Cover: Bristol’s Red Notes Choir singing songs from the Spanish Civil War in Castle Park beneath the city’s memorial to the four Bristolians who died in Spain. Issue 1-2025 of the IBMT digital magazine, ¡No Pasaran!, has been emailed to all paid-up members. The first feature of this issue is David Grant's modern assessment of […]
Jim Jump on the Fife coalminer, illustrator, poet and International Brigader who was ‘small in stature, large in life’ … Born on 21 August 1912 in Denbeath, Fife, Hugh Smith Sloan was the son of Elizabeth and Richard Sloan, a pit sinker and miner. The eldest of five, from an early age he developed a […]
We have plenty to look forward to in 2025, with the autumn looking especially busy. In October, we’ll be in Belfast for the Trust’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) after 18 years away. I’d like to thank local members, particularly Lynda and Ernest Walker, of the IBMT-affiliated International Brigade Commemoration Committee, for their enthusiastic proposal – […]
Poet John Cornford and writer Ralph Fox were among 13 British and Irish International Brigaders remembered at an international symposium in Lopera, the town near Córdoba where they were killed during fighting 88 years ago. Seven of the 13 killed were Irish, reflecting the high proportion of volunteers from Ireland in the 145-strong English-speaking No.1 […]
The draw for the IBMT’s 2024 ¡No pasarán! raffle took place online on Wednesday 11 December 2024. Congratulations to all the winners – your prizes will be with you in the new year! First prize – £500 towards a weekend trip to Madrid including a personalised guided tour of the Prado museumWinner Brian Ferris 1st Second prize – Six […]
Helen Oclee-Brown reviews ‘A Gypsy and a Rebel: Lillian Urmston in the Spanish Civil War’ by Linda Palfreeman and Alicia García López (The Clapton Press, 2024). Lillian Urmston was only 19 when she volunteered as a nurse in the Spanish Civil War. Driven by a strong sense of social justice, she went to Spain because […]
Jim Jump writes… Apart from working in the food industry in the 1930s, what do bakery worker Basil Abrahams from London’s East End, Bristol cook William Dempsey, Fulham milk roundsman Les Gibson and Hartlepool chef Herbert Riding all have in common? They were among the dozens of bakers and food and hospitality workers who volunteered […]
IBMT Historical Consultant Richard Baxell used his talk at the Trust's July 2024 commemoration in London's Jubilee Gardens to share the story of Battersea volunteer George Wheeler … I’d like to talk to you today about a British volunteer, who lived just down the road from here. He was one of many who were taken prisoner […]
Robert Hargreaves reports from the Oldham Histories Festival, where Graham Briggs gave an illustrated talk about the lives of the Oldhamers who fought in the Spanish Civil War … IBMT stalwart Graham Briggs ensured that Oldham’s ten Brigaders figured prominently in the town’s September history festival. Graham organised and presented an illustrated talk on the […]
IBMT member Robert Hargreaves reports on the campaign for a new memorial in North West England … Proud Salford, for so long overshadowed by the adjacent city of Manchester, is fired up to reclaim its place in the history of the British Battalion and the Spanish Civil War. At least 30 men and women from […]
IBMT Scotland Secretary Mike Arnott shares the story behind an unusual memorial in Carbeth, Scotland … Carbeth is a small hamlet in the beautiful rural hills and woodlands of Stirlingshire, nine miles north of the former shipbuilding town of Clydebank. The history of the Carbeth Hutters begins when returning soldiers from the First World War […]
Article by IBMT Chair Jim Jump for the September/October issue of Educate, journal of the NEU education workers’ union. Not only was the Spanish Civil War one of the major conflicts of the last century. It also has a special place in British trade union and radical history. Yet, despite being a prelude to the […]
