admired my Kawasaki 750E.
I met Ryan more than fifty years ago when we both at St Margarets Primary School in Brighton. I remember him as confident and always cheerful. We lost touch when we both moved away from Brighton after university, but I was saddened to read his obituary in The Guardian, but pleased to see that he had led such a fruitful and interesting life.
Shelley – Only just stumbled upon news of Ryan’s death and your message. Sad news indeed. My big memory of him was trying to persuade me to go with him to a rock festival in the USA in the late 60s. I declined on the grounds that I had better things to do than traipse off to a muddy field in America just to hear a couple of rock bands. And so it was that I missed Woodstock.
If you ever see this, I’d love to catch up sometime. I can be reached on marknewham@btinternet.com.
All the best and hope to hear from you,
Mark Newham.
Oh what a beautifully written remembrance.
I was a contemporary 79-82 at UCL – a co-resident in the Graduate Room of the Department of Geography then in Bedford Way. Several of us have just started locating postgrads from the time for a 30 year reunion later this year and Ryan was high on the list of people to contact to be there.
So on the day we will all remember his passionate radicalism, impish humour, quick mind, wild hair, the great photos, the ever present blue jumper – and I want to think bicycle clips too – and the fact that the thesis that eventually never came to fruition was at one time written on the back of a single punch card…he was into relational databases before the term was invented by the software giants. But we won’t be sad – as there was always laughter in the grad room
I missed the email from Sue – new email address – so the first I knew of Ryan’s death was the obituary in the Guardian. Paul phoned to tell me. We were both utterly shocked. If ever there was a life force, it was Ryan. The wild hair and beard. That wonderful smile. This may sound odd but he always seemed innocent and optimistic. There was something open and childlike. I can’t remember him ever being negative or nasty, despite being involved in some tense political issues and the fact that he was quite capable of driving others to distraction by his stubborn refusal to give up on any issue that mattered to him – and so many did!
We met him through the Inner London Region of NATFHE in the early eighties. After we left London, we ran into him in Brighton and he and Sue always came to our summer parties. It was Ryan who told us to go and watch the starlings swooping round the West Pier in Brighton – as enthusiastically as if he’d just seen it for the first time. They don’t swoop around the remnants of the pier as they used to but they are still there. We will never see them without thinking of him.
So many wonderful memories. I first met Ryan at BHSGS, after I joined in 1964.
He was always the one for action and as a great lover of music we saw many bands of the era together.
He remains an inspiration. ‘What would Ryan have said’ is now firmly established as a criteria for my decisions.
Nothing lasts for ever but I wish Ryan had.
Best wishes to Sue.
Nick.
As Ryan’s GP, I got to know him better during the final few years of his life. As he was so instrumental in the founding of Killick Street Health centre, I felt particularly honoured to be involved with Ryan and Sue in this very delicate time. I felt rewarded by knowing Ryan as he was so endlessly curious about so many things, and this together with his innate intelligence and passion – these made him a fascinating man to be around. Of course, there was no Ryan without Sue, and I feel that I must mention how well she cared for him and has coped with his very difficult and protracted illness.
My heartfelt condolences to Sue and Ryan’s family and friends.
Just read this now, Really sad to hear about Ryan’s passing. He was my lecturer at South Bank Poly back in the 1980s and I had a huge respect for his knowledge and ability as a lecturer. My belated sincere condolences to family.
Martin McGannon-Dublin,Ireland South Bank 1987-1991.
Thanks for this Martin. Ryan remains much missed and will always be remembered by the community here in King’s Cross.
Only just stumbled upon this tragic news. I was one of Ryan’s contemporaries at Brighton Grammar in the 60s. He was, to say the least, one of the more eccentric characters at the school and thus always memorable. Apart from failing to persuade me to go with him to spend time in a muddy field in the US to see a couple of rock bands in the late 60s (which was how I missed Woodstock), he allowed me a space on his Caledonian Road flat floor when I first hit London in the early 70s. I moved on but had no idea until now that he never did. A true stalwart of the community who’ll be sorely missed. Rock on Ryan.