With the 2025 Jarama commemorations fast approaching, we revisit Mike Arnott's article in the IBMT Newsletter from July 2013 about the unveiling of a plaque in Tarancón to remember the Scots killed at the Battle of Jarama. This year, supporters will especially remember the recently passed Allan Craig Jr, son of Brigader Allan Craig. 

In October 2011 Allan Craig planted an olive tree and placed a temporary plaque in the cemetery in Tarancón in memory of his father, also called Allan Craig, of Glasgow. He was wounded at the Battle of Jarama on 17 February 1937 and died in the No.1 American Hospital in Tarancón five days later.

International Brigader Allan Craig, who died during the Battle of Jarama in 1937.

Research has shown that Allan’s father was then buried in the local cemetery. Apparently, the remains of the Republican dead were removed in the 1970s but were subsequently reburied within its walls at the spot near where the olive tree was planted. Allan was keen to ensure that the plaque made mention not only of his father but also all the 39 Scots who fell at Jarama.

Just over a year later, the cemetery was visited by the Crawford brothers, whose grandfather William from Glasgow had fallen at Jarama and was named on the plaque. They had arranged to meet Máximo Molina from the local Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory, who had helped Allan get permission for the olive tree and plaque the year before.

They found that the plaque had disappeared, though a photo of Allan Craig Snr and the olive tree remained. So a campaign was launched to raise money for a permanent replacement plaque. A number of individual Dundee trade unionists and the Dundee Trades Union Council made contributions, as subsequently did members of the Crawford and Craig families.

The memorial at the unveiling in 2013. The Crawford family placed the cross with a poppy for their grandfather while members of the local community left flowers.

Plans were then made to commission a new plaque and to take it over to Madrid to coincide with the annual Jarama commemoration in February 2013, organised by AABI, the Spanish friends of the International Brigades. With help from AABI and from Máximo in Tarancón, arrangements were made to unveil the new plaque at an event in the cemetery on 17 February, coincidentally the 76th anniversary of Allan Craig being wounded at Jarama. A group of 25 travelled from Madrid that Sunday morning, accompanied by AABI representative Almudena Cros, arriving at noon to be met by Máximo and a number of his comrades.

I said a few words and also read Dundee activist Mary Brooksbank’s poem 'Graves in Spain'. Mary and the three Craig brothers had been arrested together in Dundee in 1931 after a protest against the Unemployed Assistance Board. Máximo read translations of two Spanish poems, and Almudena and Allan also spoke briefly but movingly.