FORMER Prime Minister and local MP, Gordon Brown, this week paid tribute to Willie Clarke, the Benarty councillor who has retired after 43 years serving as a councillor.

Mr Brown said that Willie’s commitment to better conditions for working families had been the hallmark of a life devoted to the service of the people of his community in Benarty and over recent years also the Lochs ward.

The by-election to find a replacement for the Ballingry man takes place this Thursday.

Mr Brown, who was the local MP for 30 of the 43 years Willie served as a councillor, observed that Willie is to 'rightly receive the Freedom of Fife at the end of the month'.

Mr Brown said this week: "Elected for the first time to the old Fife County Council for the Ballingry ward on Tuesday May 8,1973, he was sworn in on Wednesday May 9; but a day later Willie was on his way to work at the Seafield Colliery – where he was Branch Secretary – when he was told it had suffered a pit disaster.

"A report following the public inquiry into the accident exposed the fact that the supports in the Dysart main seam were not sufficiently stable for the steep incline on which they were used. Five men lost their lives, the youngest only 20 years old. And as miners searched for weeks in the vain hope of finding their comrades, Willie the senior trade union official at the pit, was their leader.

"And fighting on these two fronts – the industrial and political – has been the story of Willie’s life – most recently for the last seven years as councillor for the Lochs ward which includes Kelty and Kingseat. And before that, from 1974, as the Regional Councillor for the villages of Ballingry, Crosshill, Lochore and Glencraig.

"And in the thirty years I was MP for the area I was privileged to work with Willie as we fought for justice for the miners and mining communities, argued for better facilities for the Benarty area, demanded an improved NHS and education service, and fought for the jobs the Fife people needed for their future."

Willie was born 81 years ago, in 1935, in Glencraig, at a time of severe hardship and unrest in mining communities and where the demand for improved conditions led to the election in that year of Willie Gallacher as a Communist Member of Parliament for West Fife.

He added: "His mother Christina, who died in 2008 at the age of 97, was determined that from an early age Willie was well read and she impressed upon him the importance of education and widening his knowledge – a lesson he never forgot as he fought for better educational opportunities for all the children of his constituents.

"Willie moved from Glencraig Primary School to Lochgelly East School in 1947, and he entered his teens at an exciting moment as under the post-war Labour Government came the nationalisation of the pits, the creation of the welfare state and the public ownership of the steelworks, the railways, gas and electricity, as well as a mass house building programme with the jewel in the crown the creation of the National Health Service free when people needed it.

"By 1950 at the age of 15, Willie was in work and got his first job at Glencraig Pit working on the surface for the first year until he was legally able to go down the mines at the age of 16. Working alongside Willie in Glencraig was another young activist by the name of Lawrence Daly, who had been brought up in the same street as Willie, South Glencraig Street, and who would go on to become the General Secretary of National Union of Mineworkers.

"Willie would also start out on the industrial path, serving first on the Youth Committee of the National Union of Mineworkers and then being elected as pit delegate at Glencraig in 1960 – a position he would hold till the pit closed in 1966 – before moving to Seafield in Kirkcaldy and soon becoming Branch Secretary there – as well as Treasurer of Glencraig Miners Club from 1969 to 1995 when it closed.

"In 1976 a tragic car accident involving Lawrence Daly led to the death of Scottish NUM Executive member, and another fellow Glencraig man, Johnny Stewart, and Willie took the decision to stand for election to the 12-man Scottish Executive of the NUM and was elected, a position he held until he retired from the pits in 1987.

"In the two historic miners’ strikes of the 1970’s and in the bitter 1980s strike, Willie was to be in demand – speaking at meetings all over the UK and making the case and building moral and financial support for the miners in their struggle. As always Willie led from the front.

"In all this he was assisted by his wife Betty and her role in supporting Willie and bringing up their family - 7 sons, 5 daughters-in-law, 9 grandchildren and 3 great grandchildren - is acknowledged by all and deserves recognition.

"Like all great miners’ union campaigners, Willie believed in the power of education. ‘Rise to the Light’ is the school motto of Beath High School down the road – reminding us of the miners’ dream that their sons and daughters would have the education they had all too often been denied.

"Willie’s demand for a new high school for children in the area led to the completion of the new Lochgelly High School in 1985 to be followed by a revamped Benarty Primary School. It also allowed the former Crosshill School to become an Education and Training Centre run by the Benarty Regeneration Group – again with Willie's support – and the former primary school was converted into a Community Centre for the area. Out of Ballingry also arose one of the most successful Credit Unions in the country and most recently the new Benarty Community Centre – with a library, meeting facilities, a café and policing on tap – was built with Willie negotiating the original planned investment of £2 million up to £3.8 million."

The former MP went on: "In recent years Willie was also instrumental in driving Fife Council’s decentralisation agenda, bringing the Council and decision making closer to communities, and was the well-respected chair of the Cowdenbeath Area Committee.

"In the 30 years I have worked with Willie I have come to respect his integrity, commitment, personal modesty and boundless desire for justice and compassion. While not of the same party we have, however, shared the same determination to fight for full employment, the best universal public services and the eradication of poverty and inequality.

"What stands out in my mind was how the communities of Benarty and beyond came together to support each other in the miners’ strike of the 1980s. Then the Tory Government transferred the relief of poverty in our area from the Social Security Office to the soup kitchen.

"Each week I toured the 10 strike centres in the constituency including the centres at Lochore and Ballingry. Willie and I worked with Bert Gough, the Fife Regional Convener, to ensure that Section 12 of the Social Work Scotland Act 1068, was used to help support mining families and prevent destitution – a decision for which the Fife Council was unfairly surcharged by the Tories.

"And when the strike ended we had to fight the vicious and vindictive attempt by the National Coal Board to victimise the strikers by dismissing more than 200 from future employment. Willie, I and others fought this, with the backing of Mick McGahey the Scottish miners’ leader, and we managed to get on our side all the local churches and even the police – the same officers who had arrested many of the victimised men but who agreed that their only real crime was fighting for their jobs and their families. It was a campaign which showed mining solidarity at its best, bringing Fife together and uniting all people of goodwill. And we won: all the dismissed miners were offered their jobs back.

"Willie’s commitment to better conditions for working families has been the hallmark of a life devoted to the service of the people of his community. There are many monuments to his devotion – the new community centre, BRAC, the schools are just some of them. But the greatest monument to his life of service is the strong sense of community he has created around him and his belief that an injury to one is an injury to all."