Janey Buchan

Janey O'Neil Buchan (née Kent; 30 April 1926 – 14 January 2012) was a Scottish Labour Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the Glasgow constituency from 1979 to 1994.

Janey Buchan
Born
Jane O'Neil Kent

30 April 1926
Glasgow
Died14 January 2012
Brighton
OccupationMember of European Parliament (1979-1994)

Early life

Jane Kent was born in Glasgow,[1] a city where her father Joseph was a tram driver, and her mother Chrissie Sinclair was a domestic servant.[2] She left school at the age of 14, and worked as a typist. Both parents were members of the Communist Party,[3] and she was a member of the Young Communist League in her early life; she left the Communist Party after 1956.[4]

She attended commercial college and was a councillor on Strathclyde Regional Council from 1974 to 1979, when she was elected to the European Parliament in the in 1979 for the first time.[4] As an MEP she sat on the European Parliament's Culture Committee as well as being involved in the Scottish Arts Council and Scottish Gas Consumers Council. She was Life President of the Scottish Minorities Group (later Scottish Homosexual Rights Group and subsequently Outright Scotland).[5]

Her lifetime of activity encompassed many fields. She was an early and active campaigner against apartheid and for nuclear disarmament. She was a supporter of Scottish traditional music and arts,[2] and booked Pete Seeger for his first concert abroad after his passport was reissued in 1961.[4] She helped run the People's Festival in 1949-52 during the Edinburgh Festival; the events she worked on to helped create the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. As a Glasgow city councillor, she organised the first charity Christmas card sales in the UK. As a member of the council's arts committee she was instrumental in providing funding for the first films made by Bill Forsyth, who went on to direct major UK and Hollywood films including Local Hero.[6]

Personal life

In 1946, at the age of 19 Jane Kent married Norman Buchan, a schoolteacher who later became Labour MP from 1964 for West Renfrewshire, and later Paisley South.[4] He died in 1990. Buchan died at a nursing home in Brighton, East Sussex, in 2012, aged 85 years.[7][8] She was survived by her brother, Enoch Kent, her son Alasdair (a journalist), four grandchildren and one great-grandson.[4]

The papers of Norman and Janey Buchan were donated to Glasgow Caledonian University.[3] The Janey Buchan Political Song Collection is held in the University of Glasgow's School of Culture and Creative Arts.[9][10] Her parliamentary papers are also archived.[11] In 2019, she was one of the candidates for "Greatest Glaswegian" in the Glasgow Times.[12]

References
  1. "Former Glasgow MEP Janey Buchan dies". The Herald. Glasgow. 16 January 2012. Retrieved 16 January 2012.
  2. McSmith, Andy (18 January 2012). "Janey Buchan: MEP who fought for artistic and political causes". The Independent. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
  3. "Janey Buchan (1926 - 2012)". Glasgow Caledonian University. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
  4. "Janey Buchan obituary". The Guardian. 18 January 2012. Retrieved 22 January 2018.
  5. John Hein (18 January 2012). "Former MEP, civil rights campaigner and patron of the arts Janey Buchan has died aged 85". Pink News.
  6. "Anti-apartheid campaigner Janey Buchan dies aged 85". BBC. 16 January 2012.
  7. "Janey Buchan". The Telegraph. 22 January 2012. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
  8. "Ex-Labour MEP Janey Buchan dies, aged 85". The Scotsman. 16 January 2012. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
  9. Powles, John. "Janey Buchan: A Biographical Introduction". University of Glasgow Political Song Collection. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
  10. "Songs from left and right". The Irish Times. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
  11. Janey Buchan Parliamentary Papers,
  12. Fotheringham, Ann (4 September 2019). "Greatest Glaswegian: Gorbals businessman Willie Haughey and politician Janey Buchan". Glasgow Times. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
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