We were sad to hear of the death last week of one of the members of the project’s Steering Group, Tony Lucas.

Tony was well known within the Musicians’ Union, having been a member of the Central London Branch committee and the London District Council while working as a member of the BBC Concert Orchestra.

After the BBC strike of 1980 he decided to become more involved in the Union, and, the following year, left the orchestra to take up a full time position within as the Union’s North West District Organiser and Manchester Branch Secretary.

Being based in the city where the Union was formed, it was perhaps unsurprising that he became interested in the Union’s history.

Finding minute books from the previous century in the Union’s Manchester office, he told The Musician in 1982 that he could “almost feel the ghost of the past while working in the office on a silent evening.”

In the same feature he spoke of how he hoped to “collect all this old material together and make a corner for any member who is really interested in the history of the Union to come and browse.”

This interest in the Union’s back story helped pave the way for, thirty years later, the locating of the Union’s archives at the University of Stirling and made this project (and hopefully others in the future) possible.

In retirement, Tony remained interested and involved in the Union’s work: he attended the recent Biennial Conference in Manchester and had been, both formally and informally, a great supporter of our work, donating both his time and his papers freely.

We will miss his contributions greatly.