Glasgow and the Spanish Civil War

[The Egg Man]

I went down for a look a lunchtime and it's currently in front of Customs House (and behind the public lavies).

A Facebook friend posted this earlier.

"Just received today "Heroic Voices of The Spanish Civil War" by Peter Darman and dipped in to read a couple of personal accounts, my admiration for these heroes has just gone through the roof, expect excerpts over the next few weeks."

"No Pasaran
Tommy Nicholson - Volunteer from Glasgow.

“Some of the young comrades want to know why I and others like me joined the International Brigades and went to fight in Spain.

From the first rising of the Spanish workers, our hearts and minds were in Spain. We fought alongside them, even though we weren’t there.

... I worked in the Govan Wireworks in 1937. In Glasgow then you couldn’t but be active in the class struggle. Poverty was rife. Glasgow had a strong worker’s movement then as now and we all fervently believed in the emancipation of the working class across the world.

I was anxious to get to Spain. Like many another I believed that the whole future of humanity was being fought out there. Either socialism or fascism would win through. That’s why we felt we had to go. Spain became your lifeblood.
But I was not a member of the Communist Party, having disagreements then as I do now. So I wasn’t allowed to go. But, come 1937, they relented. There were conditions attached of course.

The conditions were that I should not discuss politics. Needless to say, I accepted and went on my way to fight for what I believed in then, and still believe in just as fervently now. For socialism. For the revolution. For a society where the workers rule their own lives and where production is undertaken to meet the needs of all."

Let us remember them tonight.

[banjo]

the last surviving scot to fight in the spanish civil war passed away last week.if i remember right he was like many of the volunteers a glaswegian.

[Icecube]

There is a plaque in Bailleston Library commemorating local man Wullie Keegan who was killed in Spain in 1938.

[Dexter St. Clair]

Jimmy Harvey of Ucatt and its predecessor unions EEPTU and The PTU fought in Spain. the young turks at the trades council would always express their uncertainty of which side he fought for due to his right wing convictions. He was also a member of the Pioneer Total abstinence movement and acting on these beliefs convinced the Kelvinside Community Council to overturn their support for licensed premises at the Botanic Gardens. He died before the Oran Mor opened.