The Stewart Family pictured in the mid 1920s: -R: Bob, Rab, Annie (Nan), William and Margaret.
To the best of my knowledge the last person in my family to still be fully committed to a Marxist-Leninist revolution died in 1978. He was my grandfather William Stewart and he was lovely. However, even though those that remain have spent the intervening forty-four years failing to overthrow the capitalist system, communism has loomed ever present in the background in our lives for all sorts of reasons. It is a bittersweet inheritance. I suppose there is nothing surprising in its presence as, from the inception of the CPGB in 1920, communism essentially became the family business for the next fifty years. Practically everyone was involved.
At the end of 1955 – a few months before Khrushchev would acknowledge the crimes of Stalin for the first time in his ‘secret speech’ MI5 picked up some office gossip about the Stewart family through one of the bugs it had placed in the offices at the Communist Party’s HQ in King Street, Covent Garden. Reuben Falber, who, when Bob Stewart finally retired in 1957, would go on to be responsible for distributing funds from Moscow, was overheard talking to fellow party worker Betty Reid about a recent scandal involving Bob’s nephew Greg – a Cambridge student who had just been unforgivably rude to one of the comrades at Central Books. Here’s part of the transcript in the security files:
‘They’re a family that-well, they’re a law unto themselves because you’ve got a combination of the old fellow’s prestige and money. BETTY asked where the money came from. Regret FALBER’s reply was whispered and could not be followed.
(From the MI5 Security File on Bob Stewart KV2/2790 – The National Archives)
The ‘old fellow’ is, of course, Bob Stewart and quite clearly the whole family had something of a reputation within communist circles. In fact, Betty Reid, in a conversation recorded about eight months later, was of the opinion that the Stewart children – William, Rab and Nan, had been “thoroughly spoiled all their lives.” This kind of attitude is elaborated further in an earlier document I came across in my grandfather’s security file on a recent visit to the National Archives. It’s dated 17th October 1932 and appears to be a memorandum from Special Branch to MI5 concerning the activities of Bob and his three children. I reproduce it here in full partly because I think it’s an interesting account of how the Stewarts and other similar families were viewed within the movement but mainly because I love the description of my grandfather.
The following information has been received.
WILLIAM STEWART, who used to drive the Soviet Ambassador’s car has given up driving altogether and is now employed in the Embassy as a ‘trusted’ man. He recently stated that he was engaged there on work of a secret nature, which included a little clerical labour.
His hours are from 5pm until 1am and his wife also has a job at the Embassy.
He is forbidden to undertake Communist Party of Great Britain work.
He now wears a small moustache, Charlie Chaplin style, which gives him an altered appearance, and carries an ash walking-stick. He often wears a light green shirt, brown jacket and shorts (at other times grey flannel trousers), light brown rabbit-skin hat, and brown shoes. He apes the appearance and mannerisms of a university student.
His father, ‘Bob’, is at present in Belfast where he is assisting the Irish Revolutionary Workers’ Party.
His brother, who lived with Ralph Edwin BOND, and was attached to St. Pancras Local Communist Party of Great Britain, has now secured a situation at Arcos Ltd. as also has his wife. Both have been transferred to Islington Local.
His sister, who was active in the Young Communist League of Great Britain, and who went to Russia on several occasions, has gone to live there permanently. She also was employed at Arcos and married a principal of that concern. As he has been recalled to Russia, she has accompanied him.
The state of affairs here outlined indicates how the movement is ‘exploited as a meal ticket’ (to use the phrase of certain disgusted genuine Communists) by certain fortunate families.
The CAMPBELL family is another case in point. The sum of over £20 weekly is received in John Ross Campbell’s home from Soviet sources.
The WATKINS’ are in the same position, whilst there is a host of others.
There is keen resentment in the ‘movement’ over this condition of things. It is freely expressed that no man and wife should be allowed to hold a situation while other ‘Comrades’ are unemployed. This objection has taken root and considerable trouble on the point seems likely to develop.
SUPERINTENDENT.
(From the MI5 Security File on William Stewart KV2/4494 – The National Archives)
The Unity Conference, 1920. Bob Stewart in the front row seventh from the left.
I came out of gaol in April 1919 and entered an entirely changed world from the one I had left. The heroes had returned from the war to find the golden promises of a land fit for heroes to live in had not materialised. Many were unable to find work. Many, when they found it, got low wages on which they could not adequately provide for their wives and children. The housing shortage became a serious social problem as the soldiers, married during the war, tried to set up house with their war-wives and young children. The landlords, taking advantage of the shortage, found ways and means to raise rents.
Foresters Hall in Dundee.
The Dundee I came back to had all these problems and more. Lack of work, low wages, unemployment, bad housing and a housing shortage, and to add to the confusion, thousands of war disabled demanding work and maintenance. During the war our party had absorbed many facets of socialism into its policy, so we changed the name from the Prohibition and Reform Party to the Socialist Prohibition Fellowship. We ran meetings every Sunday night in the Foresters Hall. They were always packed out, with hundreds left outside. Invariably there was a queue to get in an hour before starting time to make sure of a seat. My Prison Rhymes now became a bestseller. So, with the money from the collections and the booklet we were doing very well financially.
We got a new hall, the Unity Hall we called it, relaid the floor, bought the best seats available and certainly made it one of the finest little halls in the city. Despite this veneer of success, it became evident to those of us who were thinking politically that we were not making any real political advance, and certainly not making the basic political progress towards socialist organisation that the economic conditions warranted.
While in prison I had written to the monthly paper of the Socialist Labour Party, The Socialist, on the question of unity and the necessity for the various social sects and parties to get together. The Russian Revolution had had a profound effect in Britain. In all the left groupings our thinking had changed or was in the process of changing.
In all the left parties the need for, and the road to, unity was being discussed. In fact, in July 1919, only a few weeks after I came out of gaol, meetings seeking to establish unity had been held in London. Members of the British Socialist Party, the Workers’ Socialist Federation, the Socialist Labour Party and the South Wales Socialist Society had taken part. Although our party was not present, I got to know later that while agreement was won on a number of political principles, there was a fundamental division on the question of the attitude to the Labour Party. The B.S.P. members made crystal clear their demand that any new united party must be affiliated to the Labour Party. The W.S.F, and the SouthWales S.S. said it was useless to approach the Labour Party. Thus early, at the very first meeting, battle lines on this supremely important political principle were taken up.
Early in 1920 I was doing a meeting in Aberdeen. When I finished, I returned to the house of Jimmy Gordon to find Tommy Bell and Arthur McManus waiting for me. They were working for a unity conference and, after a discussion, asked me to use my influence to get our party to attend. So, I put it to the party and after due consideration we decided to participate and I was sent as a delegate.
This conference was held in early April 1920, in the William Morris Hall in Nottingham. There were members from the main left parties there. The B.S.P., the W.F., the South Wales S.S. and the Socialist Prohibition Fellowship. The Socialist Labour Party had split on the question of “attitude to the Labour Party” and only a section were represented at Nottingham. Of the people I remember, there was John S. Clarke, Tommy Bell and Arthur McManus from Scotland, Willie Paul who was leading the S.L.P. section, Bill Gee, a perambulating propagandist well known in all parts of the country, Charlie Pentie from Woolwich, Jock McBain, a foundry worker, Bill Hewlitt from Wales who was tragically killed in an accident in Moscow in 1921, Tommy Jackson, and of course others.
We had a day’s discussion, forenoon and afternoon. We hammered things out as best we could, collated the points of agreement and decided to issue a manifesto. We then went for a walk and left Tommy Jackson to draft the document. When we came back, we found a dance band playing in one part of the place and Tommy Jackson sitting with the dance music bellowing all around, a few beer bottles at his elbow, discarded manuscripts littering the floor at his feet, beads of perspiration trickling from his forehead. But he had done the job. The Manifesto of the Communist Unity Group was drafted. We went over it, slight changes being made, and then adopted the document. So, from the Nottingham Conference the call for Communist Unity went out. The Manifesto declared, among other things: “To create this force…by unity of all elements scattered throughout the various groups and Parties as the first essential to the formation of a Communist Party in Britain.” The Manifesto had twenty-two signatories.
The Manifesto from the Nottingham Conference produced immediate results. It provided the yeast to ferment the unity discussions and drew the left elements closer together. It really paved the way for the next big step forward, the Communist Unity Conference which was held in London on July 31st and August 1st 1920, on Saturday July 31st in the Cannon Street Hotel and the following day in the International Socialist Club, 28 East Road, London E.C.
The Cannon Street Hotel where the Unity Conference took place in 1920.
The conference was summoned by a Joint Provisional Committee of the Communist Unity Conference representing the Communist Unity Group, the B.S.P, and the South Wales Communist Council under the names of Arthur McManus, chairman, and Albert Inkpin, secretary. There were 152 delegates present holding 211 mandates. McManus was unanimously elected to preside.
Up to this time, when any discussions on unity had been held, many groups and individuals continued, after the discussions and decisions, to propagate their former minority viewpoints. Majority decisions were not being accepted. In order to get over this difficulty at the London Conference, it was agreed that “All bodies participating in summoning the conference are pledged to abide by its decisions on points of tactics and to merge their organisation into the new Communist Party. Representation at the Conference will be held to imply that branches, groups and societies represented will also accept its decisions and become branches of the Communist Party.”
This was accepted by the conference-a very big step forward at that time. With this understanding, the conference turned its attention to discussion and agreement on the main points of policy for the new party.
The first resolution covered the main aims of the party:
“The Communists in Conference assembled declare for the Soviet (or Workers’ Councils) system as a means whereby the working class shall achieve power and take control of the forces of production. Declare the dictatorship of the proletariat as a necessary means of combating counter-revolution during the transition period between capitalism and communism and stand for the adoption of these measures as a step towards the establishment of a system of complete communism wherein the means of production shall be communally owned and controlled. This Conference therefore establishes itself the Communist Party on the foregoing basis and declares its adhesion to the Communist International.”
In the discussion on this resolution, a number of speakers kept referring to the “use of the gun” as the real, and, for some, the only way to power. Naturally, after my prison experiences, this kind of talk irked me. In speaking to the resolution I said: “I do not want to stress too much the point being made about ‘men with guns’ but I do hope the sincerity of delegates not ‘gun-minded’ will not be questioned. Even the capitalist, powerful as he may be, will not be able to use guns except in so far as he can persuade the members of our class that our policy is detrimental to working-class interests. Whether guns come soon, late or not at all, there will be times when it is far more revolutionary to refuse to have anything to do with guns. I think the provisional executive which is to be set up by the conference will be far wiser to devote themselves to building up such organisation as will make it possible to win the maximum of our party policy with the minimum of violence.” On the Dictatorship of the Proletariat question I said: “I don’t know much about this, and I don’t think anyone else does here, but we know it is necessary and if the working class is to achieve power and we will require to do as the circumstances determine.”
It may be a strange thing, but I have invariably found that the people who want to “shoot it out’ are the worst stayers in the movement. They do not seem to be able to cope with the hard grind of day-to-day politics. Maybe, of course, that’s why they want to use guns.
This resolution, while causing a fair discussion, was passed unanimously, and then the conference turned to the subjects causing deep divisions in the left forces-attitude to the Labour Party and the advisability of parliamentary political action.
Tom Bell and a number of delegates were against having anything to do with parliament. In an appealing speech, Tom said: “Nothing can be hoped for from the Chamber of Parliament. Can Communist members of Parliament take the oath of allegiance? In all cases, Communists must hold their mandate from the party and not from their constituencies. The only Communist allegiance is to, communist principles not to royalty or decadent capitalism.”
He was followed by delegates who put much the same point of view, but some with harsher words.
I spoke on this resolution and, with several others, put the point of view that we could not divorce ourselves from parliamentary action, that we must use parliament. “Our job is to be where the laws are made.” I remember Ellen Wilkinson delivering a revolutionary speech for parliamentary action, saying: “A revolution must mean discipline and obedience to working-class principles.” Ellen finally landed up as a minister in a Labour government. She certainly used parliament, but I am afraid not for the revolutionary principles she espoused that day.
When the vote was taken, a large majority were for the resolution supporting parliamentary action by the new party.
A fierce, no-punches-pulled debate on the attitude of the new party to the Labour Party concluded the policy debates. The big battle was whether or not the new party should seek affiliation to the Labour Party; or rather, to put it in its correct context, whether to resume the affiliation to the Labour Party already standing in the name of the British Socialist Party which was the biggest section of the new Communist Party.
The conference had two alternatives: (a) to seek affiliation,or (b) not to seek affiliation.
Hodgson moved (a) and Paul moved (b). The B.S.P. speakers in the debate came down heavily for affiliation because they knew by practical experience the value of affiliation to the mass Labour Party. Paul, Bell and others were violently against. In fact, the day before the conference opened Tom Bell had written an article in The Call against affiliation, saying: “Never was the time more opportune for Communists to proclaim their open hostility to the utopian aims of the Labour reformists, and pursue an independent course.”
Many delegates put the point that the last thing the right-wing Labour leaders wanted was the affiliation of the Communist Party. I remember George Dear putting this point in a very skillful way. He referred to a speech made by Jimmy Sexton, secretary of the Docks Trade Union, at the Scarborough Labour Party Conference, where Sexton had said: “Here is the British Socialist Party with 10,000 alleged members, paying £50 a year affiliation fees. They monopolise the conference, get five speakers to the rostrum the first day, demand a bloody revolution and Jim Thomas’s head on a charger, and then foist Colonel Malone on us. What the hell do they want for fifty quid?”
There were no kid gloves used, and the protagonists were nearly equal. This also showed in the vote. One hundred were for affiliation, 85 against. It was then agreed the matter be dealt with by the new Executive and be reported to the next conference.
Arthur McManus- The First Chairman of the CPGB. Albert Inkpin- The First General Secretary of the CPGB.
There were sixteen nominations put forward for the six positions on the Executive Committee. On an exhaustive vote, the following were elected: Fred Shaw 123 votes; I got 117; Dora Montifiore 115; Colonel Malone 106; W. Mellor 100, and George Dear 100. I must add here that Colonel Malone was the man who won some fame for himself by threatening to hang Winston Churchill from a lamp-post, for which he got six months hard labour. Arthur McManus was elected chairman and Albert Inkpin secretary.
The task set the Executive was to win further unity of the left movement and to take charge of the paper Communist, the official organ of the party. The headquarters were at 21a Maiden Lane, Strand, London.
During this conference in London a letter was sent by Lenin to the delegates. Lenin had taken a great interest in the attempts to forge left unity in Britain, in the problems of unity and in the tactics of the left groupings, as the letter from him to the conference shows:
Having received the letter from the Joint Provisional Committee of the Communist Party of Great Britain dated June 1920 I hasten to reply, in accordance with their request, that I am in complete sympathy with their plansfor the immediate organisation of a Communist Party in England. I consider the policy of Sylvia Pankhurst and the S.D.F. in refusing to collaborate in the amalgamation of the B.S. P., the S.L.P and others into one Communist Party, to be wrong. I personally favour participation in Parliament and adhesion to the Labour Party on condition of free and independent Communist activity. This policy I am going to defend at the second congress of the Third International on July igth in Moscow. I consider it most desirable that a Communist Party be speedily organised on the basis of the decisions and principles of the Third International and that the Party be brought into close touch with the industrial workers of the world and bring about their complete union.
N. LENIN July 18th 1920.
In the first edition of the Communist, dated August 5th 1920, I gave my opinion of the London Conference.
“The value of the conference was its evident eagerness and sincerity; its old men were young and its young men did not lack wisdom. The Leftest of the Left and the Rightest of the Right showed an evident anxiety to keep the CPGB free from that ineptitude for action that has hitherto been not an uncommon feature in the debating stage of our growth. Minor differences were relegated to their proper position.”
But the major differences were firmly entrenched. The main one was the affiliation question, and after that, parliamentary action. In the first edition of The Communist, McManus also wrote his impressions of the London Conference, and showed that the deep divisions on affiliation were still dominant. He wrote: “The voting on the Labour Party was such as indicated a strong, evenly divided opinion on the question of affiliation, and while according to the result the minority are honourably expected to acquiesce to the decision, there is also the obligation placed on the majority to fully appreciate the character and strength of the minority.”
At the first meeting of the new Executive held in August, discussion on affiliation brought the motion that an immediate application be made to the Labour Party. An amendment was then moved that the application make clear the objects, methods and policy of the Communist Party as set forth in the resolution passed by the London Conference. Naturally the amendment was accepted, but no doubt the supporters knew where they wanted to be, as time proved. The Executive unanimously accepting that an application be made, the following letter was sent to the Labour Party. As it is now an historic document, I quote it in full.
August 10th 1920
Dear Sir, At a National Convention held in London on Saturday and Sunday, 31st July and 1st August last, the Communist Party of Great Britain was established. The resolutions adopted by the Convention, defining the objects, methods and policy of the Communist Party, read as follows:
(a) The Communists in conference assembled declare for the Soviet (or Workers’ Council) system as a means whereby the working class shall achieve power and take control of the forces of production; declare for the dictatorship of the proletariat as a necessary means of combating the counter-revolution during the transition period between Capitalism and Communism; and stand for the adoption of these means as steps towards the establishment of a system of complete Communism wherein all the means of production shall be communally owned and controlled. This conference therefore establishes itself the Communist Party on the foregoing basis and declares its adherence to the Third International.
(b) The Communist Party repudiates the reformist view that a social revolution can be achieved by ordinary methods of Parliamentary Democracy but regards Parliamentary and electoral action generally as providing a means of propaganda and agitation towards the revolution. The tactics to be employed by representatives of the Party elected to Parliament or local bodies must be laid down by the Party itself, according to national or local circumstances. In all cases such representatives must be considered as holding a mandate from the Party and not from the particular constituency for which they happen to sit. Also, that in the event of any representative violating the decisions of the Party as embodied in the mandate which he or she has accepted, or as an instruction, that he or she be called upon to resign his or her membership of Parliament or municipality and also of the Party.
(c) That the Communist Party shall be affiliated to the Labour Party.
At a meeting of the Provisional Executive Committee held on Sunday last, we were directed to send you the foregoing resolutions, and to make application for the affiliation of the Communist Party to the Labour Party.
Yours faithfully, ARTHUR MCMANUS (chairman) ALBERT INKPIN (secretary).
One month later came the reply from Arthur Henderson, then secretary of the Labour Party, saying the application had been considered by the National Executive of the Labour Party and he had been “instructed to inform you (the Communist Party) that the basis of affiliation to the Labour Party is the acceptance of its constitution, principles and programme, with which the objects of the Communist Party do not appear to accord”. This reply led to further correspondence in which the words “do not appear to be in accord with the constitution, principles and programme of the Labour Party” figured prominently. The Communist Party asked: “Does the Labour Party rule that the acceptance of Communism is contrary to the constitution, principles and programme of the Labour Party, or is it the methods of the Communist Party to which exception is taken?”
Arthur Henderson, secretary of the Labour Party. Not too keen on CPGB affiliation. Lenin wrote that he was “as stupid as Kerensky.”
Back came Henderson: “Your letter raises a definite issue-the obvious conflict between the fundamentals of the Labour Party constitution, objects and methods, and those of the Communist Party.” He then went on to quote the following from the article by McManus in the Communist:
“One impression I should like to make definitely clear as gathered from Sunday’s experience (the London Conference), and that is that those arguing for affiliation to the Labour Party did not urge for, nor contemplate working with the Labour Party. The antagonism to the Labour Party was general, but those for affiliation held the opinion that such antagonism would best be waged within their own camp.”
To a man of Henderson’s calibre, this was meat and drink in argument, and he went on to quote part of a previous letter from the Communist Party, which said: “You have made a definite refusal to our request for affiliation on the ground that our objects do not appear to be in accord with those of the Labour Party. To be frank, we never supposed they were. Our worst enemy will not accuse us of ever pretending they were.”
No doubt, looking back, many things were said in the correspondence that, to put it mildly, did not smooth the way to affiliation. Really, the big difference between the parties was one of methods, Henderson and the Labour Party contending that the Communists would use violent methods while the Labour Party would not. Yet the fact was that the Labour Party, and Arthur Henderson in particular, had just supported the most violent war in human history.
After the correspondence, the Labour Executive decided to place the question on the agenda of the next Labour Party Conference. This took place on Tuesday 21st June, at Brighton. The affiliation question came up in the form of a resolution from the Norwood Labour Party, which said:
“That this Conference, whilst appreciating the difficult position of the National Executive Committee when called upon to deal with the application of the Communist Party for affiliation, owing to the various shades of opinion in the Labour Party which they represent, this Conference of the National Labour Party, in the interest of unity of the earning sections of the community who are opposed to the capitalist system, agrees to accept the affiliation of the Communist Party on the condition that the constitution of the Labour Party is accepted and the rules of the Communist Party are in conformity with the same.”
This was moved by W. A. Hodgson and seconded by Duncan Carmichael of the London Trades Council. An amendment “That the request for affiliation be not accepted was moved by Bert McKillop of the Social Democratic Federation and seconded by W. J. Brown of the Clerical Officers Association, Civil Service.
In a debate, A. J. Cook and Herbert Smith of the Miners Federation, and Bob Williams of the Transport Workers supported the resolution, while Manny Shinwell and Fred Bramley of the Furnishing Trades spoke against. The debate was very unreal. It did not deal with policy. The speakers for the resolution did not adequately show the need for affiliation to strengthen the left political forces and to win a more working-class policy. They tended to appeal to the right wing to accept unity. No one spotlighted the glaring evidence that the right wingers were afraid of affiliation because it meant the strengthening of the left wing of the Labour Party.
Naturally the right wingers played on this weakness, talked of “the methods of the Communist Party”, “acceptance of violence by the Communist Party”. Arthur Henderson, who was then Labour Party secretary, gave a most hypocritical performance in summing up for the National Executive. Just before the conference, a by-election had taken place at Woolwich. The Labour candidate was none other than Ramsay McDonald. During this by-election the Communist Party had issued a leaflet, part of which was quoted by Henderson to prove that the Communist Party were not to be trusted and would not support Labour candidates. The leaflet said: “The Communist Party feels it cannot allow the decision to run Ramsay McDonald to pass without comment… While the coalition candidate stands for capitalism in all its manifestations … the Labour Party candidate also stands for capitalism in all its manifestations.” Henderson made use of this in 1921to show that the Communists would betray the Labour Party. Yet ten years later Ramsay McDonald proved the Communists completely correct, when he betrayed the British working class, tried to destroy the Labour Party and deserted to the Tory National Government. Such was the verdict of history.
On the Wednesday morning, after Henderson had spoken, the Previous Question was moved. The voting resulted in 4,115,000 for, 224,000 against. So ended the first round of the question that was going to continue to push its way to the forefront of British politics and is still with us today.
At a meeting of the Communist Party Executive Committee in November, arising from a report on the work of the Third International, the need to further extend the organisation of the Communist Party was agreed upon, and a decision taken to organise a further Unity Conference. Discussion with a number of left groupings who had not been present at the London Conference took place. Among these was the Communist Labour Party. One of the leaders of this Party, Willie Gallacher, had been in Moscow at the time of the London Conference. In discussions with Lenin, Gallacher’s thinking on scientific socialism had changed and Lenin had got him to promise that on his return to Britain he would work for the unity of the working-class movement and for a united Communist Party.
A joint committee to prepare for the conference was formed, to compile the agenda and draw up the basis of representation! A manifesto was produced under the signatures of McManus and Inkpin of the C.P.G.B, J. V: Leckie of the Communist Labour Party, George Peat of the Shop Stewards’ and Workers’ Committees and E. T. Whitchead of the Communist Party B.S. T.I. (British Section Third International). The manifesto read as follows:
Comrades,
We address this statement and appeal to you in the hope of clearing away for all time the differences of opinion which have served to keep us apart in the past, thereby preventing the consolidation of the revolutionary forces in this country.
It is not our purpose to explain or justify those differences but simply to record the fact that our task has been much simplified by the decisions of the recent congress of the Third International. These decisions prescribe for the world movement the basis upon which such efforts as ours should be founded and constitute a clear and definite demand that a united Communist Party shall be established in Britain.
To this end the following organisations have assented to the proposal for the formation of a united Party, and have elected representatives to the above committees: Communist Party of Great Britain, Communist Labour Party, Communist Party (B.S.T.I.), Shop Stewards’ and Workers’ Committee (in a consultative capacity), and the left wing group of the I.L.P. (in an informative capacity).
The Committee has set about its task and has held a preliminary conference. We appreciate that the heartiest co-operation is essential if the united Party is to contain all the features which mark a real live revolutionary organisation. To this end we seek such assistance and urge that all the groups and bodies not in touch with the proceedings should communicate at once with the secretary, when the fullest information will be supplied. In the meantime we would counsel the closest observation of what is being done thus ensuring that when the National Convention takes place about the end of January the results will justify the hopes we place in the Convention.
The Bull and Mouth Hotel in Leeds. Later renamed the Victory Hotel and the location of the the 1921 conference where the CPGB was formalised. Demolished years ago, there’s now a Gregg’s on the site.
This appeal was the forerunner to the Leeds Conference, which was held in the Victory Hotel, Leeds, on the 29th January 1921. Jack Tanner was voted into the chair. There were 170 delegates.
Two resolutions were on the agenda, a unity resolution which was moved by Leckie and seconded by Watkins, and a merging resolution, which was moved by Gallacher and seconded by Paul. There were none of the fierce polemics which had raged at the London Conference, and the proceedings took place in a quiet and orderly atmosphere. A new Executive was appointed which had representatives from the former parties, and there were also representatives selected on a geographical basis. McManus was elected as chairman of the party and Inkpin as secretary.
It can be truly said that from the Leeds Conference the foundation of the British Communist Party was laid. Then the wagon began to roll.
Dundee Jail. Bob Stewart wrote most of the poems in Prison Rhymes here.
In the "Clink"-Edinburgh Castle
On jam and bread and bully beef,
They feed us in the clink,
There's a guard that's got the wind up,
And not a drop to drink.
We are short of fags and matches
And squeezed in very tight,
But we don't go short of scratches
When the flea-bags' come at night.
We are exercised each morning,
Deep down in Castle moat,
We play football and pitch and toss
And get the sergeant's goat.
We throw kisses to the ladies
And curses at the Yanks,
And when they pitch us cigarettes
There's mutiny in the ranks.
When the lovely war is over
And we're back at 'joyful' work,
When we've hypnotised old "Jerry"
And camouflaged the Turk,
When we meet again in "civvies"
What a tale we'll have to tell,
Of the clink up in the Castle,
Good old forty-second Hell.
Bob Stewart's Prison Rhymes
So I did my time in Dundee and with my remission I came up for my fourth court martial. Back to Edinburgh and this time to the Castle, with “Bobby” Moncrieff in charge. “Ha-ha,” they all warned with glee, “wait till Bobby Moncrieff gets hold of you.” But I knew Bobby, he was one of the family from Perth who made their fortune in ink. He was in command of the Dundee-Perth regiment of the Black Watch. I used to watch him march the jute workers through Dundee, men with the lowest wages in the country, hardly a bite in their belly, and Bobby howling at them “Bout turn!” “Forward march!” trying to make them into big brawny soldiers fit to be killed. Oh, I knew him all right, and I had known many of his kind in my time. But he didn’t put the fear of death into me.
However, I arrived at the Castle and got shoved into the guard-room. The sergeant said to the corporal, “Search that man.” “Not necessary,” I replied, “I’ll turn out my pockets.” So I counted my money, took out a box of matches and counted them. “What are you doing?” the sergeant hollered. “The Black Watch has a reputation! “I know,” I answered, “that’s why I’m counting my matches.” Soon I am shoved into another room with all the other delinquents. Like every other place, you soon make friends. First the meal. Beef and potatoes are served. But no fork and knife. “Where’s the tools?” I asked. No answer. So I sit, and the other lads, possibly hungrier than myself, ask, “Aren’t you going to eat it?” “Not without tools.” “Can we eat it?” “Better leave it till we sort this out.”
Back comes the sergeant. “Not eating the food, Stewart?” he says. “No, and I won’t until I get a fork and knife.” “Well, we will get you some sandwiches.” When the sandwiches came there was a rush for the plate of beef and potatoes that certainly did not say much for the culture practised in the British Army.
Into the guard-room came a wee drummer boy. I remember him well because he was so tiny. A jockey of jockeys, you might say. A bit nosey, he starts his own investigations. “What are you in for?” he asked me. “Because I won’t fight.” “Why won’t you go and fight?” “Because it’s not my quarrel.” “Christ, it’s no’ mine either:” Round and round he goes, asking his questions and getting his answers, until he comes to a fellow sitting very despondent and taking no heed of the proceedings. “How long have you been absent?” asks the nipper. No reply. Then he looks into the fellow’s face. “You’re no’ absent, he said, “you’re lost!” The lighter moments come and very often can linger much longer in memory than the tribulations. I did see Bobby Moncrieff but he must have been in a subdued mood. The war weariness was weighing heavily on everyone, even the Top Brass were feeling the weight of the loss of millions of good lives.
So I am again sentenced and returned to Dundee Gaol.
It was in Dundee Gaol I had a real barney with one of the religious mentors. The normal chaplain had gone to the front to administer religion to the soldiers, because you can’t very well preach the old adage “Fix your bayonet and say Be Holy or I’ll make you holy” if you don’t sometimes obey it yourself. Anyway, that honest little chaplain was succeeded by a little guy called McDonald. A little weasel. He and I never got on. Coming through the prison one day while I was whitewashing the walls, he said, “That’s a nice clean job you’re making of the walls, Stewart.” “I’m not cleaning the walls,” I replied, “I’m covering up the dirt.”
But I really detested him because he took advantage of his pulpit every Sunday to have a go at the Bolsheviks. Telling how Lenin ate children, Trotsky shot all the workers, and so on. The microbes eating each other up. I was sorely tempted to have a go at him, but Dave Donaldson was waiting to go out for another court martial, which is always a break, you understand, so I had to bide my time. When Dave went the storm broke.
The Weasel commenced his usual sermon with the evil doings of the Bolsheviks, then got on to his main theme, “They must be crushed like rats, etc., etc.” I could stand it no longer, so I jumped up. “You dirty miserable little coward,” I said, “standing up there in your coward’s castle maligning men who can’t speak back. Well, here’s one that speaks back, you dirty contemptible little rascal! They should put you in a prison cell not a prison pulpit.” During this outburst he sat down too surprised to say a word and he never rose again. It must be the shortest prison service on record in British prisons.
We were all marched out. One of the warders who knew me said, “You must write to the Prison Commissioners, Bob, complaining of the chaplain using his pulpit for political purposes.” “No,” I replied, “I have done what I wanted to do. Let it rest meantime.” Next came the Head Warder. “You’ll have to apologise to the chaplain,” he said. “That’s what I’m waiting for,” I replied. “Send him up here.” But he never came and the matter ended there.
During my stay in Dundee Jail I fancied myself as a poet and wrote a number of prison rhymes. I can make an apology for these because prison is not the best place to practise literary ambitions. However, when I came out of jail, the Prohibition and Reform Party published them in pamphlet form and they were a best-seller. Many thousands of copies were sold, giving a much-needed boost to the party funds.
The library in Dundee Gaol was composed of a few old copies of monthly and quarterly magazines. When I first asked for a book the warder said, “Christ, nobody reads here.” It was at this time that, through questions in Parliament and outside pressure, certain concessions were granted, so that newspapers and books could be sent to friends in prisons. An exception was The Tribune, published with great difficulty by the No-conscription Fellowship, which was the most hounded and persecuted little paper at that time. It was then edited by a group of women, amongst whom was Joan Beauchamp, who became the wife of W. H. Thompson, a famous expert on Compensation Law and Labour Law questions. The Socialist Monthly was also banned. Despite this banning, we still got these papers. I took up the question of supplies of newspapers with the Prison Commissioners, and finally we got a number of daily and weekly newspapers and a number of books as well. In fact, one of the new governors, on occasions, borrowed my books from me.
We got one or two of the warders, particularly the female warders, interested, and were able to circulate rationalist, progressive and socialist literature quietly in prison. Now and again our privileges were threatened when the newspapers turned up where they ought not to be, but we weathered the storms.
News from the outside only adds to the impatience and yearning for release-it was always galling to be divorced from activity as well as from home and friends.
It was while I was doing my term for the fourth court martial that the war finished, but still I was confined to gaol. Month after month was passing and not a word said about my release. One day I was communing with myself. “What am I doing in here? It was in April 1919. I was going with a bucket of water and a brush to clean some windows. “Ach,” I said, “I’m finished.’ So I went back to my cell and the warder hurried after me. “What’s up?” “I’m finished.” “What do you mean, you’re finished? “I’m through. I’m not going to do another damned thing. I’m not going to work, eat or drink in this prison.” Up came the Governor, but I held my ground. “I’m finished,” I said. “There’s neither sense nor reason for my being here. The war ended months ago and to keep me here is sheer malice. I am not going to continue.” That started the ball rolling and in a few days Dave Donaldson and I were out. They called a cab to take us home.
My first reception was from my little daughter, who on seeing us ran to her mother saying there were two dirty- looking soldiers coming into the house. But we had a real party to celebrate the occasion. So many people came that we had to borrow trestle-tables from the co-operative shop next door to accommodate all the guests.
So that was the end of the court martials. More prison sentences were to come, but I didn’t know that then. Left-wing politics in the twenties were not be to a bed of roses after all.
Duffy, he got huffy, And says he to little John, “You've got no business talkin' When you're out at exercise, I've tould you that, I'm sure, until I'm sick." “Ach, Duffy dear, recall the days,When you were human too, Before you took a screw’s job in the nick.” "There's got to be no more of it Or else I'll lock you up; Will yez promise that ye won't talk any more?" “Ach bless yer heart, I couldn't promise,such a stupid thing, I'd be speakin' to mesilf behind the door."
Bob Stewart’s Prison Rhymes
I was taken from Calton Gaol to East Linton to await my third court martial. The officer in charge there was a Broughty Ferry man (Broughty Ferry is a suburb of my home town, Dundee) and he asked me, “Is it true, Stewart, that while you were in Calton you got home at weekends?”‘ “If it is,” I answered, “I never noticed it.” “Well, that’s what they said in the Ferry.” “It isn’t the only lie they told about me in the Ferry.” As the Ferry was, and still is, the stronghold of Toryism since it became the home and playground of jute millionaires, I was certain I was right, but if anyone believed that conscientious objectors got weekends out from Calton Gaol they would believe anything.
Keeping me company in the line of court martials was a very fine man called Alex McCrae. A little chap who had been in Smyrna when the war broke out. When he came home to Britain he had declared his conscientious objection. His wife, a very pretty lass who was active in the No-conscription Fellowship, came to East Linton the day I arrived, to see her husband. Knowing this, McCrae asked the Broughty Officer in Charge if he could have a night out with his wife, which was granted. So when I arrived at East Linton I got a seat at a table set for four, McCrae, two of God’s own, Christadelphians I think, and myself. Knowing McCrae would be absent, these two others shared the third meal between them and never said “Would you like an extra bite?” I was so enraged that I rounded on them. “I don’t know which Bible class you were brought up in but there’s not a prostitute in the whole of Glasgow as mean as you two.’
Then off I went to Leith Street School for the court martial. The two men in charge were rankers, had risen from the ranks to this exalted position, and didn’t they let everyone know it. My wife arrived and they refused to let her see me. I got to know and demanded to see the orderly sergeant. “This is a bloody lousy trick,” I said, “keeping my wife and kid from seeing me.” “I know,” he replied, “but it’s that fellow Cross (the ranker), he refused permission. But hang around and I think it will be all right when he goes.” And it was.
But at the court martial I got my own back good and proper. It was a real field day. Edinburgh Castle was the headquarters of Scottish Command and most defaulters passed that way. So there we were, a huge crowd in Leith Street, sergeants, corporals, privates, all in the queue; and there in the court- the Colonel and his henchmen.
Command: “Prisoners and escorts in!” So in we march, and are ranged in front of the Court. The Chairman said, “I am Colonel so-and-so, this is Captain —-and this is Lieutenant —-. By regulation I have to ask you, each one separately, if you are satisfied with the composition of the Court.” He didn’t say what would happen if anyone objected. Then he went on. “Sergeant —-, are you satisfied?” “Yes, sor.” Then it came to Private Stewart. No answer. A repeat, a bit louder, and still no answer. So he passes on until the queue is finished then bawls out, “All except Stewart.” At least there is no “Private” this time. He then turned direct to me and shouted, “Are you satisfied?” “Before we come to that I would like to ask you a question,” I said. “What is it?” “How much notice should an accused get before he is court martialled?” “Well, that depends on the conditions.” “In the present conditions?” I asked. “Twenty-four or forty eight hours.” “What happens if you don’t get any notice?” I asked. Suddenly he whipped round on them lieutenant. “Did this man get notice? “Didn’t think it was necessary,” replied the lieutenant. “Case adjourned–prisoner and escort out!” shouted the colonel. “Wait here, Lieutenant.” My escort was standing, his eyes like glass, and the order had to be repeated. When we reached the corridor he was besieged by his mates. “What happened? What did he get?” “Made a bloody mess o’ them, case adjourned.” “Holy jees!” So the story buzzed around the escorts and accused, and all seemed highly pleased. Then the door opened and out came the lieutenant in a furious rage. “Take him back to barracks,” he shouted; then howled, “And see he gets no privileges.”
So we reach the street and then I find the escort is blazing mad. He had schemed that he could leave me after sentence and visit his wife who lived in Leith, only a mile away. “Well,” I said, “that’s tough on you, you haven’t done anything wrong. Why should you be deprived of a night with the wife? Why not buzz off and I will meet you in the morning?” “Can I trust you?” “Sure, I’ll be at the station in the morning.” So off he went to see his wife and I to see an old pal, Jimmie Leven, who lived out in Gorgie. There I had a great welcome, a bath and a good feed. In the evening Jim and I went to a Peace Committee meeting and I made such an impassioned speech that the secretary thought the war had come to his meeting.
I was soon back again and this time no mistake. All regulations duly observed – ‘Refused to Parade’ was the charge. So I was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment with hard labour (later remitted to one year). I was sent to the state prison in Edinburgh Castle. But I was not long there. My mother was much too old to make the journey to Edinburgh but naturally she wanted to see her youngest son as many times as she could. So she came a few times, and in the process discovered that the Governor came from the same part of the country as she did. When she had said good-bye to me, the Governor invited her into his office to chat–as we Scots say, “Hame crack ower farms and farmers, cattle and crops, lairds and tenants and the hamely fare o’ the countryside.” I remember my mother telling me about him saying to her, “What I canna understand, wumman, hoo wi’ a maither like you Robert’s an atheist.” “Aye;” she replied, “he was aye a great Bible student.”
My mother died while I was in the state prison, but military regulations would not allow me permission to attend the funeral. There was much local feeling about this because my mother was greatly respected by all her neighbours, and protests were made to the Lord Provost of Dundee. He did intervene and said he would vouch for my return. I was then transferred to civil imprisonment again in Calton Gaol for a few hours, and taken under a most inhuman warder to Dundee, where I arrived too late to see my mother buried; but I met the family, among them my two soldiering brothers who had managed to get leave. The warder was in a hurry to get back to Edinburgh and so he dumped me in Dundee Gaol. More deputations to the Lord Provost and the upshot was that it was decided I would do the rest of my time in Dundee. Dundee was a smaller prison than Calton, and at that time, much to the chagrin of the warders, not fully occupied. How well I remember their glee at reception of new prisoners. Not that they were more devoted to duty or softer-hearted than the turnkeys at Calton, but the massacres in Europe were eating up hosts of men, and patriotic as the warders naturally were, they were not at all anxious to be called up to the front for service.
As a matter of record, I helped some of them make out their claims for exemption on compassionate, domestic or other grounds. So the warder who locked me up for resisting military service then asked my assistance to fill up his application form for exemption so that he could continue to lock me up!
Jute being the staple industry of Dundee, the situation in its prison was more or less the same. Teasing jute ropes, making and sewing sacks for coal, copper, meat-packing, etc. The working day was ten hours, sixty sacks, sides and bottoms, being the daily norm: a smaller number of coal sacks, which were heavy and hard to bore with the needle. Of course, all material was hand sewn, there were no machines, and the work was primitive and not very economic. At times my work was in association with a fellow called Tammy Sword, a local worthy doing his fifty-second sentence for being drunk and disorderly. When he got really drunk he boasted that it took half a dozen policemen to carry him to gaol, where he was more at home than in his own home.
The warders appreciated Tammy’s capacity as a sewer. He set a hard pace for his fellow prisoners, but he had a soft spot for me. “Dinna sew any, Bob,” he would say,”tak’ some o’ mine to mak’ up your lot.” Dave Donaldson and I were couriers in a romance with his sweetheart, who was doing time in the female part of the gaol. Dave was working with the artisan warder who did the maintenance work, and so was able to move around. In this way amorous notes were exchanged between Tammy and his lass with great regularity. Dave Donaldson was a beam and scale maker, and was handy at pipe fitting and whatever small smithy work had to be done. When necessary I was his labourer. We changed over when there was a carpenter’s job to be done, I then becoming the skilled man. We painted and whitewashed too, and were getting quite proud of our skill until Willie Findlay, another “conchie” and a painter by trade, came to do his hard labour. Then we sadly gave in and admitted that painting was a trade.
Oh, Calton Gaol! Oh, Calton Gaol! Sae sombre, grim and grey, Within thy wa’s were gallant hearts, Held captive many a day, For they refused to bend the knee, To tyrant’s cruel sway, Their stand remembered aye shall be, They stood for liberty.
Bob Stewart’s Prison Rhymes
The days wore on to my second court martial. Now I was really beginning to know the ropes. Culprits for the court were lined up outside the court-room in good time, in charge of a sergeant. There was the usual to-ing and fro-ing, standing to attention, saluting and so on. Yours truly, of course, was taking no part in the proceedings and a young soldier standing near me said, “Some funny things come up in times of war.” “No, no,” I replied. “No different from time of peace. Only different uniforms.” “You should be shot,” he came back. “Well, if I wait till you save up to buy a gun I don’t doubt I’ll have my old age pension before that.” After a turn down the line, he came back and said, “Christ! that was a good one!”
The sentence of the court conformed to regulations. “For failing to obey military order, etc., etc. . . One year’s imprisonment with hard labour ” (subsequently reduced to six months). In due course I was escorted Calton Gaol, Edinburgh , and handed over to the authorities. The authorities, by trial and error, had discovered by this time that even their notorious “glass-houses”, the military detention barracks with their “at the double” man breaking exercises, only stiffened the resistance of the objectors to military service. The refusal to obey the “lion-tamers” was having a bad effect on the other prisoners who became inclined to emulate them, and so the government made a virtue out of necessity, and a show of their “humanity”, by transferring the objectors to civil jails.
Calton Gaol was grim and grey, old and forbidding both inside and out. Reception was not quite so noisy as the Scrubs. I remember the warder fussing around, listing the King’s property in my possession, which tended to get less and less as I passed through the guard-rooms where other soldiers were always short of kit.
“Whit’s your size in buits?” Try them on. “Have you had a bath?” Oh, aye, you look clean. “Where’s your moleskins?” In Scottish prisons the dress includes moleskin breeches tied at the knees with tape, long stockings which never matched, rough cotton shirt (Kirkcaldy strip to the trade), moleskin jacket, glengarry cap, and of course a badge with hall and cell number. “Oh, Stewart, whit’s your religion? “I haven’t any.” “Ye maun hae a religion, a’body has in here.” “Well, here’s one that doesn’t.” “Well I’ll just mak’ ye a Quaker, there’s a lot o’ your kind Quakers.’ So down on my cell card alongside age, height, etc., goes Quaker. Now comes the chaplain. What are you in for?” “Me? Twelve months.” “That’s not what I mean. What have you done?” “Oh, I refused to do anything.” I think he then began to tumble to the position so he went outside and looked at the card. “I see you are a Quaker.” “Not me, I neither quake nor shake.” “It says so on your card.” “Ah yes, I had a soldier’s suit on yesterday but that did not make me a soldier.” So ended the spiritual ministrations and Quaker was crossed out and atheist inserted in a bold hand.
A favourite prison tale is told of this chaplain, who was alleged to be fond of a “wee drap”. One of his congregation became suddenly religious and requested the chaplain to read a bit chapter to him as he had no glasses. This the chaplain did with great pleasure but he was not so happy when he heard the convert’s explanation–that next to the taste of rum the smell can be comforting.
To supplement the swashbuckling sermons of the professional chaplain who wielded the Sword of Gideon over us on Sunday mornings, we had a diversion to amateurism on Sunday afternoons with an Evangelist; accompanied by a lady organist.
Here is the routine. When the fleshpots were removed after dinner came the order: “Stools down to the Hall for Bible Class!” Down we clattered to the Hall, and set our stools, spaced well apart to avoid conversation between prisoners (it did not!).
Mr. Bannerman the preacher opened the service with prayer (that was a signal for whispers). Then came a hymn accompanied by a wheezy harmonium. A bit doleful, but it revealed to me where the griddlers, back court and street singers had received their training. Then the prisoners recited texts from the Bible, still more doleful, but it gave the prisoners a feeling of participation which they enjoyed. Then a short sermon, a bit weepy. Another hymn or two, then an announcement that anyone who recited the 15th Chapter of St. Luke without a mistake would receive a Bible on release. On my second Sunday I gave St. Luke full voice! I got that Bible when released.
There were always “Conchies” passing in and out of Calton Gaol, many of them religious, who enjoyed reciting texts. I thought I might diversify the service a bit, so started to quote the poets: Tennyson, Burns, Shelley. Other “Conchies” soon followed suit with their favourites, from Omar Khayyam to Walt Whitman. It got too much for Mr. Bannerman, who said we must take only texts from the Bible. I think he had been taken to task by his superior. After that we had a bit of difficulty in persuading some of the lads not to utter some of the rather bawdy texts from the Good Book which might offend the lass at the music box.
One Sunday we had visitors from outside to see what we looked like. As usual the texts were invited. After a few regulars had said their piece I took a turn with: “Woe unto you Scribes and Pharisees–Hypocrites” etc., etc! That tore it! I think the visitors were taking it to heart. The outcome came the next Sunday when Mr. Bannerman told us we were getting into a rut with our texts, so we must take them in future from the 19th Psalm, which had plenty of verses, but it was deadly dull. So I tried my hand at making my own texts. They sounded much the same, and there were no complaints.
One day I was sitting in my cell at Calton when the door opened and in comes the warder. “I wonder at you, Stewart,” he says, “all these nice people who come to see you, your wife, your wee lassie and the others, all such nice people.” “Well, what of it?” I asked, puzzled. “On your card it says you are an atheist and I thought all atheists were thieves, robbers, devils or whoremongers.” “How many atheists have you in this jail?” I asked. “Only you,” he answered. “Well, if all the others are Christians it doesn’t say very much for Christianity, does it? So the poor old joker went out, locked the door and made off quite confused.
It was in Calton Gaol I first heard of the March Revolution in Russia. One day I was going round the exercise ring when in beside me came my old pal Dave Donaldson who had just been convicted again and given another dose. “There’s been a revolution in Russia. They’ve set up Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils,” he whispered. “There will be a revolution here in six months.” “Hae ma doots,” I said, but the warder put an end to our observations on this epoch-making event.
Time marches on. Sometimes much better than the army. My time came to an end, and I was sent for by the chief warder, the Governor being away. “Well, Stewart,” he says, “you are to get another chance to shoot the Germans.” “Look, brother,” I replied, addressing him in good trade union language, “if ever I take it into my head to go shooting it won’t be Germans I’ll be looking for.” “And who will you be looking for?” “Warders.” And with that I moved to my third court martial.
(In Chapel, male prisoners are partitioned off from females.)
We go on Sunday to the Church, And sit amongst the boys; The girls are on the other side, We tell that by the noise, The warders grim, our shepherds are, Perched on their seats to view The motley: flock of wayward sheep They watch the service through.
Of prayer, and chant, and sacred verse, The pastor spares he none; An' in his prayers confesses oft The rotten things we've done. ‘Twirls seem his God's a magistrate; Safe seated up on high, Who, when he hears the weekly tale, Must surely wink his eye.
A summary of war-like news Each Sunday morn provides, And parson's magisterial God Compelled is to take sides. He must become a God of War To help us smite the German, And so establish peace on earth By sword in place of sermon.
At last the service to a close The parson duly bringeth, And through the Chapel dolefully Jehovah’s praises ringeth, With pose affected, hands outstretched, He benediction utters; Methinks his love for fellow-men Amicted is with stutters.
Tom Mann addressing the crowds at Trafalgar Square. Possibly at the Sacco and Vanzetti protest in 1927.
Few members of the public might recognise the name Tom Mann these days but, even though he died over eighty years ago, he remains a giant of the Labour movement and trade unionism. He drew huge crowds as a public speaker and achieved the seemingly impossible by being equally admired by moderate Labour figures such as George Lansbury, Clement Attlee and Herbert Morrison and by his comrades in the CPGB Harry Pollitt and Willie Gallacher. Both my great grandfather, Bob, and William, my grandfather were privileged to know him. Recently I watched some old Pathe footage of Mann addressing crowds of people in Trafalgar Square and was amazed to see Bob Stewart wander in to shot and look straight at the camera for a moment. At that point in time- 1927- he was fifty years old – a landmark which I am rapidly approaching. Almost a hundred years separated us an unexpected and it was spine tingling moment.
Below you will find photographs of a few of the documents relating to Tom Mann we have. Two of them relate directly to his eightieth birthday celebrations in 1936 and feature contributions from the figures mentioned earlier as well as a few others. I hope you enjoy them.
Front cover and opening pages of ‘Tom Mann -80th Birthday Souvenir’. Signed by the man himself.Introduction by Ben Tillet, Mann’s friend and colleague.‘Tom Mann: Militant Trade Unionist’ by W. Arthur Peacock.Birthday greetings from George Lansbury, Clement Attlee, Dave Kendall, George N. Barnes and Percy Laidler.Birthday greetings from Herbert Morrison, W.A. Appleton, Wilfred H. Harrison, Tom Mooney, Harry Pollitt, Fred A. Smith, W. P. Coates, Jack Tanner, J. R. Clones and Edo Fimmen. Back cover – note from my grandad to my dad – he’s gone to Tottenham corner.
Apparently seven hundred people attended Tom Mann’s 80th Birthday Testimonial Dinner. Here’s an autographed menu. Signed by Tom Mann, Ben Tillet, Bob Stewart, Willie Gallacher, Harry Pollitt, Clement Attlee (!) and others. I was quite shocked to see Attlee’s autograph in that company- not exactly renowned for his communist sympathies is he?
Clement Attlee’s autograph near the bottom just above the printed credits.
A memorial to Tom Mann was unveiled at Lawnswood Cemetery in 1970. I am presuming my grandfather attended and bought back this souvenir- Bob Stewart would probably have been to poorly to attend at that time.
When I sailed for South Africa I got a present of a pocket book and a little money from the Templars, a Gladstone bag and a set of razors from the joiners in the Yard. At Cape Town, where I landed, my first visit was to my sister who was housekeeper to A. B. Reid, one of the protégés of Cecil Rhodes. Rhodes was the big imperialist and had a vast amount of satellite firms under his control- building works, contracting firms of all descriptions, transport firms and so on. A. B. Reid was one of the biggest building contracting men in South Africa. I met him during the visit to my sister’s and he advised me to stay in Cape Town and said he would give me work. However, I had promised my friend in Pretoria to go there and to me a promise is something you keep.
Bob’s pocket book. A gift from the Dundee branch of the IOGT.
My first night in Pretoria I ran into the race question. I was out with my two pals, Henderson, the fellow who had sent me my fare, and another called Scott, who also came from Dundee. We were walking along the street when we came to a junction and met some Africans coming up the other street. They were big fellows and going along quietly, minding their own business. Suddenly Henderson, who was quite a small fellow, about five feet three inches tall, lashed out with his boot at these Africans and kicked one to the ground. I reacted by taking a swing at him and clouting him on the jaw, then demanded to know why he wanted to kick a man like that. He gazed at me in amazement. “Do you not know that Kaffirs must stand back and let us pass?” and I got a lecture on how the black man must be kept in his place and all the blah blah that we are so familiar with at the present time. But the lecture had no effect on me. I could not understand the line of reasoning that because the colour of a man’s skin was black he could not pass in front of you. I had never had a spare pair of boots until my apprenticeship was finished and therefore such “superior” thinking was foreign to my nature, and no doubt the reading of socialist and temperance books, which always had an international content, would wipe out any thought of a colour bar.
But I very soon discovered that the colour bar in South Africa was not only an idea in some people’s minds. It was a way of life. On public transport, in places of entertainment, even in churches, there was segregation, special places for whites and others for the blacks, and to my horror even the Templars had white and black lodges.
My first job was in the railway workshops but after a few weeks hundreds of men were stood off because for some reason supplies of material and money from Britain were stopped. So back I was, unemployed again. I worked on odd jobs for the farmers on the veldt, building stables and doing all sorts of joinery work. I also worked for a few weeks finishing bungalows and villas for British officers. The war had finished long ago, but it looked as if they were anchored. Another place to find work was in the rising shanty towns. Here ordinary British soldiers took over an African woman each, set up in a shack and sent her to work washing and cleaning for the whites, while they frequented the white clubs and pubs buying and selling land script. If one tenth of the tales I had to listen to at boarding house tables and in the “scoff”‘ houses were true, then many of the whites by their own boasting were a far from reputable lot.
But as the weeks passed it became brutally apparent to me that Pretoria was a place men were not coming to, but rather getting out of very fast. The cost of living was high and unemployment was rising rapidly. So I followed the exodus and made for the Cape, where living was cheaper although wages were lower. By this time I had had to flog nearly half my toolkit to keep going and the sun-tan of the promised land had begun to wear off- if it had ever taken on.
Back in Cape Town I attended the joiner’s trade union branch and the Templars lodge and got up-to-date with the local position- state of work, employers and so on. I was elected as a delegate to the Cape Town Trades Council and on occasions was on deputations to the ministries during industrial disputes, of which there were many, but the trade unions were still weak and ineffective. This weakness was aggravated by the attitude of the whites to the organisation of the coloured and black workers. My experience was that generally speaking the whites were not only against the blacks coming into the white trade unions but in many cases against the blacks and coloured being organised at all. There was a commonly held idea that they were too stupid to organise effective trade unions.
One morning, to the horror of all “decent” people, the blacks who loaded and unloaded the ships at Cape Town did not turn up for work. They also bunkered the ships running with their heavy loads of coal on their backs up the gangways. It made me sweat to look at them. They had a grievance, a very old one. They said, maninga sabenzi i kouna mali, too much work too little money. So they stayed on their location. The bosses tried to persuade them to go back to work, but always got the same answer, we want more money. The police, both black and white, surrounded the location. The parsons of all the churches prayed and entreated. The authorities offered the time-honoured dodge of setting up a committee of inquiry. It was all of no avail. The blacks stayed quietly on their location and waited. Finally the bosses gave way and granted extra wages. This burst the bubble that the blacks were unable to organise.
I landed a job in a wood yard at Mowbray. A shipload of timber had come in and I had to supervise a gang of Africans who piled the wood, classified as firsts, seconds and thirds, in the sheds. I was constantly in trouble because I was told I did not drive the blacks hard enough. I saw they did their work; there was certainly no slacking; they worked hard and I rather liked them. They were a happy crowd and I noticed that they ate together and that many of them shared their meal pack with their less fortunate mates, something that seldom happened with the white tradesmen.
In the Cape wages were lower than up country. At this time Kruger, the Boer leader, had decreed that no white man should work for less than £1 a day, a very good wage then. But British contractors got over this by contracting men in Britain, Sweden and elsewhere for much lower rates, paying their fares to South Africa and then holding the men to their contracts while they were there. Because of this wages were lower in the Cape, approximately 14s. a day for tradesmen. Certainly the Kruger decree was never applied, but 14s. a day was a good wage if you could get steady work.
Unemployment got so bad that demands were made for relief work for the unemployed. The Cape Town Trades Council waged a campaign on this and eventually succeeded. The unions paid unemployment pay, which was only IOS. a week and lasted for only thirteen weeks. Even the cheapest board for a single man was (2 a weck. It was because of this impossible position and the campaign waged by the Trades Council that relief work was started by the authorities.
Usually the relief work was strenuous manual labour, making new roads, excavation for new buildings, and such like. This is where many of the Africans got their own back. Firstly, because they had the same relief rates as the whites and, secondly, they were much better used to the handling of a pick and a shovel and the whites could not keep pace; no doubt this made a dent in some of the superior attitudes.
I was never reduced to relief work though many times I was next door to it. I passed through several jobs that lasted only a few weeks , keeping body and soul together. then came the news that there was to be an industrial exhibition in Cape town. All joiners heard this news with glee. We went down to the site and saw the foreman. Yes! He required plenty of joiners, but he said “What rate were you expecting?” “The standard rate,” I replied. There was a heated argument with the foreman who offered 10s. a day, a figure well under the standard. We could not shift the foreman. In face of this I suggested we hold a meeting and after some discussion it was agreed that a deputation go to see the management and make it clear that if the standard rate was not paid there would be no joiners to build the exhibition. The deputation soon returned with the answer. No more than 10s. a day. So I said, “Let’s all walk off the job,” and to give a lead my pal, a fellow joiner named Forest, and myself walked off. But we were the only ones who did. The rest stayed put. The men who stayed were good trade unionists but the employment situation was so bad they weren’t prepared to fight.
One night, feeling very low, I went to the Templars and found a cricket match on. I was asked to play and at the finish got talking to another player from the opposing side, Australian, “How’s business?”‘ he asked. No one asked “How’s work? “I haven’t got any,” I replied. “I got sacked and I have no job at the moment.” He then told me a friend of his was fitting out a restaurant for his fancy woman and could do with a man to do various joinery jobs. Naturally I gobbled at this and was introduced to the friend, a shipping agent, who was satisfied I could make the necessary alterations to the restaurant.
I measured up the job, started with the wood available, and sent an order to the saw mills at Salt River for more. Things were looking up. Then, out for a walk at lunch time, I ran into another joiner, a member of the union, who was really miserable. “Christ! If I could only get another job I would tell the swine of a foreman where to get off,” he said. “Well,” I replied, it was. “I have a bit of a job myself,” and I explained what “You can have half of it if you want.” “Good, wait there a minute and I’ll be back.” He went off like a shot and when he returned a few minutes later he was a different man. I don’t know what he said or did to the foreman but he certainly relieved himself of a burden.
The shipping agent and I got along very well. A lot of furniture and prefabricated counters, etc., came out from London. These had to be put together. There were ovens to be put in the kitchen, sinks and other plumbing work to do. In fact all the building tradesmen in my digs got into the scheme. Masons worked on the walls and cut out fireplaces, plumbers worked at the water fittings, joiners fixed the floors, counters, fretwork arches and so on. This kept us going for a few weeks. I had the right to purchase most of the material and came to an agreement with the suppliers from which I got a 5 per cent commission which supplemented my wages.
I never met the shipping agent’s fancy woman and I do not know how she fared as a restaurateur, but she got a first-class place, and several building trades workers gave her thanks for supplying them with work during very hard times.
I made up my mind while doing this job that I had had enough of South Africa. During my stay I had tried to send some money home to my wife in Dundee, but although I didn’t smoke and was strictly teetotal it was hard going. My wife, working in Dundee, was finding it difficult to make ends meet, so I decided to return home. With the money from the restaurant job I had enough for the steerage fare home.
On the boat home I found many like myself, some had been even worse off. The promised land had not fulfilled its promise. Many had done a spell of relief work and were bitter about their experiences. One interesting fellow I met was a Cornishman. Cornishmen are very common in South Africa, particularly in the gold mining areas. No doubt their tin mining experience had some value. When a Cornishman got a job he wasn’t long in asking the gaffer if he could find a job for his cousin Jack. So Cornishmen in South Africa are all called Cousin Jacks. This Cornishman on the boat had been the first to take a group of Chinese down the mines. There was a tremendous political row in Britain at the time about imported Chinese labour in South Africa: This was not only a reactionary racialist matter continuing the dirty ‘Yellow Peril’ scare launched by the German Käiser in 1900, but also a strong protest expressed in the resolutions of British trade unions and socialist organisations against indentured Chinese labour kept in compounds which they regarded as a form of slavery. But the Chinese never had intentions of working in the mines for low wages. At this time the African natives were prohibited from drinking intoxicating liquor so the Chinese got into a racket of making the liquor and selling it very profitably to the Africans.
The Cornishman gave me some very graphic details of life in the gold mines. The duration of life was not long even for the white artisans. For the natives it was only a matter of months or at best a few years. The dust, lack of sanitation, intolerable labour conditions and disease were dreadful reapers of human life, white or black.
I returned home more convinced than ever that a change in economic and social conditions was necessary. South Africa was certainly a land of promise for men of capital and money, but for ordinary workers like me it was hell. The great weakness of the workers’ organisations, trade unions and co-operatives, meant that in any labour dispute the boss invariably won. I had left Dundee well equipped with tools and clothes, a book of Burns’ poems and the Bible, transport paid for and all looking rosy. I squared my debt for my outward passage, left South Africa minus half my tools and arrived home a wiser and much more experienced man.
The 1929 National Unemployed March from Glasgow to London arriving at Hyde Park.
Frankly, the 1920s do not seem very different to our own times. Huge inequality, increasing poverty and a government wholly indifferent to the situation, more concerned with preserving their interests and dismantling the rights of ordinary people. Liberal voices and the fourth estate hostile to any ideas that may remedy the situation. Perhaps the main difference between then and now is that, in the twenties, unemployment was the source of hardship whereas these days most people tipping into poverty are in work.
During the 1920s and 1930s there were numerous marches and protests to combat unemployment and hunger and my grandfather Bill Stewart was on one of the first. I recently discovered two documents that shed a little light on these times. One of them was my grandad’s own handwritten account of his experiences, written sometime in the 1970s for The Morning Star. The other was a letter to Bill from trade union legend Tom Mann- a colleague and friend of his father Bob Stewart.
Letter from Tom Mann to William Stewart.
The envelope is addressed to ‘Comrade William Stewart – WITH THE MARCHING UNEMPLOYED’ to be picked up at the Aylesbury post office on or after the 20th February. The marchers had made it on foot from Glasgow to Buckinghamshire in a little less than a month. The letter is on the headed notepaper of the National Unemployed Workers Committees Movement – an organisation set up by the CPGB to highlight the conditions of the unemployed after the First World War and on the back Tom Mann has scrawled something along the lines of ‘Good luck Will- you’ve stuck it grand.’ There’s even a signed photograph. The letter reads:
To Comrade Will Stewart and the Boys on the March.
Dear Comrades, I send you a word of hearty good luck and sincere congratulations on your splendid march.
In London we are eager for all details as to how you fare on the road. We are doing our best to prepare nicely for you on your arrival.
You have done splendidly and are now within a few days of your destination. In spite of all obstacles you have achieved your purpose so far and we believe will carry it out to the letter.
I am hoping to meet you at Watford on Friday, continue in the same spirit of Comradely devotion to our great cause and you will do much to bring about betterment now and the great Industrial and Social change for the future.
Hail to the Marchers; Fraternally Yours,
Tom Mann
Part of William Stewart’s handwritten account of the 1929 Unemployment March from Glasgow to London.
William Stewart’s own handwritten account seems to have been written sometime in the 1970s almost fifty years after the event. It sheds more light on what it was like to be on the march and the issues they faced on the way. Wal Hannington was a founding member of the CPGB and the head of the National Unemployed Workers’ Movement. If any one could identify the Geo Middleton mentioned I’d be extremely grateful.
I have just been reading your article in this morning’s Morning Star on the Hunger Marchers, and I think that apart from the actual primary importance of the political side of the campaign, please let us tell the up and coming militants what made an ‘Unemployable Person’ (as the title often was quoted) a Hunger Marcher.
I took part in the first Scottish Hunger March from Glasgow to London, we gathered in the centre of Glasgow made up of Clydeside engineers, jute workers from Dundee, fish and dock workers from Aberdeen Scottish miners from Fife and elsewhere in fact a representative section of the working class of Scotland. Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor altogether some 300 marched off with Wal Hannington, Geo Middleton and a braw lad from the Isle of Arran. I must not omit the mobile soup kitchen of this ‘great little army’. It was an old tin Lizzie which had been an ornate ice cream cart common in Scotland. For our purpose it was fitted with an old wash house boiler (as used these days for cooking pigs swill) a few sacks of boiler coke and firewood and of course a ‘cook’ of whom more later.
The month of January was not best weatherwise in Scotland and as we progressed on our way snow was falling as we marched through Thornhill singing the old marching songs of the Movement in which we were soon to become as efficient as any body of marching troups and when London’s Trafalgar Square was reached our rendition of Macgregor’s Gathering and the Hunger Marchers song was worthy of a Red Army Choir.
I am transgressing, to get back to purport of these notes I must go back to our march across the border into Carlisle, here along a country road came the power of the law in the shape of a PC Sergeant and Chief Constable resplendent in blue and yards of black braid and a flashing silver nobbed cane. Wall gave the command to stand to attention coming abreast of the Chief Constable – he stepped forward saluted Wal and said ‘Mr Hannington you have a fine body of well disciplined men. I had visions of a rabble.’ Our well organised army of determined men had evoked a Chief Constable’s admiration. Sad to say this was not the case as we progressed.
What comradeship and warmth we received – the big splendid meals of hot vegetable soups and through Lancashire the tons of hotpot consumed as we lay down on school floors or club floors tired but proud with the great justification of the duty we were performing for our class. Proud of the bands of working class women who cooked and fed us at each halt on the way – of butchers who handed us joints of meat – bakers who gave us bread and buns – of the Co-op Womans Guild who organised their local Co-op resources on our behalf – of women, whose homes were full of their own unemployed fathers and sons, took and did washing for us.
Each marcher had an Army blanket which on the march was rolled and worn bandolier wise over our overcoats and with each man wearing an Army haversack we did look as if we meant business – marching in battalion formation of companies and sections, (we had no lack of military advisers- many of the lads were ex-servicemen).
Our commander and his deputy Wal Hannington and Geo Middleton respectively were tremendous, not forgetting the role they played – for want of a better name – political commissars.
To get back to my story and to emphasise the main purpose of writing is to show that it was in the organisation and the day to day problems and details dealt with by “Our Command’ without this the impact on the community would have been lost. All working class organisations rallied to us as the march continued south.
We had a cyclist courier on an old boneshaker who would ride ahead to alert local comrades of our impending arrival and make arrangements for our rest at night – all important when we had forced our march to some 30miles in one day on some occasions.
Wal Hannington- head of the National Unemployed Workers’ Movement.
We were approaching Warwick – our scout or courier said we would have to go to the ‘Spike’ that night and he was not too sure of the ‘Workhouse Master’. As we marched in that evening there stood the Master well dressed in tweeds and stout brown brogues – the envy of the Army booted marchers. His eyes showed his amazement at our discipline quietly he said ‘this is not what I expected’ and he re-arranged all the quarters and implemented the meals after which he asked Wal and I to share his supper in his own quarters and as the meal of lamb and pickles progressed and Wal explained the reason and the purpose of what the march involved he grew in admiration and from a hostile attitude almost came to flattering of our efforts. He voluntarily waved the 3hour work rule then in force – (any person using the workhouse overnight was compelled to do such things as cleaning, wood chopping and coal carrying. This was not always the case as in later cases when a downright refusal had to be made at other workhouses). As Wal and I said good night to him and walked across to the main building and our floor space Wal said to me “Billy another couple of hours with that bloke I would have had him packing up and joining us.
On down through Lancashire among the lassies in their clogs and shawls ladling out mountains of hotpot full of meat scrounged off local butchers and cigarettes from their own meagre supplies – though on occasions a Tobacconist gave a supply of Woodbines, Shag and papers
What an army from Glasgow to London without a courtmartial! At no time was anyone reported for drinking such was the effect of good leadership and voluntary discipline in our day to day organisation of ordinary working blokes with intellect enough to understand how worthwhile this great effort was. Many had little knowledge of The Working Class Movement when the march started other than they were against the system that had unjustly degraded them but the hell of it had not broken the spirit that took them on the march.
One wee chap whose feet were a bit sore as we marched along half whispered to me ‘Hey Bill I’ve been thinking we missed a wee thing at the start of this — job – we should have sent a telegram to Budyonny to hae sent us some o his Red Cavalry horses – ma feet always walked better in stirrups? Later I learnt he had been in the Scots Greys.
The bedding down at night were like any barrack room except the arguments were on a higher plain and as the march progressed the full sense of class and political involvement came to the top and the knowledge of fully participating in the struggle of the masses and the need to implement their knowledge grew in their eagerness and enlightenment so that when London came everyman Jack was fully conscious of every facet of the political causes that prompted our actions as working class militants.
God, how my father loved to tell stories. At his funeral I spoke about the times in my twenties when I used to ring home and he would talk and talk to the point where I would put the receiver down and walk off for five minutes to make a cup of tea. When I picked up again, dad would still be going strong, never knowing he’d been speaking to empty space. In the week following his death I searched everywhere for any recording I had of him and his voice. I imagine a lot of people who don’t stop talking only ever think of themselves but I don’t think this was true of dad. He was interested in everything and everyone. Our friends became his friends and he was always happiest surrounded by people. In short – he was a lot of fun.
Unfortunately, in his last years vascular dementia dulled a lot of this. Buttonholing strangers for random conversations and endlessly repeated reminiscences of his wartime childhood were the norm for a while. Whereas in the past his stories entertained us, now they just made us apprehensive. They were to be policed and quietly managed. He had no filter. There would be myself, my partner and our small child together with my parents on a day out and when we sat down for lunch in a cafe dad would often turn his chair around and begin regaling the family behind us with his criticisms of ‘the colour bar’ in the 1960s, or the Napoleonic wars, whatever came to mind at that moment. These strangers would look bemused and often a little alarmed wondering why this person had attached themselves to their party before we got his attention to turn back to us. However, the illness didn’t dull his sense of the absurd. A few years before he died, during one of the rare times our small family was all together, he told a bizarre anecdote about his father trapped on a cargo ship with a polar bear drunk on Siberian honey. I had originally remembered the bear as being loose on a Russian submarine but my brother put me right – his memory of the story makes much more sense.
Although I can’t recall the exact words, dad’s tale left indelible images in my mind. Here’s my attempt at a retelling:
An icy breeze buffets the gulls gliding in the stone grey Leningrad skies. The docks seem busier than usual – all the activity focussed on a cargo ship berthed on the western side already sitting heavy in the water ready for its voyage. On the quayside, amongst the bedraggled dockworkers, stands a group of soldiers with rifles on their shoulders smoking and chatting nervously amongst themselves. Sailors weave past them, hats pulled down and jackets fastened tight against the Baltic air as they make the final preparations for their journey. Just one more item of cargo to load.
A crane rattles and wheezes into life. The crowds of dockers, soldiers and sailors all stop for a moment to gaze up at the large cage now being loaded on to the deck. Inside lies a huge mass of white fur which undulates slowly. Wheezing and snuffling sounds can be heard – the beast is heavily sedated. However, it is the large, black claws, each one the size of a hunting knife, that seizes the bystanders’ attention. This very large, very dangerous polar bear is on its way to London. It is a gift from Stalin himself.
With some difficulty sailors and dockworkers push and heave the massive drugged carnivore into a small compartment down in the hold where it settles down to snore away the effects of the anaesthetic. There is relief when the bar is shut down against the door and the key is turned – every man fully aware of the damage their cargo could do if it woke up and decided to clamp its jaws around their head. The final preparations are made for the journey and before long the steamship is manoeuvring its way out of the harbour towards the Gulf of Finland and out to the Baltic Sea on its way to England.
Unfortunately, the comrades haven’t read their AA Milne. In a oversight that they would soon regret, the sailors have stored a consignment of Siberian honey next to the sleeping bear. It may as well have been a powder keg. There are barrels and barrels of the stuff and, while a small group of off duty sailors sit around and pass the time playing cards, a pungent, earthy smell diffuses throughout the hold.
One of the sailors there is called Bill- a communist from Scotland. He’s there to make sure everything runs smoothly. That Stalin’s magnanimous gift is delivered without a hitch. As the cards are dealt once again, Bill becomes aware of a low growl and a scratching noise coming from the bear’s compartment. He ignores it as do the rest of the company and the game goes on. They imagine the bear is simply dreaming in the way they’ve seen their pet dogs chase rabbits in their sleep. But the bear is not dreaming. Instead the bear is emerging slowly from its slumber and has caught the scent of the wild honey.
Before long, the smell begins to intoxicate and torment the beast. It begins to get more and more agitated. To begin with the card players merely shout at it to keep the noise down before returning to their game. The growls get louder and then suddenly there is a thudding noise as the bear slams itself against the door in an effort to get to the barrels. It’s at this point the men stop playing and look nervously at each other. There is another thud. The sailors get up. While the others step warily back, Bill takes a few steps towards the bear’s compartment but instinctively stops. It is a very bad idea. Another thud accompanied by an almighty roar and the sailors scatter in panic. They shout to their comrades on deck that the bear is escaping. They shout to their comrades to bring rifles. Another thud and the sound of wood splintering. The sight of a claw, an eye, bared teeth. It’s only going to take a few more goes at battering the door before the bear escapes.
Bill shouts at the others to get out immediately and they scramble for to the steps that will take them up to the deck. Bill is the last to leave and, as he does so, the bear finally smashes through the door sending splintering wood everywhere. The sound it’s making is terrifying. It heads straight for the steps just as Bill gets onto the deck, the swipe of a paw missing his leg by inches. The ashen faced sailors are joined by their comrades as they look down the hatch, the bear snarling up at them. Someone brings along a rifle and attempts to push it into another’s hands. The man refuses. As does another. And another. Soon the whole crowd around the hatch are ignoring the chaos down below, shaking their heads and remonstrating with the man with the rifle. Not one of them is prepared to shoot the animal no matter how much danger they could be in or the damage that could be done. Shoot a gift from Stalin? How would you explain that? Staring at the floor they’d all rather take their chances with the bear.
Looking at the nervous crew Bill decides there is only one solution. He slams the hatch down and locks it, trapping the bear in the hold. The reaction down below is instantaneous- those on the deck can hear the animal going beserk. This seems to last an age- the sound of a bear wrecking every single barrel in the hold. Each smashed casing and the devouring of its contents propelling it into a further frenzy. What is to be done? Nothing it seems and most of the crowd drifts away from the hatch to worry and fret while leaving Bill and a comrade to stand guard. Eventually the bawling and growling gives way to huffing, slurping and chomping. Gradually these are replaced by a whimpering, the sound of a bear dropping to the floor and a heavy wheezing. Its a while before Bill opens the hatch. When he does, he is awed by the scenes of destruction that meet his eye. Every part of the bear’s fur seems matted and drenched with honey, its eyes rolled narcotically to the back of its head and its tongue lolling out of its slavering mouth. It is lying awkwardly on its back atop the wreckage of the entire consignment. Honey oozes out across the floor and splashes the walls. Bill will always remember this sight. A miracle no one was injured. With luck, they can now keep the bear sedated, clean up the mess and fix the worst of the damage. They can deliver their gift. Stalin need never know.
I can still remember the looks my brother gave me as we sat in a Chinese restaurant listening to Dad recount this tale. We hadn’t heard him in full flow for quite some time. It was more lucid than we were used to at that point but also more bizarre. And funny too. Much funnier than my attempt. He was more like his old self. Dad, for his part, maintained it was all true and that his father, Bill, had been one the sailors. It’s since become one of the main things we remember Dad by. Somehow typical of him but also, as it was one of the last of his tales he managed relay to us, more unique than ever. In the intervening years, the only other time I heard him talk at that length and detail was when we spoke on the phone a week before he died. For years all he’d managed was, “I’m being well looked after!” before passing the receiver back to Mum. In that last conversation he spoke for half an hour about how much he loved his parents, our Mum, my brother and me and our partners before speaking beautifully about his grandson. I knew then that it wouldn’t be long and it wasn’t a surprise when my mother rang distraught later that week. That last conversation will stay with me forever. However, the memory of it doesn’t make me laugh which is what Dad was so good at and which is why I have always wanted the polar bear story to be true.
I knew that grandad did work on Soviet steamships so there was a chance it could have happened. I had his discharge book which gave me the details of the ships he sailed on and their destinations but this stopped in 1927. Anyway, the Stalin element suggests that the incident took place in the 1930s but by that time my dad had been born and Bill had a chequered career ranging from working for the Soviet Embassy to being the catering manager at Tottenham Lido. When would he have had the time to go to Leningrad to load a polar bear onto a steamship in the first place?
I knew that if I started to pull at the threads of this tale it might not hold up. In fact it might unravel completely. All the same, I thought it was worth looking into. So, last year I sent an email to the Zoological Society of London. I began by explaining the story and apologising for it being so preposterous. The email continued:
I recently uncovered lot of documents detailing my grandfathers time on the SS Koursk- a steamship transporting goods from USSR to Britain which was operated by ARCOS during the 1920s. So, I have the Russian sailor part of the story but I don’t have the polar bear part. So, my question is. How would I find out whether the USSR gave London Zoo (or similar) a polar bear during the 1920s or 1930s? Is there any further information you could give me?
There might be no proof any of this happened. My dad told a lot of stories and this was one of the best. Wish I’d asked him more about it when he was alive.
The reply I received was remarkably unfazed as though they received requests like mine all the time. On reflection, I’m sure they do. They told me it would take a few days to research as the animal records weren’t kept in the Library and they needed to check with another department. A couple of weeks later I received the following:
Dear Alan,
I have searched our animal record cards to locate the polar bear that was shipped from the Soviet Union. There was only one polar bear which seemed a possibility, but I cannot be sure that it is the polar bear that you were told about. I have attached a photograph of the record card to this email.
So, on 30th September 1935 Captain Melenkhov and the crew of the SS Stalingrad presented London Zoo with a male polar bear called Mischa. In all probability this was the bear I was looking for. I managed to find an image of Mischa fairly easily. Standing upright in the Mappin Terrace enclosure. A huge beast. One you definitely wouldn’t want to get too close to. He looks fairly benign but then look at the size of those paws and imagine the strength behind them. You know how bears are. They can turn on you just like that. Much later Mischa became a father to the much more famous Brumas -the first baby polar bear to be successfully reared in Britain and a huge hit with the public. His image adorning a seemingly endless range of memorabilia. So, this was the polar bear part of the tale- whether I’d be able to find the truth regarding its journey to England though was another matter entirely.
Mischa the Polar Bear at London Zoo.The SS Stalingrad
The SS Stalingrad, was a cargo-passenger ship built for ice navigation making regular trips across the Arctic Ocean and the North Atlantic transporting goods back and forth between Russia and the United Kingdom. That means it was more likely to sail out from Vladivostok, Murmansk and Archangel rather than the Baltic port of Leningrad. During the Second World War, while it was part of a convoy carrying munitions from the UK to Russia via Reykjavik, it was sunk by a torpedo from a German U-boat. 21 lives were lost.
However, though our grandad had served on similar vessels in the past, by 1935, having recently become a father, he was rarely at sea. Did he make it onto the SS Stalingrad at all? My brother thinks that if he made this trip it was a one off. Possibly because he could be trusted & spoke English. After all, his sister was working in Moscow, and his father was a Comintern Agent. However, I think now it’s just as likely that Bill Stewart wasn’t on the crew. That maybe he just had friends on board and that he met up with them when they docked at Surrey. That he had nothing to do with trying to calm down a raging, Stalinist bear, blitzed on honey in the middle of the Baltic but that he heard all about it later. Or, of course, he may have made the whole thing up.
That first photograph I found of Mischa had lent a little bit of credence to the story and, as I put the whole thing aside for a few months wondering how to write about it, I just accepted that Russian sailors had stored an adult polar bear in the hold. There was something I’d missed on the card from London Zoo though. Next to the category ‘Habitat’ it said ‘Born in the Artic Circle in 1935’. I only noticed that, however, once I’d found another photograph of Mischa. This time on board the SS Stalingrad on its arrival in Britain that same year.
Mischa being fed on board the SS Stalingrad shortly before he as presented as a gift to the London Zoological Society. September 1935
Of course, Mischa hadn’t been a raging beast crammed into the hold ready to burst out and attack the crew until it was overcome by a stupor brought on by its gargantuan consumption of nectar. In reality one of the crew had picked up an infant bear of considerably less terrifying stature somewhere around the Arctic Circle during the ship’s voyage. Whether it was an orphan or not I do not know but Mischa clearly became a kind of ship’s mascot and the cute little thing might have been able to give you a nasty nip but would have found smashing through a compartment door next to impossible. Evidently Captain Melenkhov wasn’t sure what should be done with it on arrival in England and so presenting it to London Zoo seemed as good an idea as any. The story wasn’t true. It was wholly exaggerated. It was nonsense.
And then I realised what the story was. And I realised why my dad came to be telling it to us just as dementia started taking hold. When Mischa arrived in London, dad was a little over two years old. The tale of the polar bear drunk on Siberian honey was simply a story told by our grandfather Bill to his son Robin. Bill hadn’t been there. He may have had only the slightest connection to the whole incident but he made it his own. It was told to enchant, to amuse and to delight. To bring the teller and the listener closer together. I remember recounting a similar story to my toddler at a visit to the Natural History Museum once as we filed past a row of stuffed bears. “Look- that’s the bear that stole Daddy’s hair,” I said, going on to invent a suitably outlandish tale which my child, now a teenager, still remembers. My dad’s story was better though and the care he took to tell it showed the care our grandad took in embellishing it in the first place and none of it is surprising as clearly we are all a ludicrously sentimental lot in our family.
When I realised the whole saga was just a story told by Bill to Robin I cried for a bit. And then I was ok.
Our grandfather, Bill Stewart, our dad in his arms, sometime in 1935 or thereabouts.
Breaking the Fetters 