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Anthony L Church is the writing and performance name of the political (Socialist Party) and trade union activist Tony Church. Church was born in Leicester, where he still lives. His father were George William Church (known as Bill), a painter and decorator by trade, but who spent long times unemployed and who often took manual work in factories. His mother was Gladys Eileen Church, who worked in the hosiery trade. Gladys was often the main breadwinner. Both parents died in 1984 within two days of each other from two different causes in two different Leicester hospitals.

Church attended Bosworth Community College, the establishment that made Leicestershire the first fully comprehensive county in the UK under the Mason Plan, named after the then Leicestershire director of education. The college's first principal was Cambridge academic and Rupert Brooke biographer, Timothy Rogers. Church left Bosworth aged eighteen in 1973 without gaining any A levels. Church is quoted as saying that Bosworth didn't give him any qualifications, but it gave him the best possible start in the adult world.

He joined the then Department of Health and Social Security and by 1978, he was secretary of the local Civil and Public Services Association branch. In 1980, he joined the Militant Tendency, but unlike many Militant supporters was not particular active in the Labour Party. Church saw his priority as trade union work. In 1987, however, he was successful (against strong opposition) in getting the union's annual conference to agree to affiliate to the Labour Party. The decision was never carried out.

Church who at times served on the union's national executive committee and who was a constant member of his department's group executive committee between 1986 and 1998 was a thorn in the side of the union's predominant right wing leadership and particularly the general secretary (1992 to 2000), Barry Reamsbottom. Peter Bruinvels, Conservative member of Parliament for Leicester East between the years 1983 and 1987 named Church twice in the House and suggested that he should be dismissed from his job. This followed Church leading a successful one week strike in Leicester social security offices during 1985 that secured additional staff.

Church was at the forefront in getting the Civil and Public Services Association and the other main civil service union, the Public, Tax and Commercial union to merge in 1998 to create the Public and Commercial Services union. He was a member of the union's national executive committee in 2000 when his arch-opponent, Reamsbottom attempted to stop left-winger, Mark Serwotka, from becoming general secretary. The matter was finally settled in the High Court who ruled that Serwotka was the rightful general secretary, a position he holds to this day. Whilst Serwotka is not a member of the Socialist Party, Church considers him a personal friend.

Church who had been a honorary assistant secretary of his group from 1992 decided to the surprise of many to resign his national union position in 2004 and return to working for the Department for Work and Pensions. He remained active in his local union branch.

In 1997, Church decided to take an A level in Drama in the evenings at his local community college. He gained an A grade in 1999. Church started acting in local groups and in 2000 appeared at the Leicester Haymarket Theatre Studio in Tom Stoppard's, The Real Inspector Hound. The same year, he joined Herrick Theatre and in addition to acting for them, he also wrote their 2002 Christmas show, Cinders, a Damon Runyon style adaptation of the traditional fairy tale. Church also directed several shows for Herrick. He left Herrick in 2006 citing disagreements on the direction the group wanted to take.

In 2006, Church started a degree with The Open University. He graduated in June 2013 at Ely Cathedral with a Bachelor of Arts first class honours degree in Literature. Whilst at the Open, Church met Paul Hollingsworth who invited him to appear as the Count Orsino in a 2013 production of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night at Loughborough's (Leicestershire)Fearon Hall. From this production, Church's current group, Stage Left Theatre Workshop, was born. For this group, Church wrote A Man of Humble Beginnings, a play about nineteenth and twentieth Leicester socialist, Amos Sherriff. Church performed this as a one-man show in October 2013. He also adapted Sue Townsend's The Queen and I performed in October 2014 as a tribute to Townsend who had died in March of that year. He is currently writing a version of Beauty and the Beast based on the re-telling of the tale by Angela Carter in her anthology, The Bloody Chamber.

In 2012, Church returned to national trade union work with the Public and Commercial Services union and is currently the elected editor of the Department for Work and Pensions group journal, Voice.