The Importance of Paddington
The government knew that if it were to defeat the unions and end the strike, it had to guarantee food supplies reaching the metropolis. The Docks were problematic from the government’s point of view: working-class, unionised and well picketed. But the Docks were...
The Ghosts of Strikemas Past
The Ghosts of Strikers Past As a boy, I grew up with parents and aunts and uncles and grand parents periodically moaning about strikes on the railways. We were a Daily Express household. But I thought no-one goes on strike at the drop of a hat, and, as a teenager, I...
Proust, T.S. Eliot and a Municipal Rubbish Tip in Swindon
Proust, T.S. Eliot and a Municipal Rubbish Tip in Swindon I’d written the following for the Bristol Radical History Festival April 2026 for a scheduled talk: ‘A Railway Town and the General Strike: Nine Days in Swindon in May 1926 Swindon was a proud GWR town...
Stroud Library and the General Strike
The Stroud Journal May 7 1926 The General Strike Jottings by Jonathan The general strike hit Stroud Public Library a blow from which it will recover, but which for the moment has left it almost breathless, or speechless. No more, do the out-of-work enter its...
Stroud Park Walking Football Tournament and Stroud Food Bank
Stroud Park Walking Football Tournament and Stroud Food Bank May 4th The General Strike May 4th 1926 On May 4th 1926, twenty per cent of the workforce went on strike in a first wave of action called by the TUC in support of almost one million miners who were facing...
Football and the General Strike
Football and the General Strike Plymouth Strikers v Police The 1925-26 football season ended on May 1st 1926 with Huddersfield Town, once under the tutelage of the legendary Herbert Chapman, league champions for the third year in a row. Chapman, of course, would...