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Remembering staunch trade unionist Bob Gillespie – ‘a street fighter, a tiger’
Gillespie, pictured during the Glasgow Govan by-election of 1988

BOB GILLESPIE who died on April 12 aged 85, was a staunch trade unionist and socialist, well-known and respected in the Scottish trade union and labour movement.

From humble beginnings he became a national officer of the print unions Sogat and GPMU.

Born in 1937, Robert Pollock Gillespie was evacuated to Ayrshire with his mother during the second world war. His father was an infantryman serving overseas.

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