Sep 062013
 

Having seen a book entitled Fascist Scotland (Birlinn Books, 256 pages) at the library I thought I’d check it out as the name of the author, Gavin P Bowd, seemed oddly familiar. This proved to be correct as he wrote an article in Scotland on Sunday earlier this year linking Scottish Nationalism with Nazism for which he allegedly received ‘death threats’. Having read this awful book I can imagine the alleged ‘death threats’ can only have come from serious historians who have seen their profession dragged into the gutter and their status reduced to that of a third-rate fairground barker, writes Dave Watt.

Bowd, GavinBasically, the book implies that there has been a major connection between Scotland and Fascism since the 1920s.

It is shotgun mudslinging of the lowest order, even implying that Rudolf Hess arrived in Scotland because he knew the place was full of Nazi sympathisers and that the wartime government was afterwards involved in some sort of major cover-up.

He uses a ludicrous quote from an Evelyn Waugh’s Officers and Gentlemen, in which a lunatic alleged Scottish nationalist Miss Carmichael, an avid admirer of Hitler, proclaims that, ‘When the Germans land in Scotland, the glens will be full of marching men come to greet them, and the professors themselves at the universities will seize the towns’, as his basis for showing that Scotland was just waiting for the word to go Nazi during the war.

Presumably the 50000 Scottish servicemen and women who died in the Second World War were all rushing to join the Wehrmacht when they absent-mindedly forgot that they had rifles in their hands and the Germans were obliged to kill them.

Bowd also claims that although 549 people in Scotland volunteered to fight for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, and only one (yes, that’s right, one) went to fight for the Fascists, there were many Franco sympathisers in Scotland and, at one point, refers to us as ‘Mosley’s Lost Legion’.

Based on this kind of statistical interpretation I could state that there are many sympathisers in Scotland for the notion that the Earth is flat.

One of the more surreal pieces in the book alleges that the Protestant League in Scotland initially supported the Spanish Republic since they were kicking out priests from Spanish schools, but goes on to state that they all changed their minds as the Civil War went on and supported the Fascists as a consequence of becoming suddenly impressed with Hitler.

No evidence is supplied for this abrupt alleged Scottish Protestant devotion to Hitler, there are no voting statistics, no pictures of Orange banners with Adolf crossing the Rhine on a white dobbin on the 12th of July, no radio broadcasts from Ibrox with the crowd singing ‘Hello, Hello, We Are The Falangist Boys’ and stating that they were ‘up to their knees in Anarcho-Syndicalist blood’.

Nope. Nothing like that. It happened like that just because he says so.

Paralleling the surreal observation about Scottish support for Franco, he seems to imply that since the National Front got 0.08% of the vote in 2011, there is a huge secret groundswell towards Fascism in Scotland. The obvious corollary to this is that if the evil Jocks gets independence it will be concentration camps all over the shop and you won’t be able to get a quiet latte in Costa for people standing on chairs singing Tomorrow Belongs To Me.

This book is appalling. I don’t know if the smug-looking cock (see pic) did any serious research apart from cherry-picking anything, no matter how tenuous, to make his spurious point but he seems to be unable to relate his findings to his own statistics.

Don’t buy this book. Don’t bother reading it. It’s crap.

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Feb 022013
 

Aberdeen City Councillor and member of Aberdeen Town and County History Society, Neil Cooney will be delivering a lecture on Aberdeen and the Spanish Civil War on Feb 5 at New Kings, Room 10, 7.30 – 8.30pm.

The lecture will explore the following areas:

  • Fighting Fascism in Aberdeen
  • The Call of Spain
  • The struggle to get to Spain
  • Conditions in the International Brigades
  • The war itself
  • The retreat
  • Some conclusions

All are welcome to this series of public lectures organised by King’s Museum. This event is free.

King’s Museum
University of Aberdeen
17 High Street
Old Aberdeen AB24 3EE

T: 01224 274330
E: kingsmuseum@abdn.ac.uk
W: www.abdn.ac.uk/kingsmuseum

NOTE.  For those interested but  unable to attend, Neil Cooney has granted permission for Aberdeen Voice to publish the written version of the lecture. This will be published in full on Thurs 7th Feb.

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Oct 212011
 

An event to celebrate the 75th Anniversary of the International Brigades who fought in the Spanish Civil War against Fascism and Tyranny in support of Freedom and Democracy, took place in Aberdeen on Friday 14 October 2011 in the ATUC Club, Adelphi, Aberdeen.  Brian Carroll was in attendance and shares the occasion with Voice readers.

The event was well attended and kicked off with a talk by Neil Cooney on the Aberdeen Boys’ contribution to the fight for freedom and democracy in Spain to which 19 of them committed. It was no mean feat in those days to get from Aberdeen to Barcelona, traveling through France to be smuggled into Spain over the Pyrenees; and then to endure the depravity and inhumanity of war for the three long years it took the overwhelming forces of Franco’s men and machines to defeat the Republicans.

The Spanish Civil War raged from 1936-39

Nineteen of Aberdeen’s finest committed to this fight and five made the ultimate sacrifice to the cause, dying on the battlefields of Spain at Gandesa and Ebro.

The nephew and son of two of those who undertook this remarkable journey and adventure attended the celebration, They were Neil Cooney and Ian Dewar, nephew and son of Bob Cooney and Archie Dewar respectively. Neil Cooney gave a talk about the contribution of those from Aberdeen.

Bob Cooney survived the War and returned to Aberdeen to then fight in the Second World War, but Archie gave the ultimate sacrifice and died in action at the Ebro.

There was some poetry, music and a general discussion on the war, the events leading up to it and the policy of non-intervention by Britain and France, a policy which resulted in a Fascist/Franco victory. But the Spanish Civil War did sow the seeds of the beginning of the end for Hitler and Mussolini.

The flag you see in the photos is hanging proudly in the ATUC Social Club. It was the then Spanish Flag of the Republic of Spain, and the bodies of Archie Dewar and Tom Davidson were wrapped in this flag on their deaths. The flag was then sent back to Aberdeen by Bob Cooney.

Aberdeen Women’s Aid Committee sewed on the legend “From the Aberdeen Boys Fighting in Spain”.

An ATUC booklet produced for the war’s 60th anniversary, Remembering the Spanish Civil War 1936-1939, was available to those attending the celebration. I requested both Neil Cooney and Ian Dewar to sign my copy, which was a very proud and emotive moment indeed, after hearing of the courage, bravery, commitment and endurance of those who volunteered to fight in Spain.

Footnote:
Bob Cooney was the Political Commissar to the British Battalion of the International Brigade, and he penned the poem ” Hasta La Vista Madrid” no doubt somewhat inspired by the words he wrote when he was requested to leave Spain by Prime Minister Negrin, when the defeat of the Republicans and their Democratically elected Government was inevitable:

“We went to Spain
Because of that great yesterday
We are part of that great tomorrow
Hasta LaVista- Madrid”
(Until we see Madrid again)

Jun 242011
 

In this third and final part of Bob Cooney’s amazing biography, written by his nephew – Aberdeen City Councillor Neil Cooney we learn that Bob having come home from fighting Fascism in Spain, returns to continental Europe to fight Fascism again as a gunner in the Second World War. We learn of his experiences in the war, changing attitudes towards Communism and his career as a folksinger.

On his return from Spain, his mother wept at the sight of him.

He was so thin and emaciated. For more than a year after his return he still bore sores in his arms and legs.
He had served his apprenticeship as an amateur soldier. Now the professionals conscripted him.

Conscription to W.W.2

In September 1939, the Second World War began. Bob was there as a gunner from the beginning to the end. He was sickened by the poverty he encountered in conquered europe. His eyes filled as he told of young German mothers giving their bodies for an egg to feed their bairns.

We are all losers in war. Bob was to campaign vigorously within the peace movement, but he was never a pacifist. There are times when we have to stand up and fight for a just cause.

1945 brought victory and the heady triumph for Labour in the election. Churchill with his cold-war rhetoric was dumped by the pro-Beveridge stance of Atlee. Socialism was at the front of the agenda. Gunner Cooney was deprived of his chance to help in the shaping of it by party HQ. That chance never came again although he flew the flag in the safe Labour seat of North Aberdeen in 1950 and picked up a creditable 1,300 votes.

By now he had championed a new group of friends, the squatters.

Housing was a key issue in the 1945-50 era. There had been an already acute housing shortage by 1939; wartime bombing had aggravated that problem by 1945. Nye Bevan was given the Housing portfolio as well as the Health one. Although he brilliantly negotiated a minefield of problems to set up the National Health Service, he failed to reach his housing target of 200,000 new units per year.

Shortages of men and materials made the task very difficult. The Tory jibe was that Labour had only “half a Nye” on the problem.

The Communist tag was no longer an asset after the outbreak of the Korean War

The houses that did get built, including the very popular prefabs, were constructed to a good standard, but there simply were not enough of them for all the newlyweds and their post-war baby boom.  Ever-lengthening waiting lists rendered the future bleak for thousands of Aberdeen families.

A short-term practical answer lay in organising squats in empty properties such as the old camps at the Torry Battery and Tillydrone. Bob was once again organising.

He was now a family man himself, with a wife, Nan, and twin girls, Pat and Pam. He had to be earning; he joined the building trade and was soon involved in unionising the men. These activities eventually got him blacklisted from his beloved Aberdeen.  There were no vacancies when Bob came to call. He was elbowed out of the dignity of work.

It was a particularly difficult time for him. The Communist tag was no longer an asset after the outbreak of the Korean War.

Under American influence, Commies were everywhere depicted as enemies, fifth columnists undermining the democratic process. Even the comic books had replaced the square-headed Nazi enemy with the square-headed Commie enemy. Stalin’s death in 1953 was accompanied by a torrent of horror stories about purges and gulags.

Bob’s messianic message was no longer marketable.

Folk Celebrity

He spent twenty years in exile in Birmingham where he found work as an industrial crane operator. He lodged with Dave and Betty Campbell and their close-knit family. The Campbells were old comrades from Aberdeen days. He was adopted into their family and he shared their love of folk music.

Second generation Ian and Lorna became leading lights in the folk scene.  Ian’s sons, the third generation, went on to take the pop scene by storm by founding UB40, just as the third generation of the Socialist Lennox family of Aberdeen produced the great Annie Lennox of Eurhythmics and, later, solo fame. Music had been a popular Socialist activity in the Hungry Thirties.

The definitive Spanish Anthem, however, was written by Bob himself for the 27th anniversary reunion of the International Brigade

Then ambitious shows were presented. The rehearsals kept the young unemployed busy. Little Alfie Howie, an unemployed comb-maker, recalled dozens of rehearsals for a star turn choral enactment of the Volga Boatmen. On the night, the rope was long, the line descending in order of size and the song was over and the curtains closed before Alfie had even reached the narrow little stage.

Bob even wrote a complete musical for Unity Theatre, but it was never performed: Fascists and Spain got in the way.

Bob himself became a minor folk celebrity, performing traditional Northeast tunes such as the “Wee Toon Clerk” and “McGinty’s Meal And Ale”. He was also frequently requested to perform his own compositions such as “Foul Friday” and “Torry Belle” or Chartist or Wobbly songs of American labour or the Spanish anthems such as Alex McDade’s “Song of Jarama” sung to the tune of Red River Valley:

There’s a valley in Spain called Jarama
It’s a place that we all know so well
It is there that we gave of our manhood
And most of our brave comrades fell.

Alex himself died for the cause at Brunete in July 1938.

The definitive Spanish Anthem, however, was written by Bob himself for the 27th anniversary reunion of the International Brigade. He called it “Hasta La Vista, Madrid”.  It is a prose poem that he would deliver with gusto. He reckoned, with good reason, that it was the best thing he ever wrote.

Our century had to be cleansed
So we went to Spain
Where the defeat of Hitler started……

No freedom fight is ever lost
While folk can learn
Each human mind’s an outpost
And the frontiers of freedom expand

Conquering minds and hearts
Prelude to the conquest of cities and states
Till the world will be wholly free
Then Folk will strive for higher freedoms still.

Bob even appeared on vinyl as a singer with the “Singing Campbells”. He also worked with Hamish Henderson in the epic folk collection.

When he retired back home to Aberdeen in 1973 at the age of 65, he was “adopted” by the Aberdeen Folk Club. They honoured him by publishing in 1983 a selection of his songs and poems, “When of Heroes we sing”.

That little booklet sums up his philosophy of life and the causes he so fervently supported. He was now 75 and his health was rapidly failing. His active mind kept him awake; insomnia wore him down.

He spent his last months in Kingseat Hospital, still humming his tunes and composing poems in his head.

He died in August 1984 aged 78.

He gave so much and seemed to get so little in return, yet he was happy in comradeship and lived a full life. Bob could be very shy in company until he got to know you, and then he could be quite gregarious. He could tell you jokes you had heard many times before, but he added his own little bits to milk the story for a few more hilarious minutes.

He wanted a world full of laughter; he challenged a life full of injustice. He won his fair share of battles and never shirked a challenge. The cause was always more important than personal comfort. It was a life of sacrifice in a huge effort to improve conditions for his fellow men. He didn’t always win but he did inspire others to take up the cause.

He had a rich life worth celebrating, and it duly was celebrated in the Lemon Tree with a folk night featuring Dick Gaughan. The Trades Council also organised a celebration of the International Brigadiers in November 1989. His name lives on in the Housing Association development at Berryden: not bad for a squatter and a born rebel.

Footnote:

Aberdeen Voice wishes to thank Cllr Neil Cooney once again for permission to publish this inspiring story of a fellow Aberdonian to whom we owe an infinitely greater measure of gratitude.

 

Jun 182011
 

In a time before widespread international travel, Bob Cooney would journey across continents to realise the depths of his beliefs. He would find himself at the sharp end of unfolding events that would prove to be of considerable historical significance. In the second part of the trilogy written by Bob’s nephew – Aberdeen City Councillor Neil Cooney – we learn how Bob would selflessly bring his talents and convictions to bear to oppose fascism, both at home and in Spain, and with increasing vigour, passion and heroism – to say nothing of intense mortal danger.

Bob missed most of the 1931 crisis because his life had entered a new phase. In 1930, he packed in his job as a pawnbroker’s clerk in order to devote himself full time to politics.

It was a brave decision, his new job carried no wages but it did give him an opportunity for further education.

He spent thirteen months during 1931-32 in Russia, studying by day in the Lenin Institute, working by night in a rubber factory.

There he picked up an industrial throat infection and spent some time in a sanatorium. It left him with huskiness in his voice that became part of his oratory. Times were tough in Russia but good in comparative terms with the destitution of the Tsarist era.

Bob found a thirst for knowledge that was infectious throughout Russian society. Even grannies were going back to classes to learn the skills to make their country prosperous. There was even time for a glorious holiday down the Volga. It charged up his batteries for the tasks ahead. He was not short of work when he returned in 1932.

There was a lot of heavy campaigning to do, to mobilise the unemployed and to organise the hunger marches. He travelled from Aberdeen to Glasgow and Edinburgh speaking at open-air meetings to campaign against unemployment, to rally public opinion against the iniquitous Means Test, which robbed the poorest of their Dole as well as their dignity.

Fascists in Aberdeen

Out of the turmoil of the Depression came the strange phenomenon of the British Union of Fascists. Oswald Mosely, its creator, had served in both the Tory and Labour camps before forming his Blackshirts. He was copying the style of Mussolini and was both influenced and funded by Hitler. His area Gauleiter for the North was William Chambers Hunter, a minor laird by inheritance.

He had started off life as plain Willie Jopp but now he had pretensions of power. Aberdeen was targeted as his power base and he recruited and hired thugs from afar afield as London to help him take over the city.

Bob and the others decided to stop him.

There were pitched battles, arrests, fines and imprisonment, but they succeeded. Fascism was not allowed to take root in Aberdeen. Those who deny the free speech of others did not deserve free speech themselves.

Aberdeen has a tradition of fairness. No trumped up laird was going to destroy it. Bob emerged out of these pitched battles as a working class hero. He displayed his undoubted courage as well as his often under-rated organisational skills. It wasn’t enough to stand up to the Fascists, you had to out-think them and outnumber them and run them out of town.

The first Fascist rally organised for the Music Hall, to be addressed by Raven Thomson, Mosely’s Deputy, had to be cancelled half an hour before it was due to start.

The Fascists eyed the Market stance as a key venue. It had become a working class stronghold. The key battle was to take place there.

Chambers Hunter pencilled in the evening of Sunday 16 July 1937 for his big rally. The workers would be caught out on a Sunday in the height of the holiday season. He miscalculated. The grapevine was finely tuned; and Bob addressed a crowd of 2,000 at the Links at 11a.m. They vowed to gather at the Castlegate in the evening. The Fascists duly arrived with their armour-plated van and their police escort, their amplifiers and their heavies.

Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy gave immense aid to the Spanish Fascists

As Chambers Hunter clambered to the roof of the van, the workers surged forward, cut the cables and chased the Fascists for their lives. The Castlegate was cleared by 8 p.m. Bob was one of many arrested, and served four days for his efforts.

A young Ian Campbell, later of folk music fame, remembers sitting on his father’s shoulders watching Bob being carried shoulder high on his release from prison. He also remembers how the crowd went silent as Bob addressed them. It was Bob’s last speech in Aberdeen for a long time because within hours he was on his way to Spain.

In Spain in 1936, the army revolt triggered the Nationalist Right-wing attack on the democratically elected Republican government. Despite the terms of its Covenant, the League of Nations opted for a policy of  “Non-Intervention”. Eden and Chamberlain were quick to agree, even though such a policy guaranteed a Franco victory.

It provided a precedent for our later inaction in Austria in the spring of 1938 and Czechoslovakia both in the autumn of 1938 and in the spring of 1939. Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy gave immense aid to the Spanish Fascists. Stalin’s Russia gave much more limited aid to the Republicans. International Brigades of volunteers were also formed to aid the Republic.

The Go-Ahead for Spain

‘And if we live to be a hundred
We’ll have this to be glad about
We went to Spain!
Became the great yesterday
We are part of the great tomorrow
HASTA LA VISTAMADRID!’

– Bob Cooney

 

Bob had pleaded for months to go to Spain but the Communist Party kept stalling him, saying he was too valuable at home in the struggle against the Blackshirts.

In the spring of 1937, he set off from Aberdeen but was again stopped by party HQ. It wasn’t until the Castlegate victory that he eventually got the go-ahead from Harry Pollitt, the party’s General Secretary. Bob had argued that he felt hypocritical rallying support for the Spanish people and urging young men and women to go off to Spain to help the cause, and yet do nothing himself. Thoughts of Spain filled every moment of every day – the desire to fight for Spain burned within him. He later reflected that participation in Spain justified his existence on this earth. Spain was the front line again Fascism. It was his duty as a fighter to be there.

Bob was 28 when he left for Spain, getting there via a tortuous route; a tourist ticket to Paris, followed by a bus to Perpignan and then a long trek across the Pyrenees to Barcelona and beyond. He got five weeks basic training at Tarragona, a small town close to the modern resort of Salou.

There he was given his ill-fitting khaki uniform, strong boots, a Soviet rifle and a food bowl. He was appointed Commissar (motivator) of the training group. He was offered officer’s training but refused. He had promised Harry Pollitt that he was there to fight, not to pick up stripes.
Bob eventually was promoted to the position of Commissar of the XV (British) Brigade. The Brigades were integrated with local Spaniards. Bob, to lead them, had to learn their language. They soon caught on to his wry sense of humour.

His first action was at Belchite, south of the Ebro. He always said he was afraid to be afraid. He told his men never to show fear, they weren’t conscripts, they were comrades and they would look after each other. He had to prevent their bravery descending into bravado. There were some who vowed never to hide from the Fascists and to fight in open country. This would have been suicidal and such romantic notions had to be curbed.

Bob served in two major campaigns. The first was at Teruel, between Valencia and Madrid. The Brigade was drafted in to hold the line there in January 1938. Paul Robeson, the great singer, dropped in to greet them there: Robeson was heavily involved in fund-raising for the Spanish cause. The XV Brigade held their line for seven weeks before Franco’s forces complete with massive aerial power and a huge artillery bombardment forced them back.

Conditions were hard, supply lines were tenuous and the food supply was awful. Half a slice of bread a day was a common ration. His next great battle was along the Ebro from July to October 1938.

On a return sortie to Belchite, organising a controlled retreat through enemy lines, he was captured along with Jim Harkins of Clydebank. Another group on the retreat distracted their captors and Bob and Jim fled for cover. Sadly, Jim later died at the Ebro.

Just over 2,400 joined the Brigades from Britain, 526 were killed, and almost 1,000 were wounded. Of the 476 Scots who took part, 19 came from Aberdeen. The Spanish Civil War claimed the lives of five Aberdonians, Tom Davidson died at Gandesa in April 1937 and the other four at the Ebro. Archie Dewar died in March 1938, Ken Morrice in July 1938, Charles MacLeod in August 1938 and finally Ernie Sim in the last great battle in September 1938.

The final parade of the Brigade was through Barcelona on October 29th. They were addressed by the charismatic Dolores Ibarruri who had been elected Communist MP for the northern mining region of the Asturias: she was affectionately known as La Pasionara. She told them:

“you can go proudly. You are legend. We shall not forget you”.

It had taken the combined cream of the professional forces of Germany, Italy and Spain almost three years to beat them. They had every right to be proud. Barcelona fell to Franco late in January 1939, Madrid falling two months later.

Dont miss the third and final part of Neil Cooney’s account of his Uncle Bob Cooney’s amazing story – when we learn that  Bob Cooney has barely time to reflect on the events relating to the Spanish Civil War before joining the fight against Hitler and the Nazis.

May 192011
 

Scottish Novels of the Second World War – by Isobel Murray

For individuals (OK, OK, generally men) of a certain age, the Second World War holds an enduring fascination. For the Voice’s David Innes, this certainly rings true and when there’s a book written and launched on the effect of the War on one of his other passions, Scottish literature, he’s among the first in the ticket queue.

Aberdeen University’s WORD festival has previously offered strong attractions, but I’ve either been too busy or too slothful to organise attendance at its impressively-wide range of events in the past. Not so for the launch of Isobel Murray’s latest book, Scottish Novels of the Second World War. Scottish fiction AND that conflict? My attendance was guaranteed, even at 11am on a Sunday.

The University’s Multimedia Room was sold out as historians and fiction aficionados mixed to hear what insights the author had to offer in this hitherto little-explored area.

Familiar names – Naomi Mitchison, Robin Jenkins, Eric Linklater, Jessie Kesson and Compton MacKenzie – were discussed alongside lesser literary lights who had written about the War. Fred Urquhart and Stuart Hood, for example, were new literary names to almost all audience members. For some authors their writing was autobiographical, for others almost wholly fictional, several written in real time during the conflict but others more modern, with experience and emotion allowed to mature and distil before crafting and publication.

The one criterion Isobel Murray applied in writing Scottish Novels of the Second World War was that the authors had to have been adults during the 1939-45 period, thus able to articulate the hopes, fears, discomfort and hardship they experienced and by those with whom they shared time and place, whether or not in uniform. For some featured authors, the war was to be the second global conflict in their lives.

Backgrounds to the authors revealed that they viewed the War through different prisms, some fearing the threat of communism from the menacing east as much as they abhorred the fascism of Hitler and Mussolini.

Jenkins was a conscientious objector, as was Urquhart. Background affected their writing to differing degrees, and in Compton MacKenzie’s case, his Hebridean Home Guard tales set on the island of Todday, are affectionately comic despite the potential severe consequences of the voluntary local defence’s ill-preparedness. Of course, as some sort of governmental writer-in-residence, MacKenzie’s fiction was obliged to end happily to maintain civilian and military morale.

Not only did the author give an overview of her research and read illustrative and illuminating passages from the original texts, she went to some length to help those who will now seek rare and out-of-print texts to enhance their historical perspective of a series of ever-fascinating political and military turning points of the last century.

This is all a far cry from the jingoistic playground games of British and Jerries or Japs, and the Commando comics’ “Banzai, I die for my Emperor!” , “Achtung Schpitfeur!” and “Cripes Skip, bandits at 12 o’clock!” we Sixties kids devoured as war fiction, which in all probability turned many of us into obsessives seeking new perspectives and truths.

Scottish Novels of the Second World War itself looks fascinating and insightful. It is published by Word Power Books, whose ethos chimes sympathetically with that of Aberdeen Voice, making it all the more worthwhile.

To purchase, or for more info, see: http://www.word-power.co.uk/books/scottish-novels-of-the-second-world-war-I9780956628312/