COUNCILLOR Agnes McLean, the Strathclyde region woman's rights
campaigner who became a celebrity after dancing to Latin American
rhythms in a BBC documentary film made in Cuba, has died in the Southern
General Hospital, Glasgow.
Councillor McLean, who was 73, was the member for Glasgow's Central
and Calton ward and suffered a stroke 10 days ago.
A regional councillor for 12 years -- she was previously on the former
Glasgow Corporation -- Councillor McLean was born in Scotland Street,
Ibrox, and remembered John MacLean visiting her home, something which
probably influenced her lifelong work first as a communist and then as a
socialist activist for workers' rights.
She started work at 14 as a bookbinder in Collins before going on to
the shop floor at the Rolls-Royce aero-engine factory at Hillington.
Councillor McLean was a wartime crane driver who fought for trade
union recognition in 1941 and equal pay in 1943. She spent 36 years with
the company for many of which she was a leading shop steward. She
retired at 55 to look after her mother.
Councillor McLean travelled as a representative of the World
Federation of Trade Unions, attending conferences in many capitals.
Some years ago she was awarded the Trades Union Congress gold badge,
the highest honour then given to a rank and file trade unionist, in
recognition of her work.
Councillor McLean, who never married, once had a childhood ambition to
be a ballet dancer. But she could never have foreseen that it was her
love of dancing that would make her known well beyond the boundaries of
Glasgow and the West of Scotland.
She achieved celebrity status when she took part in a television
programme for BBC Scotland's Ex-S series called In Cuba They're Still
Dancing. The film won a Bafta award and only two weeks ago it was
reported that the producers wanted her for a new series of dance
programmes.
Councillor McLean, who was deselected at a ward meeting in March, was
a member of many outside organisations including the Scottish Opera
Advisory Council and the Theatre Royal Board of Management, as well as
Glasgow Association for Conference and Tourism Services, and Blindcraft
Scotland executive development council.
