We gathered in West Melbourne on 2 March, at the Maritime Union of Australia hall, to celebrate the life of Peter Close.

There was Roger Wilson, Peter’s long-time comrade in the Seamen’s Union of Australia. The SUA was famous around the world for banning South African shipping. If a ship picked up a cargo from the blood-soaked apartheid regime, the SUA would withdraw labour in protest when the ship reached Australia. Peter was the SUA delegate for the tugboats on Melbourne’s Port Phillip Bay. Peter and his fellow workers held up millions of dollars worth of shipping, imposing a cost on the shipping lines for dealing with the murderous regime.  Peter was on the front line of this ordinary, extraordinary, display of workers’ power.

There was Perc White. Perc is, and Peter was, co-convener of the MUA Veterans. Retired from the job, but never retired from the struggle. Perc reminded us all what a gentle man Peter was. And finished with Robbie Burns, clear as a bell across the quietened union hall:

For a’ that, an’ a’ that,
That man to man, the world o’er,
Shall brothers be for a’ that.

There was Kevin Bracken, the MUA state secretary, recalling with a chuckle Peter’s mastery of the complex rosters that govern working life on the Port Phillip Bay tugs. Peter delighted in offering management a “choice” of two rosters – which were essentially the same, both excellent rosters for the workers, but which looked quite different to the unwary manager’s eye.

There was Davie Thomason, a lifelong militant in the maritime and construction industries, reminding us whose land it is. Davie’s dad, Magnus Bruce Thomason (Magnie Trow) survived World War Two, despite his ship being sunk by Nazi long range bombers. Merchant seamen died in their thousands in the war. When Davie started working on Australian ships, he found that each one had a plaque with an inscription from the SUA. The unionised workers on the ship, the plaques stated, had resolved that they would never allow that ship to be used for war. Anytime Peter looked at him, said Davie, he saw his father’s eyes.

There was Lucho Riquelme and Marisol Salinas from the Latin American Solidarity Network. Lucho recalled Peter’s 2010 solidarity visit to Colombia, in particular when Peter took an opportunity to denounce the vice president, to his face, as “a fucking murderer”. This year’s solidarity delegation will carry Peter’s name. 

There was me. I got to know Peter only in recent years, when he would come to Socialist Alternative events, sharing his stories and his spirit. I recounted just a bit of the education Peter gave me. I left out all the stories that involved shit, and its occasional use as an instrument of class revenge.

There was Sue Bolton from Socialist Alliance, who recalled Peter’s involvement as an organiser for the 26 “rebel unions”. These unions spearheaded one of the most famous strikes in Australian history, the rolling nationwide general strike that freed jailed tramway union leader Clarrie O’Shea in 1969.

There was Aboriginal activist Sharon Firebrace, recalling how Peter would turn up to her house, like clockwork, every Monday to help with her media work. There was the Wednesday Action Group. There were militants old and not so old, a whole crowd of us eating sandwiches, swapping stories, swapping notes on where our unions are at and the great challenges we face and all the rallies we’d been to, down the decades, with Peter, countless links of solidarity, the world over.