Our Fathers Fought Franco by Willy Maley sampler
resonant piece of working class history, this book is a living link to four extraordinary stories. Why did these young men put their lives on the line and go to Spain to fight with the International Brigades? How did they all end up in the same prison cell? And what is their legacy today? James Maley, George Watters, Donald Renton and Archibald Williams were members of Machine Gun Company No. 2 of the XV International Brigade. This is the first book to focus on a small group of men who, from different starting-points, ended up on the same battleground at Jarama, and then in the same prisons after capture by Franco’s forces. Their remarkable story is told both in their own words and in the recollections of their sons and daughters, through a prison notebook, newspaper reports, stills cut from newsreels, interviews, anecdotes and memories, with a foreword by Daniel Gray. Our Fathers Fought Franco is a collective biography that promises to add significantly to the understanding of the motives of those who ‘went because their open eyes could see no other way’.
resonant piece of working class history, this book is a living link to four extraordinary stories. Why did these young men put their lives on the line and go to Spain to fight with the International Brigades? How did they all end up in the same prison cell? And what is their legacy today?
James Maley, George Watters, Donald Renton and Archibald Williams were members of Machine Gun Company No. 2 of the XV International Brigade. This is the first book to focus on a small group of men who, from different starting-points, ended up on the same battleground at Jarama, and then in the same prisons after capture by Franco’s forces.
Their remarkable story is told both in their own words and in the recollections of their sons and daughters, through a prison notebook, newspaper reports, stills cut from newsreels, interviews, anecdotes and memories, with a foreword by Daniel Gray.
Our Fathers Fought Franco is a collective biography that promises to add significantly to the understanding of the motives of those who ‘went because their open eyes could see no other way’.
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4<br />
Archibald Campbell McAskill Williams<br />
‘Rosemary for remembrance – is he still alive?’<br />
Lisa Croft<br />
My grandfather never talked to his daughters and grandchildren about<br />
his involvement in the Spanish Civil War. After he died my grandmother,<br />
Jane Orme, mentioned it in passing and I regret not discussing it further.<br />
It was only when I started to research my family history that I found out<br />
aspects of his life through documents and newspaper articles. My mum<br />
Rosemary and her sister Jennifer knew very little. Amazingly about 15 years<br />
ago some of his papers were discovered in a suitcase in Jen’s Los Angeles<br />
garden summer house, including a small notebook, sketches and notes<br />
from his time in Spain. Around this time, I was contacted <strong>by</strong> Alan Lloyd,<br />
a member of the International Brigade Memorial Trust (IBMT), who sent<br />
me MI5 documents from the National Archives at Kew and information<br />
from the Marx Memorial Library which really filled in the gaps. Michael<br />
Harrison, a Toronto local historian, provided me with newspaper articles<br />
about my grandfather’s time in two Canadian prisons during the 1920s<br />
and 1930s.<br />
My mum and I became fascinated with all aspects of the Spanish Civil<br />
War and visited the People’s History Museum in Manchester where the<br />
IBMT had an exhibition of photographs and information. We met Dolores<br />
and Hilary, the daughters of Manchester volunteer Sam Wild, and we joined<br />
the IBMT. Mum and I attended as many lectures and exhibitions as possible.<br />
We also visited Madrid and Jarama on their annual commemorative event.<br />
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