The Course of Love

"I have never had time for love affairs," said Bachelor Norman Kennedy, 40. "My love has been the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers."

For more than 20 years, he had held various jobs with the woodworkers' union. But he had a second love--he was a Communist. Last spring, by then London district secretary for his union, Kennedy heard shop stewards' gossip about the cost of remodeling 124-year-old Clarence House for Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip.* Later, he broadcast the gossip on the ABC's News of Tomorrow program; the repairs, he said, would cost about $1,000,000, or five times the sum appropriated for it by Parliament. (Minister of Works Charles Key denied that the original appropriation would be "materially exceeded.") The amount spent on ventilators in the kitchen and a chandelier in the library, cried Communist Kennedy, would have built homes for 150 workers.

Last week the union's executive board accused him of bringing his beloved Woodworkers "into discredit," fired him despite an appeal from his $1,700-a-year job, said he could hold no union job for ten months. Kennedy said he had kept his hand in at carpentering, but feared no one would hire him; he had a brother and a widowed mother to support. Said he truculently: "I am convinced that my dismissal is part of the campaign against the Communists . . ."

* Scarcely a month after moving in, Prince Phil ip last week was recalled (at his own request) to active duty as a lieutenant with the Royal Navy, after ten months on the half-pay list.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.