SCOTLAND: THOMAS ‘TAM’ ADAMS: WHO DARES WINS

Tribute to one of Scotland’s ‘National Treasures’ in his 90th Year.

On 2 January 2023, a POA stalwart and dear friend to all of us celebrated his 90th birthday in the company of his lovely wife Ethel and their family, and we couldn’t let the moment pass without acknowledging the moment here in our magazine.

Some of you will recognise Tam from the photos alongside this article, but many of us – those in Scotland particularly – won’t need the photos to recall who Tam is (or Ethel!) given they have both been a constant feature of our annual conferences since most of us can remember. There are lots of things about the annual conference we all look forward to and enjoy, but catching up with our HLMs is without doubt one of the highlights. Tam and Ethel are a very big part of why that is the case, given the fantastic company they both are, and the genuine respect and warmth we have for them.

Tam has lived an eventful and colourful life and is an exservice veteran, having joined the army at 17 and signed up as a signalman, training at the Royal Corps of Signals in Dorset. After a spell in Hong Kong, Tam volunteered to go to Malaya as part of the Malayan Scouts unit, formed by the SAS. Commonwealth forces were at war at the time with the Malayan National Liberation Army. Tam was part of a near 60-strong group of paratroopers who were dropped into the jungle in a remote Perak river valley 20 miles south of the Siamese border.

At only 19 years of age, Tam was the youngest of those on the mission, and at a 60-year reunion in London in 2012, he was the only surviving Scot to make the trip. Tam actually spent six years in the jungles of Malaya and was sent a MacDuff shortbread tin and ceramic key for his 21st birthday from his mum. He had held on to both of those treasured items all his life, until recently. Tam and Ethel’s granddaughter Leah turned 21 in October last year, and Tam handed the items on to her after having kept them safe for 69 years!

Tam and Ethel continue to live in Peterhead and the local press covered his time in the SAS in an article to commemorate the reunion in 2012. Some of the information here, as well as the photo, has been taken from that article.

Tam joined the prison service after his time in the SAS, which is how we have come to know him. He worked in HMP Aberdeen, Barlinnie, and then in HMP Peterhead before retiring in 1988. In his time in the service Tam served on local branch committees before being elected to the NEC of the SPOA. He is synonymous of a time back then when there was no ‘partnership’ agreement in place, no facility time their members. Significant amounts of the work they did in representing members or preparing for disciplinary cases etc, were being done in their own time, off-shift. Trade unions today owe a huge debt to those who came before us and took on those responsibilities – often at great risk to themselves from less-than-impressed employers of the time.

That commitment and camaraderie is epitomised by the fact that Tam has attended every single Scottish conference since his retirement, and the vast majority of the UK conferences since the merger of the POA and SPOA too.

For those of us who have the good fortune to get to meet up with both Tam and Ethel at each of these occasions, it is a genuine pleasure that we look forward to enormously. They both simply brighten the place up and make us smile without fail every time. We know how much of an effort it is to keep making that effort and journey each year, and we are incredibly grateful (and proud!) that they both still feel they want to join us each year.

We hope that is for a good few more years yet, but in the meantime, a belated very happy 90th to you Tam, and we look forward to seeing you both again very soon. l

PHIL FAIRLIE
ASSISTANT GENERAL SECRETARY