History

“No Pasaran!”

by | 14th October 2026 | Counter-Heritage, History, Walks | 0 Comments

“Where Are the Faces We Seek?” This extract from a contemporary poem gives a flavour of the 1930s. You’ll hear about the Means Test which was, in essence, a vicious attack on the unemployed living on the dole during the Great Depression when unemployment as a national average reached 25%. The extract shows how domestic and foreign policies were intertwined,   ‘Where are the faces we seek, the British faces? Let the living answer the roll call of the dead … Where are those who tramping on Means Test marches Knew that the road they had taken against oppression Led to the front in Spain The shouts in Trafalgar Square of “No Pasaran!”’   Narration: The rise of Hitler in 1933 and his aggressive foreign policy led socialists and communists and liberals and men and women of all persuasions that a stand had to be taken when Franco led a fascist revolt against the democratically elected Spanish government in 1936. There was a belief that if fascism could be stopped in Spain, then that united front would show fascist powers such as Italy and Germany that war would not pay. In short, victory against fascist aggression in Spain could deter further wars. Working women and men, the unemployed and the intelligentsia began to make their way to Spain in the face of opposition and disapproval from British government. Many without passports walked the Pyrenees and made their way to the universal front that separated freedom from oppression and the rise of European fascism. The British government refused to heed the warnings from Spain.  Ignoring German and Italian aggression in Spain,...
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Railway Life Part Three

by | Jun 24, 2025 | , | 0 Comments

Railway Life Part Three It’s full steam ahead – Until, freezing in the cab, paper in his boots, He gets stuck in a wind-whistling loop, Out here in some unsheltered, open landscape; Or, shovelling six tons of coal Choking in some seeming endless tunnel, On a...

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Railway Life Part Two

by | Jun 24, 2025 | , | 0 Comments

Railway Life Part Two But down at the running shed: All is different! Hustle, bustle and red-hot tumult: Fill the tender! Water the tank! Empty the firebox! (Cough on the dust, choke on the fumes, burn your hands.) Smash the clinker! Draw the firebar! Sweep the pit!...

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Railway Life Part One

by | Jun 24, 2025 | , | 0 Comments

A Victorian Railway Maxim Zealously try to excel. Industry is commendable. Perseverance deserves success. Quietude of mind is a treasure.’ This was a GWR 19th century maxim for its workforce: A world of gaslight, back to backs, the workhouse; The engine shed, the ash...

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Shopping in Swindon Railway Works

by | Jun 24, 2025 | , | 0 Comments

Shopping in the Railway Works Retail Outlet Shops had a double meaning in my childhood: The obvious, which was the domain of women, Open every weekday except Wednesday afternoon, And the ‘Inside’, which was the domain of men, And accessible to children on Wednesday...

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Holiday Haunts 1939

by | Jun 24, 2025 | , | 0 Comments

GWR Holiday Haunts, 1939, I bought you at Didcot in 1978: GWR Holiday Haunts, 1939, All sepia tinged arts and crafts, and art deco modernism, And Olde Englande Mockobethan, For this is a book to get you through the winter months of 1938-9, A book full of promise and...

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Where the Railway Lies

by | Jun 24, 2025 | , | 0 Comments

Where the Railway Lies It was hardly Dombey and Son in Stroud When Brunel brought the railway into town: No earthquakes, or bridges that went nowhere; Instead: Dickensian Cheapside. I walked beneath the beech tree, by the Black History notice boards, Pondering on the...

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