Saturday 26 April saw the unveiling of the Newham International Brigades Memorial in the Old Spotted Dog ground of Clapton Community Football Club (212 Upton Lane, London E7 9NP). Kevin Blowe of Clapton CFC tells the story behind the memorial…

Since launching our International Brigades-inspired away kit in 2018, we have wanted to mark the debt of gratitude owed to those who volunteered to join the fight against fascism in Spain.

We are grateful for the many new friends we have made along the way and it gives us great pride that CCFC has been able to finance a significant memorial to those who aided the fight for the Spanish Republic between 1936 and 1939.

IBMT President Marlene Sidaway unveils the memorial featuring lines from the poem 'I Sing of my Comrades' by her late partner and International Brigader David Marshall, who was a long-time Newham resident.

In March 2019, the club had asked to site a memorial in West Ham Park, but our proposal was rejected by the City of London Corporation.

After securing the Old Spotted Dog Ground in 2020, the plan shifted to installing it inside our ground, but a combination of the ongoing pandemic and then the need to have the ground ready for men’s and women’s first team games meant further delays.

Now, after years of planning, the Newham International Brigades memorial is being unveiled today.

The significance of 26 April is also that it marked the anniversary of the ‘carpet bombing’ of the Basque town of Guernica by combined German, Italian and Spanish fascist forces, which became the subject of Picasso’s famous painting. This finally convinced the British government to allow refugee children to travel to Southampton and a number of these children later went on to become professional football players in England and Spain.

The club asked local firm Rodwell Memorials, based in Manor Park, to create the memorial in red granite, which was ordered in September 2024.

In February 2025, volunteers began work on the concrete base, which was laid by some of the team from Hackney Bumps, an outdoor skate park in Clapton that we previously worked with to raise funds for Gaza Sunbirds and Pal Gaza.

The memorial pays special tribute to those from the area around the Old Spotted Dog who made that journey, whether to take up arms or to tend to the wounded. 

With the help of the International Brigade Memorial Trust we have so far identified 16 volunteers. As well as changes in the boundaries and administration of the area means that our list may have some omissions.

Billy Bragg performing at the unveiling.

Newham was not created until 1965 and births before that would have been registered to the borough of West Ham. Volunteers born in the area may also have only been known by their last address before signing up.

If you do know of any further volunteers from the area then please let us know, or inform the IBMT on admin@international-brigades.org.uk. You can search for further volunteers in the IBMT database.

Fred Adams
1911-1994 
Transport & General Workers’ Union
Born in West Ham, Fred Adams was a builder’s labourer, who fought at the Battle of Jarama in February 1937. He received two thigh wounds and was repatriated on medical grounds after eight months in Spain.

Joseph Caleno
1912-1963
Communist Party
Originally a boot repairer by trade, Joe Caleno spent 13 months in Spain and was cited for bravery at the Battle of Brunete. After sustaining an injury, he was sent home. Though born in Leicester, in 1939 he was living and working in West Ham Lane, Stratford, as a shopkeeper and tobacconist.

Percy Cohen
1901-1974 
Transport & General Workers’ Union
Stratford-born Percy Cohen served in Spain for 18 months as an ambulance driver before being repatriated in August 1938. His occupation was given as a provision merchant.

Max Colin
1912-1997
Young Communist League
Born in Stepney, Max Colin lived in Rosebery Avenue, Newham. He was a driver and mechanic, and served in that capacity for 10 months in Spain. He was wounded at the Battle of Brunete in the summer of 1937.

Charles Cormack
1912-1938
Communist Party
Born in Forest Gate, where he lived at 28 Vanisittart Road, Charles Cormack was killed on 27 August 1938 in the Battle of the Ebro on his 26th birthday. He had been in Spain for five months. He worked as a driver before joining the International Brigades.

James Cormack
1910-1991
Communist Party
James was the brother of Charles Cormack and they arrived together in Spain in March 1938. Born in Lambeth, he worked as a coach painter and also lived at 28 Vanisittart Road. He was wounded in the Battle of the Ebro in August 1938, losing three fingers, and returned home four months later. After the war he lived in Field Road, Forest Gate.

Cecil Cranfield
1906-1976
Labour Party
A former lightweight amateur boxing champion, Cecil Cranfield was born in Camberwell and worked as a salesman. His address was given as 194 Romford Road, Forest Gate, when he joined the International Brigades. He was a machine-gunner in Spain, where he remained for eight months, and was wounded in January 1938 at the Battle of Teruel.

George Degude
1910-1937
Communist Party
Born in West Ham, George Degude lived at Newington Hall Villas, Church Street, Stoke Newington. He arrived in Spain in February 1937 and was an ambulance driver. He sustained a fatal head injury at the Battle of Brunete in July 1937 and died soon afterwards.

Edward Dickinson
1903-1937
Industrial Workers of the World
Born in Grimsby, Edward Dickinson was a salesman and gave an address at 13 Upton Lane, Forest Gate, though he had a wife and daughter in Melbourne, Australia. He arrived in Spain in December 1936 and was captured at the Battle of Jarama in February 1937 while second-in-command of the British Battalion’s machine-gun company. He was shot on 13 February 1937 after protesting over the shooting of a fellow prisoner.

Gerrard Doyle
1907-1970
Communist Party
Gerrard Doyle was born in Limerick and was a driver and moulder. He gave his address as 2 Vale Road, Forest Gate. He served in Spain for 17 months and was wounded in fighting at Jarama and at Brunete in February and July of 1937. In March of the following year he was captured at Calaceite and was held at the prisoner of war camp at San Pedro de Cardeña, near Burgos, until returning home in October 1938 in a prisoner exchange with Italian troops.

Thomas Duncombe
1913-1938
Communist Party, National Union of General & Municipal Workers
Born in West Ham, Thomas Duncombe had an address at 37 Rosher Road, Stratford, when he arrived in Spain in February 1938. He was a labourer and was listed as missing, presumed killed, at Gandesa on 3 April of that year.

Leslie Huson
1907-1938
Communist Party, Transport & General Workers’ Union
Metallurgist Leslie Huson, born in West Ham, emigrated to Canada when he was 18 but returned home and was living in Clerkenwell when he joined the International Brigades in February 1938. He survived for only two months, dying of pneumonia in hospital in Valls, Catalonia.

David Marshall
1916-2005
Young Communist League
Arriving in Spain in August 1936, David Marshall, a civil servant from Middlesbrough, was one of the first volunteers in Spain. He was wounded at Cerro de los Ángeles, near Madrid, and repatriated in January 1937. After service in the British Army, he became a carpenter with Joan Littlewood’s drama company at the Theatre Royal in Stratford. He lived at 37 Reginald Road, close to West Ham Park, where there is a memorial bench to him.

John O’Connor
1915-1999
Communist Party, National Union of Railwaymen
Steel fixer John O’Connor, born in Poplar and living at 269 Upton Lane, Forest Gate, arrived in Spain in February 1938 and served for 10 months in the International Brigades. At the Battle of the Ebro in the summer of that year he was a cartographer and lookout with the British Battalion.

Pat O’Mahoney
1890-?
Canadian-born Pat O’Mahoney was a veteran of the Great War and lived at 137 Geere Road, West Ham. He was a nurse/masseur and arrived in Spain in February 1937. He was wounded at the Battle of Jarama later that month and sent home in May.

Gordon Siebert
1910-1990
Labour Party
Gordon Siebert was a clerk, born in West Ham. He arrived in Spain in October 1937 and did not return home until the end of the Spanish Civil War in April 1939, having been imprisoned for disciplinary offences.

IBMT Chair Jim Jump (foreground, in blue shirt) reads out the names of the Newham volunteers.

Students from the East 15 Acting School sang songs from the Spanish Civil War.

A banner of Picasso's Guernica was on display for the unveiling ceremony. It was created by Daisy Price Fernández, whose father was executed by the fascists early in the Spanish Civil War.

More photos from the event here:

A list with the 872 names of International Brigaders who died during the 1938 Battle of the Ebro has been compiled and published by the Memorial Democràtic agency of the Catalan government (Generalitat de Catalunya).

In English and Catalan, the new list identifies 95 volunteers from the UK and 15 from the Republic of Ireland – though there is some overlap between the two categories. Each name has a link containing information on the volunteer’s death.

This latest development is part of the agency’s Alvah Bessie Programme – named after a famous US volunteer – to locate the remains of all the Brigaders who died during the battle or as a result of injuries sustained in it. Last year a list of 522 volunteers, including 86 from Britain and six from Ireland, was published.

As part of the programme, family relative are being invited to come forward and register in Memorial Democràtic’s census of those who died or went missing in the fighting in Catalonia. They will have the option of providing a DNA sample for its genetic identification project. Anyone interested in taking part should contact the IBMT .

Plaque naming 90 British Battalion members who died during the Battle of the Ebro in the memorial garden of the Marx Memorial Library in London. The plaque was originally unveiled at a site on the battlefield but vandalised by Spanish neo-fascists, who cut it in pieces. The original has been replaced. Pictured studying the names is MML trustee Simon Renton.

IBMT Chair Jim Jump reports…

The ‘Echoes of Spain’ mosaic in London’s Portobello Road now has two plaques explaining the significance and origins of the memorial.

Located under the Westway flyover in the heart of the famous street market, the mural depicts the links between the Spanish Civil War and the Notting Hill area of West London. Several local volunteers joined the International Brigades and many Spanish Republican exiles settled in the neighbourhood.

One of the plaques is a key, indicating the various people and events that appear in the mosaic. A second plaque records that it was unveiled on 18 October 2005 by Spanish ambassador Carlos Miranda and International Brigade veteran and IBMT President Jack Jones.

The new plaques have been funded by the Westway Trust, which has worked with a group of local activists who help look after the memorial. One of them, Manuel Moreno, son of local Republican refugees, says the group has plans to add three further plaques and a QR code linking to more information. 

‘We want to give details about the International Brigades, the Basque refugee children and the Spanish Republicans who fought in the British Army in the Second World War, many of whom made this part of London their home.’

He added: ‘We also want to remember Eddie Adams, a prominent local progressive activist, who was the driving force behind the memorial.’

Manuel Moreno: plans for additional plaques.

Titled ‘They shall not pass – Echoes of Spain – 1936-1939 – Ecos de España – No pasarán’ and measuring five metres in length and more than two metres high, the mosaic pictures Portobello Road itself, on which are ‘Aid Spain’ campaigners and a red flag with the hammer and sickle, while the road disappears into a horizon of Basque mountains. 

In the centre is the Gernikako Arbola (Tree of Gernika), with bombs raining down on it and, further right, the Habana, with a refugee children crammed on the deck. 

Elsewhere are some of the volunteers in the International Brigades from North Kensington, which includes Notting Hill, historically a working-class area, but now one with extensive pockets of expensive housing. 

Also in the foreground is Mari Pepa Colomer (full name María Josep Colomer i Luque), among the first Spanish women to qualify as a pilot. She served with the Spanish Republic’s airforce during the Spanish Civil War and chose to live in England after the war.

The mosaic was created by students of Kensington and Chelsea College under the direction of artists Maureen Pepper and Barbara Gorton. Its dedication reads: ‘This mosaic commemorates the Spanish refugees who fled fascist Spain and those men and women from Kensington who fought in the International Brigade and supported the Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39 against Franco and his fascist allies.’

Words spoken by IBMT Chair Jim Jump at the unveiling of the memorial to the Doncaster International Brigade volunteers on 12 February…

First a big thank-you to Councillor David Shaw, former councillor Tosh McDonald and everyone at Doncaster City Council who has made this excellent memorial possible.

Eighty-eight years ago today, 12 February 1937, the British Battalion of the International Brigades went into action for the first time in the Jarama valley, south-east of Madrid. The battalion paid a heavy price: 150 men were killed, including one of the volunteers from Doncaster, Herbert Tagg of King’s Road, Doncaster. He was 43 and left a widow and three children.

Sheffield’s Daily Independent reported the death under the headline ‘Doncaster man killed in Spain fighting’, mentioning also a Leicester man, Fred Sykes, who was living in Sheffield before he travelled to Spain.

The report said: ‘Both men met their death in the decisive battle at Jarama on 27 February, when the British Battalion of the International Brigade successfully resisted the attempt of Franco’s forces to break through the Madrid-Valencia road.’

The report went on to say that in his last letter home Tagg wrote: ‘Here there is a fine army, a fine people and a fine purpose. I don’t want to come back until fascism is beaten.’

There is memorial olive tree behind an information board about the International Brigades.

Herbert Tagg was a miner, born in Oakerthorpe, Derbyshire. He had worked in collieries in the Mansfield area and been politically active for many years, including receiving three months hard labour after being arrested on a strike picket.

On that sense he was typical of many volunteers – working-class political and union activists who resisted the wage cuts of the 1920s and 30s, took part in Hunger Marches and rent strikes and fought Britain’s home-grown fascists.

They were, as folk director Ken Loach has said, ‘the cream of their generation’.

In the IBMT’s records there are 16 volunteers who went to Spain who were born or who died in Doncaster or who were living here when they set off to join the International Brigades.

There may well be more. The records are often patchy. Many gave false names or temporary addresses. They were after all defying their own government, which threatened to prosecute them for fighting in a foreign war.

Of the 2,500 volunteers from the British Isles, the fatality rate was more than one in five – 530 of them died in total.

But there must have been a lucky star over Doncaster at that time. Out of the local volunteers, only Herbert Tagg made the ultimate sacrifice.

Like him, six others were miners. We should name them all.

Hector Barber, born in Doncaster in 1906, was a wood saver canvasser in the coal mines and a member of the Yorkshire Miners’ Federation. He was wounded in the Battle of the Ebro in the summer of 1938 and spent several weeks in hospital in Vich. He is listed as a ‘Good comrade’ in the British Battalion files. He died, aged 78, in Doncaster in 1985.

Jack Foster, born in Hemsworth, lived in Grange Road, Moorends, Doncaster. He served in the John Brown Battery in Spain and is believed to have died in 1953.

Steve Gilks was born in Chesterfield and gave an address in Mansfield Crescent, Shelton. He died in Sheffield, aged 50, in 1951.

Charles Giles was an unemployed miner when he arrived in Spain, giving an address in Greendyke Lane, Doncaster. He was medically discharged in March 1937 soon after enlisting. However, he served in the West Yorkshire Regiment during the Second world War and was taken prisoner by the Japanese in Malaya in 1942. He died, aged 51, in Doncaster in February 1957.

Harold Horbury was born in Doncaster in 1904 and was a colliery surface worker. He gave an address in Barnsley when he arrived in Spain. He served in the British Battalion in the battles at Jarama, Brunete, Belchite, Aragón and Teruel and in the 15th Brigade’s kitchen from May 1938 until returning home in September of that year. He died in Barnsley in 1974, aged 70.

Tom Nottingham was born in Grimethorpe, but during the Spanish Civil War was living in Doncaster, where he died in 1960, aged 56. in Spain he was captured when the British Battalion was ambushed by Mussolini’s troops at Calaceite in March 1938. He was a prisoner of war for 10 months at the notorious San Pedro de Cardeña prison camp near Burgos before returning home in an exchange for Italian POWs.

The other nine Doncaster men were:

Frank Ayres, born in Doncaster, was a railway worker and active trade unionist. Aged 29, in 1925 he visited the Soviet Union as chair of Doncaster Trades Council. He spoke three languages and in Spain worked at Valdeganga hospital at Albacete and at Uclés hospital, in Cuenca. He also fought with 129th Artillery Division. He married a Spanish nurse, Anita de Ginar, both moving to live in Battersea, London, in 1939. He died, aged 86, in retirement in southern France.

Clockwise from left: Ralph Nicholas, Herbert Tagg, Clarence Wildsmith, Eugene Fogarty, Hector Barber, Tom Nottingham being greeted by his daughters on his return home, Thomas McNulty and Harold Horbury.

Eugene Fogarty was born in Washington DC and was a medic in Spain, working for seven months at Villanueva hospital. After the war he was a nurse at St Mary’s Hospital, London, until 1950 when he left for a similar position in Doncaster, where he died, aged 68, in 1968.

Thomas Greenfield’s service details are sketchy, but he gave an address in Catherine Street, Doncaster, when he arrived in Spain. 

William Hooton was a Doncaster-born painter. His service was brief and he was repatriated in May 1937. He emigrated to Australia in 1959, where he died seven years later, aged 67.

Thomas McNulty was born in Hanley, Staffordshire, but died in Doncaster, aged 71. He was a merchant seaman and fought with British and Lincoln Battalions at Brunete, Quinto, Belchite and Fuentes de Ebro.

Ralph Nicholas was a motor mechanic, born in Hitchen, but was living in Doncaster when he went to Spain in January 1937. He was wounded at the Battle of Brunete in 1937 and again at the Ebro in the following summer. It is not known when he died.

William Parlett was a labourer, born in Sunderland, but who died in Doncaster in January 2000 at the age of 88. He was taken prisoner at the Battle of Teruel in the winter of the 1937/38 and was a held at the San Pedro de Cardeña prison camp. In the Second World War he was decorated for his service in the merchant navy, which included the Arctic convoys to Russia.

Edward Whittaker was a fitter and mechanic, born in Pontefract in 1906, and known to be living in Doncaster in 1939 soon after he arrived back from Spain. He died in Doncaster, aged 84. In Spain he served as a company armourer.

Clarence Wildsmith was an electrician and billiard hall manager, born in Barnsley. His address was in Worcester Avenue, Wheatley. He fought with the 15th Brigade’s Anti-Tank Battery. He died in Doncaster, aged 83, in October 1988.

Today we remember these 16 men and all those who fought alongside them in Spain. We remember too all those who supported them at home as part of a mass ‘Aid for Spain’ movement. The movement showed – not for the first or last time – that millions of ordinary British people had more sense than their government at the time. 

They knew that fascism, that Hitler and Mussolini, had to be defeated in Spain or else there would be another world war.

By contrast the Conservative-led national governments of Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain were keen on appeasing the fascist dictators.

Their policy of ‘non-intervention’ was designed to facilitate a Franco victory in Spain. Such was their hostility to the progressive Popular Front government of the Spanish Republic that they were prepared to sacrifice democracy in Spain – as well as in Czechoslovakia – in the hope that the fascist dictators would leave the British Empire alone and instead attack the Soviet Union. 

There are many lessons here for today. Fascism has not gone away. Nor has the predilection of many liberal democracies to side with fascist or authoritarian regimes rather than with progressive governments and forces.

While in Doncaster, talking about the Spanish Civil War, we must mention one of its favourite sons, Rodney Bickerstaffe, former Unison general secretary and trustee and patron of the IBMT. 

He would have been proud to have been here today.

Rodney’s mother-to-be, Pearl Bickerstaffe, a Doncaster lass, was a children’s nurse in Thorp Arch. Still in her teens she compiled an extraordinary scrapbook about the war in Spain. The scrapbook’s two volumes were a prized family possession. This meant that Rodney carried Spain’s tragedy in his heart and knew about the heroism and sacrifice of the International Brigades and how, as his mother told him, the world should have listened to their warnings. 

Then, when Rodney became active in the trade union movement, his hero and mentor was Jack Jones, general secretary of the mighty Transport & General Workers’ Union, who had fought in the Battle of of the Ebro with the British Battalion.

Rodney was a founding trustee of the IBMT and later one its patrons. 

The IBMT keeps alive the memory and spirit of the men and women who fought fascism and defended democracy in the Spanish Civil War. Their example of International solidarity and anti-fascism, as the inscription on our national memorial on London’s Southbank puts it, ‘inspired the world’.

The final word today should go to one of the Doncaster volunteers, Tom Nottingham. The Doncaster Gazette reported his return home on 16 February 1939. A photo shows him with fellow volunteers Ralph Nicholas and Clarence Wildsmith being greeted by supporters including Mr AE Hall, Doncaster divisional Labour Party chairman, and Mrs Tagg, widow of Herbert Tagg. 

Soon afterwards he wrote a full-page article for the Gazette headlined ‘Ten months in Franco prison’, telling of his time as a POW. He concluded by saying: ‘It has been a big ordeal and I feel very weak through having insufficient food for so long – I lost 31lbs during my imprisonment – but I would go out and fight again if the call came, in the interests of democracy against fascism.

Supporters at the unveiling on 12 February, including David Shaw (right), Tosh McDonald (fifth from right) and Jim Jump (back, centre).

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 – we know a warm reception awaits us!

Following the AGM, we hope to welcome back three leading historians of the Spanish Civil War – Helen Graham, Paul Preston and Richard Baxell – for what I’m sure will be another fascinating Len Crome Memorial Conversation.

Then November marks the 50th anniversary of Franco’s death, and we’ll be celebrating 50 years of democracy in Spain.

Thanks to your ongoing support, the Trust’s financial position is now improving and we can carry on our much-needed work.

As approved at the AGM, to continue our efforts (and to cover the increasing costs that we all face), membership subs will go up modestly this year: the individual rate from £25 a year to £27.50; the concessionary rate from £20 to £22.

Concessionary membership is open to anyone who receives long-term unemployment or sickness benefit, who qualifies for income or pension credits or who is on the minimum wage.

Another change means scrapping the household category of membership. This category was originally designed to avoid sending multiple copies of the magazine to the same address; however, it is no longer needed because the magazine is now sent out digitally or by subscription.

Note that these changes won’t come into effect until April, so you are welcome to renew at the current rates until then.

We know how fragile democracy can be. In the January issue of ¡No pasarán! you can read Juan López Páez’s report on how rightwing parties in Spain are manipulating Franco’s memory for their own ends. 

We owe it to the volunteers to keep their memory and spirit alive and to continue to share their fight for democracy and against fascism.

With your backing, our financial stability will translate into long-term health so that we can go on telling the stories of the International Brigades to future generations. 

Thank you so much for supporting us, Please, please continue to do so.

My very best wishes,

IBMT President Marlene Sidaway

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 Company of the mostly French Marseillaise Battalion that took part in the Battle of Lopera in December 1936. 

Until the creation of the British Battalion at the of the month, British and Irish volunteers were assigned to separate units in French and German battalions.

The symposium saw sculptor Frank Casey reunited with his relief portrait of John Cornford. He created the memorial in his studio in St Albans and it was shipped to Spain, where it was unveiled in 2019 in Lopera’s Jardín de los Poetas Ingleses (Garden of the English Poets).

This was the first time that the Scottish-born sculptor had seen his bronze tribute to Cornford – a Cambridge graduate and the great grandson of Charles Darwin – who died on 28 December 1936, the day after his 21st birthday.

Frank Casey beside his memorial bust of John Cornford.

Also commemorated in the town’s memorial garden is the novelist and biographer Ralph Fox, who was killed on the same day, aged 36. He was a renowned journalist, novelist, and historian, best remembered as a biographer of Lenin and Genghis Khan.  

The occasion was an international congress in Lopera on the International Brigades and the Battle of Lopera on 13/14 December. It brought together experts and writers on the International Brigades from several countries.

They included French historian Rémi Skoutelsky, Giles Tremlett, author of ‘The International Brigades: Fascism, Freedom and the Spanish Civil War’ (2021) and local historian José Luis Pantoja Vallejo – the congress convener – who with brother Antonio has written a detailed study of the battle ‘La XIV Brigada Internacional en Andalucía’ (2006).

Ralph Fox is pictured (centre) on the poster for the event in Lopera.

There was also a session on the memory of the International Brigades, with representatives from memorial groups in France, Poland and Spain taking part, as well as IBMT Chair Jim Jump from Britain. Another speaker was Harry Owens of the Friends off the International Brigades in Ireland.

Speaking about how the volunteers are remembered in Britain, Jump said that interest and admiration for them remained high, with new books being written about then and new memorials being raised in their honour.

Jim Jump (standing) addressing the symposium, with pictures of John Cornford and Ralph Fox projected behind him.

‘They are held in great esteem for being the first Britons to fight fascism and for being proved right by history,’ he added.

Frank Casey said he was delighted to again see his memorial to John Cornford. ‘It’s in the right place, so near to where he died among the love trees.’

Casey is also known for creating the Blockade Runners Memorial in Glasgow in tribute too thew merchant navy crews who continued to sail ships to Spanish Republican-held ports despite attacks by German, Italian and Francoist planes and submarines.

This poem by John Cornford (above) dates from 1936, shortly before his death. It is dedicated to his girlfriend Margot Heinemann.

Heart of the heartless world,
Dear heart, the thought of you
Is the pain at my side,
The shadow that chills my view.

The wind rises in the evening,
Reminds that autumn is near.
I am afraid to lose you,
I am afraid of my fear.

On the last mile to Huesca,]
The last fence for our pride,
Think so kindly, dear, that I
Sense you at my side.

And if bad luck should lay my strength
Into the shallow grave,
Remember all the good you can;
Don’t forget my love.

This year’s Len Crome Memorial Conversation features a discussion between three leading historians of the Spanish Civil War: Paul Preston, Helen Graham and Richard Baxell.

They will be talking on the topic:
Public support and governmental obstruction: differing British responses to the struggle of the Spanish Republic.

The IBMT-organised event will take place from 2pm to 3.30pm on Saturday 9 November both online and ‘in person’ at the Marx Memorial Library, 37a Clerkenwell Green, London EC1R 0DU.

All three participants are prolific authors and internationally renowned experts on the Spanish Civil War and the International Brigades.

Paul Preston’s latest book is ‘Perfidious Albion: Britain and the Spanish Civil War’ (The Clapton Press, 2024). Richard Baxell’s latest is ‘Forged in Spain’ (The Clapton Press, 2023). Helen Graham’s sixth book, provisionally titled ‘Lives at the Limit’ will be interwoven biographies of five people who passed through the war in Spain.

Len Crome Memorial Conversation is named after the Lancashire GP Len Crome who became the chief medical officer of the Spanish Republic's XV Army Corps, including the 15th International Brigade. The annual event has been running since 2002, first as a lecture, then as a conference and now as an online conversation.

Attendance at the library or online is free, although the IBMT is recommending a donation of £10 to support the Trust's educational and commemorative work. Book your ticket here via Eventbrite.

Richard Baxell (top left), Paul Preston (top right) and Helen Graham speaking at the 2023 Len Crome Memorial Conversation.

The IBMT’s 2024 AGM will be held on 5 October from 2.30pm-4pm in The Stable, 3-6 Wadham Street, BS23 2JY.

All members can attend and take part in proceedings.

The AGM is part of a weekend of commemorative, educational and social activities in Weston-super-Mare and Bristol from the evening of Friday 4 October to Sunday 6 October, ending around midday.

Provisional programme

Friday
7pm: Reception at The Stable (use entrance at 129 High St, Weston-super-Mare BS23 1HN).
8pm: Evening entertainment, including a flamenco performance.

Saturday
11am: Talk by Dave Chapple about local Brigader Andy Andrews followed by a 15-minute break.
12pm: Talk by IBMT Archivist Alan Lloyd on the volunteers from South West England. 
1pm: Time to explore Weston.
2.30pm: AGM (see agenda below) in The Stable (see above).
4.30pm: Performance by Spanish guitarist.
5pm: Buffet.
6pm: Musical performance about West Country volunteers and the Basque children evacuees at the Clark’s family home in Street, Somerset, featuring poetry, live music, song and dance.
7pm: Social in the bar until late.

Sunday
9.50am: Meet at Weston-super-Mare station, Station Approach, Weston-super-Mare, BS23 1XY for 10.10am departure to Bristol Temple Meads station, Station Approach, off Bath Road, Bristol, BS1 6QF (journey time 34 minutes).
11.15am: Commemoration at the memorial in Castle Park, Broad Weir, Bristol, BS1 3XB (51.45558, -2.5895).

Agenda

1. Chair’s opening remarks
2. Approval of the minutes of the 2023 AGM
3. Matters arising from the minutes not otherwise on the agenda
4. Executive Committee’s annual report
5. Finance report, including 2023-2024 accounts
6. Election of two scrutineers
7. Election of four Executive Committee members (see below) 
8. Date and place of 2025 AGM
9. Any Other Business (previously notified)
10. Scrutineers’ report of election results
11. Chair’s closing remarks

Nominations for the Executive Committee

Nominations are invited for candidates to fill four vacancies on the Executive Committee. If necessary, a ballot will be held among members attending the AGM.

The vacancies arise because Alan Lloyd, Dolores Long and Luke O’Riordan will have completed their terms of office by the AGM. In addition, there is another vacancy because of an earlier resignation.

All IBMT members may nominate fellow members to serve on the EC. The EC members who are stepping down are permitted to stand for election along with other IBMT members.

Nominations must be made in writing and received by the Secretary by 8am on Saturday 21 September. The names of the candidates will be published on the IBMT website in advance of the AGM. Proposed agenda items must be received by the Secretary by 8am on Saturday 28 September.

Nominations and proposed agenda items sent by email will be acknowledged. Otherwise send them by post to: IBMT Secretary, 37a Clerkenwell Green, London EC1R 0DU.

Hotels

The Grand Atlantic is a 10-minute walk from The Stable, where the AGM will be held. Other options include the Lauriston, five minutes from the venue, and Premier Inn Weston-Super-Mare (Seafront), 10 minutes from the venue.

Published 13 August 202; updated 26 August and 30 September.

Jim Jump reviews ‘Spanish Sky Spreads Its Stars: The story of the Thälmann Battalion and the first Germans in armed struggle against fascism’ by Ewald P Schulz (International Brigade Commemoration Committee, Belfast, 2024).

More than 4,000 Germans fought in the International Brigades or in the anti-fascist militias and other Spanish military units during the Spanish Civil War. Over 1,000 of them gave their lives.

Their story is recounted in this booklet by Ewald P Schulz, a Berlin-based lawyer and journalist who is active in the KFSR, the IBMT’s sister organisation in Germany. The booklet’s title is taken from the song ‘The Thälmann Column’ by composer Paul Dessau and his wife Gudrun: ‘Spain’s sky spreads its stars over our trenches / And the morning already greets from afar’.

Usually known as the Thaelmann Battalion in Spain, the battalion was named after Ernst Thälmann, leader of the KPD German Communist Party. He was arrested as soon as Hitler took power in 1933 and executed on the Führer’s personal orders in Buchenwald concentration camp in 1944.

As Schulz points out, the German volunteers differed from their British, Dutch, French and Scandinavian counterparts in that they were effectively homeless. Many were already in exile from Nazism and those who travelled to Spain from Germany could also not return home.

The same was true for the battalion’s Austrians following the Anschluss of March 1938, when Germany marched into Austria.

The decision to fight fascism in Spain – on occasions pitted against the airborne Condor Legion sent by Hitler to help Franco’s rebels – had a special meaning for the German volunteers.

‘For the first time they had the opportunity to stand up to the fascists and to oppose their violence,’ he writes. 

Between 60 and 70 per cent of the German volunteers were communists, the rest mostly social democrats, anarchists or supporters of other left organisations. ‘They were all united by the conviction that Spain should not suffer the same fate as Germany.’

Three Germans are given brief biographies. Hermann Drumm, a miner from Saarland in south-west Germany, was a member of the SPD social democrats and became a company commander before being killed, aged 38, at Belchite in September 1937.

Käthe Hempel (1911-1966) was originally from Waldheim, a town west of Dresden. In the summer of 1936 she was living in Switzerland, from where she cycled to Barcelona to take part in the planned People’s Olympiad, which was being organised as an anti-fascist alternative to the Berlin Olympics. She was a communist and served as a nurse in Spain.

Alois Weisberger (1904-?) was another miner from Saarland and was one of the few members of the Catholic Centre Party to join the Thälmann Battalion. The party, indeed, had voted in favour of Hitler’s Enabling Act that gave the Nazi leader untrammelled powers. After the war in Spain, Weisberger was interned in France and in 1943 handed over to the Gestapo and sent to a concentration camp.

The German volunteers fought in all the great battles of the war in Spain: the defence of Madrid, Jarama, Guadalajara, Brunete, Teruel and the Ebro. Having no homes to go to after the International Brigades were stood down in September 1938, the Germans, along with the Austrians and Czechs, took up arms again in January 1939, bravely covering the flight of refugees towards the French border as Franco’s forces advanced through Catalonia.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the booklet is the account of what happened to the surviving Thälmanns after the war. Interned by the French in a network of camps, some managed to secure visas to Britain, Mexico, the Soviet Union and the US. Others were recruited to French labour battalions. Those still in the camps following the French surrender to the Germans in 1940 were sent to concentration camps, where many perished, or escaped to join the French Resistance.

After the defeat of Nazism in 1945, contrasting receptions awaited the veterans in West and East Germany. In the Federal Republic, they fell foul of the state’s official anti-communist ideology, which included the banning of the KPD in 1956.

While former members of the Condor Legion received pensions for their service in Spain, there was no such recognition for those who had fought fascism and Nazism in Spain.

In the GDR the International Brigade veterans were officially honoured. They served in leadership roles in the East German army as well as in the country’s police and in government positions. 

Some, Schulz acknowledges, were regarded with suspicion during the Stalin era, above all any who had lived in Western countries before returning to Germany. A few lost their jobs and were unjustly persecuted, such as prominent writer Walter Janka.

In contrast with West Germany, however, the volunteers in Spain entered the cultural canon of the GDR. ‘Countless books, songs and films were published. Streets were named after Spanish fighters. Medals were awarded and every child learned about the war in Spain at school.’

Born in 1968 in West Germany, Schulz says he only found out about the Thälmanns after 2000. Most older left-wingers in the FRG first came across their story through the songs of singer-composer Ernst Busch, two albums of which were released in the 1980s.

The songs had been recorded in Barcelona in 1938 with the help of an International Brigade choir. Some of the recordings were released in New York in 1940 under the title ‘Six Songs for Democracy’, with American actor, singer and civil rights campaigner Paul Robeson writing in the sleeve notes: ‘Valiant and heroic was the part played by the International Brigade in the glorious struggle of the Spanish Republic.’ 

Schulz’s text for this booklet is based on a talk he gave in 2023 as part of Belfast’s annual Féile an Phobail (People’s Festival). The event was hosted at the Shankill Library by the IBMT-affiliated International Brigade Commemoration Committee. The booklet also includes tributes to Manus O’Riordan, the son of Cork Brigader Michael O’Riordan, and Belfast-born volunteer Paddy McAllister.

Copies of the booklet can be ordered from the IBCC for £6 plus £2.50 p&p within the UK. Contact Lynda Walker of the IBCC for more details.

The IBMT's commemoration at the International Brigade memorial in Jubilee Gardens on London's South Bank on Saturday 6 July saw speeches by PCS General Secretary Fran Heathcote and historian Richard Baxell.

As is customary and led by IBMT President Marlene Sidaway, wreaths were laid and there was a minute's silence in honour of the more than 500 volunteers from Britain and Ireland who gave their lives in Spain and in memory of the 2,500 volunteers who served in the International Brigades.

Led by folk duo Na-Mara, everyone sang 'Valley of Jarama' and the event ended with a rousing rendition of 'The Internationale'.

In her contribution, Fran Heathcote noted the worrying rise of the racist far-right in Britain, in the form of the Reform party, which had gained 4 million votes in the general election held two days previously. The anti-fascist example of the International Brigades was therefore needed today more than ever.

'Europe and indeed the UK are heading at a startling rate towards fascism,' she said, 'with far-right parties sweeping up millions of votes. We need to get out into our communities and workplaces to spread the resistance to fascism. The parallels with the 1930s are there for all to see.'

Fran Heathcote.

IBMT Historical Consultant Richard Baxell spoke about the experience of the International Brigade prisoners during the Spanish Civil War.

In particular, he drew from the biography of Battersea volunteer George Wheeler, 'To Make the People Smile Again', which, among other things, describes the appalling conditions endured in the San Pedro de Cardeña prison camp.

The mood was lightened when he recounted the way that Wheeler and the other prisoners, were forced by violent guards to chant 'Fran-co! Fran-co!'. They did so with gusto, but chorusing 'F*** you! F*** you!' instead.

Camilo Morán, aged 4, and mother Noelia laying a wreath on behalf of the Spanish Communist Party. Looking on is Richard Baxell.

There was an emotional send-off for Na-Mara – Paul McNamara and Rob Garcia – who have announced they are giving up touring and playing live gigs and 16 years of doing so. As this would be their final performance at Jubilee Gardens, IBMT Secretary Megan Dobney presented them with flowers in the colours of the Spanish Republic.

One of the songs performed by Na-Mara was 'The Bite'. Introducing it, McNamara explained that the words were inspired by a reference in George Wheeler's autobiography to the small piece of wood he would put in his mouth before going into battle as something to clench while bombs and bullets landed around him.

IBMT Chair Jim Jump rounded off proceedings by underlining the importance of the IBMT's work, pointing out that memorials in Spain were still subject to attack and, more generally, there were moves to erase the role of the Brigaders from the 20th century's long war against fascism.

'In the IBMT we're fighting back with our schools project, providing teaching aids and lesson plans so that pupils can be taught about the International Brigades and the Spanish Civil War.'

Thanking the wreath-layers, he singled out Isabel García, Deputy Consul at the Spanish embassy in London. He said the IBMT applauded the efforts of the current Spanish government, through its Law of Democratic Memory, to recognise the crimes committed against the supporters of the Spanish Republic.

He went on: 'I was struck by the words of your prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, while visiting Franco's grotesque former mausoleum at the Valley of Cuelgamuros earlier this year, when he said "Sin memoria no hay democracia" – there can be no democracy without memory.'

Among those present in Jubilee Gardens were family and descendants of International Brigaders Felicia Browne, Jimmy Burns, Noel Carritt, John Cornford, Len Crome, Jack Edwards, Otto Estensen, Harry Fraser, George Green, Nan Green, Edwin Greening, Jimmy Jump, Lou Kenton, Johnny Longstaff, David Marshall, Patrick O’Sullivan, Cyril Sexton, Hugh Slater, Alex Tudor-Hart, Rob Wardle and Tom Wintringham.

All photos are © Andrew Wiard. See this link for more photos from the commemoration.

Jim Jump applauds the publication of a new booklet about the rail and maritime workers who first fought fascism.

They say the past never goes away and is still with us. That couldn’t be more true of the rise of fascism last century.

Everyone hoped this evil creed had been stamped out for good with the defeat of the Nazi war machine in 1945. But the fascist beast and its toxic ideology of race-hate, ethno-nationalism, militarism and hostility to organised labour has not gone away. 

Sadly, this makes the RMT’s new booklet, ‘They Shall Not Pass’, all the more relevant and important today.

Published in conjunction with the IBMT, it tells the story of the railway workers and seafarers who in the 1930s resisted fascism at home and, in the case of the Spanish Civil War, took up arms to stop Hitler, Mussolini and General Franco crushing the elected government of Spain. 

What stands out is that these workers recognised the true threat of fascism well before their political masters did.

It was ordinary people who stopped the British Union of Fascists (BUF) from marching through our towns and cities.

And it was ordinary people, including scores of members of the NUR and NUS rail and seafaring unions, who joined the International Brigades to fight the fascists in Spain. There’s a plaque with 120 names on it proudly on display at RMT’s head office.

Within the British establishment there was considerable sympathy for the way Europe’s fascist dictators banned trade unions and violently suppressed political parties of the left.

BUF leader Sir Oswald Mosley was an aristocratic former Labour cabinet minister with rich and powerful friends.

As ‘They Shall Not Pass’ describes, Britain’s would-be führer came unstuck when he sued NUR general secretary John Marchbank for slander. The BUF leader won a technical victory, but was awarded a laughable farthing (a quarter of a penny) in damages and was left with a massive legal bill.

Mosley’s High Court humiliation came in 1936. Things got worse in October of that year at the Battle of Cable Street. This was when the Jewish population of Whitechapel joined forces with local dockers, trade unionists, communists and socialists to prevent the BUF’s antisemitic Blackshirts from parading through London’s East End.

The cry of the anti-fascists was ‘They shall not pass!’, the same one used by the defenders of Madrid, ‘¡No pasarán!’. Many of the protesters at Cable Street were among more than 2,000 volunteers from Britain who joined the International Brigades to fight in Spain.

IBMT Chair Jim Jump (centre) with RMT General Secretary Mick Lynch (left) and RMT Assistant General Secretary Eddie Dempsey at the union's annual general meeting in Hull in July. Jump is one of the co-authors of 'They Shall Not Pass', along with Brian Denny and Steve Silver.

This was no gap-year jaunt. More than 500 of them made the ultimate sacrifice. NUR member Ginger McElroy from Wishaw was killed at the Battle of Jarama in February 1937 after being hit by a dum-dum bullet. The bloody battle saw the British Battalion lose more than 150 men. But they held the line to stop Franco taking Madrid.

Fellow railwayman Alwyn Skinner from Neath lost his life in the Battle of the Ebro in the summer of 1938, when Hitler’s bombers pummelled the British Battalion on the rocky slopes around Gandesa. The battalion suffered 90 fatalities.

Readers of this 36-page booklet will be moved and inspired by the exploits of many individuals described in it.

Jim Prendergast, one of the leaders of the Irish contingent in the International Brigades, fought bravely at Córdoba, Jarama and Brunete. In the 1960s he was the NUR’s Marylebone branch secretary and led the campaign that broke British Rail’s colour bar that excluded black workers from senior posts.

Jack Coward, one of several Liverpool seamen to fight in Spain, was captured at Calaceite in 1938 but escaped and fought behind the lines with Spanish guerrillas. When he was re-captured, he pretended to be deaf and dumb and eventually made his way home from enemy Spain on a British ship.

Spike Robson, a ship’s fireman from South Shields, led the NUS crew of the Linaria on strike in Boston, Massachusetts, to stop explosive materials being shipped to Franco’s Spain. 

‘We will not take out the ship if it means helping to kill people in Spain,’ Robson declared.

Arrested on their return home, the men ended up in court, charged under the Merchant Shipping Act and facing prison sentences. Robson was blacklisted from the shipping industry as a result

It’s often said that union members stand on the shoulders of giants – in other words our predecessors who fought for the rights we enjoy today and the principles that still guide us. Delve into this booklet and meet some of those giants from the RMT’s past.

Jim Jump is the chair of the IBMT and a former editor of the NUS/RMT journal, The Seaman.

‘The Shall Not Pass’ can be ordered from the IBMT Shop for £5 plus p&p.

Here’s an update from the Madrid-based Association of Friends of the International Brigades (AABI) on the campaign to stop Madrid City Council from building a waste recycling facility on top of a mass grave adjacent to Fuencarral cemetery (pictured above). The site is thought to contain the remains of some 451 International Brigaders, including several Britons.

We believe it is very important to keep you up-to-date on the activity that our association is deploying in relation to this issue. 

As we suppose you know from the great repercussion it has had in the press and the information we have been updating you with, a few months ago we determined the possibility of confirming the burial place of the 451 brigadistas originally buried in the cemetery of Fuencarral and whose graves were desecrated by the fascists after the war, and their bodies hidden in the area behind the enclosure. 

We got the Ministry of Democratic Memory involved, which contracted Arqueoantro to carry out archaeological tests to determine the location of the mass grave. Madrid City Council had been denying the necessary permission to carry out that operation, while requesting a geo-radar study in that area, in order, according to their own words, ‘to confirm that there was nothing’. 

According to the information that has reached us, it seems that the study confirmed that, as we have been stating, ‘there was something’. Since receiving the report in April, the city council, with Mayor José Luis Martínez-Almeida at the head, has denied any association or citizen access to the report, even the opposition groups (and paying no attention to the Transparency Law that requires them to make the report public). 

The excuses have included ‘the official in charge of these documents is not here’, as if they themselves were not in charge of the report.

Last week the council delegate of urban planning, Francisco de Borja Carabante, stated in plenary session that the conclusions drawn by some municipal technicians based on the data received from the geo-radar company ruled out the existence of earthworks in the area. 

The same was repeated by the mayor the following day. However, both the original report and the conclusions of these technicians have still not been made public or available to anyone except, apparently, to a journalist from El Mundo, who published some paragraphs that he says are original because he had access to the conclusions of the city council. 

Of course, the possibility of carrying out tests by the ministry, a much more effective and decisive technique, continues to be vetoed.

Given these facts and this repeated lack of transparency, we are forced to turn to the Prosecutor's Office of Democratic Memory to take action on what we consider a crime against the Law of Democratic Memory committed by the mayor of Madrid, the council delegate of urban planning and three other officials for concealment of data, obstructionism and prevarication. In the following link you can find information about the complaint and its terms.

This is a translation of our statement on thew matter:

The Association of Friends of the International Brigades (AABI) has denounced Mayor José Luis Martínez-Almeida, Council Delegate of Urban Planning Francisco de Borja Carabante, Council President of the Fuencarral District Board José Antonio Martínez Páramo, General Director of Cleaning Víctor Sarabía and Deputy Director of Cleaning Olivia Lombraña for an alleged crime of lying in order to conceal information about the existence of a mass grave of International Brigaders and for preventing the Ministry of initiating the proper testings in the field, as required by the Law of Democratic Memory.

AABI denounces the municipal council team for hiding the report prepared by the company Gama Geofísica because the results are contrary to its interest in developing a waste project in the district of Montecarmelo.

AABI argues that the five defendants are acting with ‘lack of transparency by hiding for more than 50 days’ the report of the company Gama Geofísica that was delivered on 26 April 2024 to the city council; Gama Geofísica had conducted tests with geo-radar and tomography during that same month ‘exclusively in the plot 26.2b of the Partial Plan of Montecarmelo’.

The report of Gama Geofísica concludes that there are indications detected by the geo-radar that determine a ‘high compatibility’ with the existence in that plot of a mass grave, which may contain the remains of the 451 brigadistas, and recommends archaeological testings.

For more background on this story, see these earlier reports on the IBMT website: