1st January 1932 was the second anniversary of the Daily Worker.

Priestly, another leading comrade helping to run the Daily Worker was due to be tried for his alleged complicity in inciting the armed forces. (1) An all London Conference was called at the Rotherhithe Town Hall, to form the Invergordon Defence Committee. All interested organisations to send delegates.

This was organised by the ILD. The advert said, ‘All twenty-four dismissed sailors will be present’. (2) Len Wincott was writing articles and addressing meetings all over the place. The Communist Party was growing. East London had become a ‘sub-district’, covering Stepney, Poplar and Bethnal Green. Discussion on internal party affairs were still being reported in the Daily Worker (3). There was an article about the clothing trade, in the Daily Worker, which mentioned a large gents tailoring firm called Pollikoffs, among others. This is where Pearl worked. (4)

News from Spain told of insurrection in the north. (5) Two CP members from Birmingham were goaled. Five militant workers in Rochdale were sentenced.

John Strachey was speaking on Communist Party and other left platforms. There was a movement to stop the war in China. I can’t remember the details very well (6). At this time, T.A. Jackson, a leading CP theoretician, was protesting about an article on Rosa Luxemburg, which he thought said too much about her mistakes and not enough about her achievements. (7).

Once again we hear about Nat Cohen. On 18th September, the London Evening News reported.

‘A British subject whose name is given as Nat Cohen has been arrested in the Argentine on a charge of engaging in Communist propaganda. He is alleged to have been leader of the anti-American demonstration in 1928 in connection with the Saco-Vanzetti executions’.

A similar story was in tne News of the World the following Sunday. An article had appeared in a leading Buenos Aires journal, Noticias Graficas on the 17th, describing his arrest. This said:

‘He is one of the most active propagandists of the Soviet Communists. Cohen has been agitating in South America for many years. In Chile his activities led to his being imprisoned on the island of Mas Afurra.’ (8)

Nat’s brother visited the Foreign Office after these reports and received this reply:

‘Sir,—With reference to your visit to this department on November 6 regarding the arrest in the Argentine of Nat Cohen, I am directed by Secretary, Sir John Simon, to inform you that a report has been received from His Majesty’s Ambassador at Buenos Aires to the effect that Mr Cohen was arresting owing to his activities as a trafficker in the White Slave Trade and was under detention at the Carcel de Contraventores at Villa Devota pending his deportation as an undesirable.’

I am etc. (signature illegible).

The Daily Worker reported this on 16.2.1932 under the following headings: ‘Nat Cohen—Five Months in Jail Without Trial. ‘Charge Changed from “Moscow Agent” to “White Slaver”. ‘Foreign Office Endorses’. The article said:

‘Comrade Nat Cohen, an English member of the Communist Party of Argentine and Secretary of the Tailors and Garment Workers’ of Buenos Aires, has been lying in prison at the “‘Carcel de Contraventores’’, in Villa Devoto, since September, undergoing an indefinite sentence pending deportation, for his working class activities. He was arrested along with 250 Argentine workers, and none of them have been tried yet; although nearly five months have passed. So bad are the conditions, that the prisoners have hunger-struck in protest.

Comrade Cohen has been in South America nearly ten years, formerly being an active member of the Stepney Local Branch of the Communist Party of Great Britain. (CPGB).

While in Chile he was imprisoned a number of times, underwent brutal torture, and was eventually deported. He came to Buenos Aires where he was again imprisoned a number of times.

His offence was carrying out his revolutionary duties and organising the Argentine workers inside the revolutionary trade unions.

At the time of Comrade Cohen’s arrest the Argentine government tried to cover up their brutal persecution by issuing a statement to the Press, that he was a “‘Moscow agent acting as intermediary between the South American Communist Party and the Comintern.’

The same page of this issue of the Daily Worker also carried this report: ‘From Stepney.—At a meeting of the Christ Church (St. Georges-in-theEast) Parochial Church Council, the following resolution was passed.

“We the members of Christ Church Parochial Church Council, wish to make a strong protest against any infringement on the rights of free speech and we are particularly outraged by the unjust and vindictive sentence imposed on Frank Priestly and other members of the workers’ movement.” ’ (9)

Three weeks later, J.T. Murphy, wrote two articles in the Daily Worker column, ‘Communist Party Life’, about ‘factory work’—some observations on the Central Committee resolution. This was part of the current debate on work in factories versus the building of ‘Street Cells’ at the same time (10).

This debate was to become crucial to me a few years later. The German CP had doubled its membership during 1931. 145,300, in January to 312,555 by December. The German Presidential Election in March had the following result: Hindenburg—18,661,736, Hitler—11,328,571, Thalman Communist Party—4,971,079, Disterberg—2,517,876, Winter—111,470 (11).

Then there were more reports about Nat Cohen. Daily Worker 31.3.32: ‘Brutality to Deportees’—‘English worker on Argentine transport’.

‘The Chaco, the Argentine naval transport, has been calling at port after port in Europe, in an attempt to land her cargo of 79 deportees of various European nationalities. She is now steaming through the Kiel Canal, on her way to Poland, hoping to discharge the men at Danzig or Gdynia.

The deportees have been refused at Marseilles, Cadiz, Hamburg and other ports. Among the deportees is an English Communist, Nat Cohen, Secretary of the Tailors and Garment Workers Union in Buenos Aires, who was imprisoned in the Carcel de Contraventores in Villa Devoto, for five months without trial, prior to his deportation. His sole ‘crime’ was his working class activity.

When the ship was in Cadiz Cohen managed to get a letter posted toa friend in London. He says: “I am one of 79 deported for political activities.

Here on board our treatment is terrible.

They shut us up in a hold, which serves as bed-room, dining room and WC. But as if this were not sufficient and to remind us that we are classwar prisoners, they kick us and punch us about as if we were footballs, and on any futile pretext they hit us with the blunt part of their sabres.

So its not a pleasure voyage. Practically speaking all the class-war prisoners are without clothes and ‘broke to the wide’ and I am no exception.

Here we have ‘fraternised’ with the ‘sailors’. They are good boys with proletarian instincts. (It’s the officers and a special guard that ‘knock us about’).”’’

The Daily Worker, dated 19.4.1932, reported: ‘Argentine prisoner ship vanishes.’ “Expected at Gravesend, but failed to arrive.’ ‘Vile conditions for militants’.

Spanish prisoners had been dumped at Cadiz, French at Marseilles and six Italians were handed over to the Fascist police at Naples. From Naples the vessel was supposed to visit London to drop Nat Cohen. Nat’s brother wrote to Lloyds for information regarding the whereabouts of the ‘Chaco’. He received this reply:

‘I beg to inform you that according to a report from a Genoa newspaper, this vessel left Genoa on the 9th instant bound for Buenos Aires.’ A letter had been received from Nat, dated 10th April. This had been smuggled ashore at Barcelona, after the boat’s supposed departure for the Argentine. In this letter Nat told his story of what was happening. He said:

"...and now its my tum to be handed over to MacDonald’s police.

After touching England the Chaco goes to Poland where eight workers will be handed over to the Polish hangmen, then to Lithuania, where three comrades will be dropped.

There is a rumour abroad that we may be transferred to the transport, “Pampa”. I hope the International Labour Defence will keep a look-out for the arrival of either the Chaco or the Pampa in British waters”

The press on the 18th had reported that the Chaco was due at Gravesend.

A Gravesend dock official said, ‘the last we heard of her was when she left Genoa. We have waited all day for nothing’. A Lloyds’ official added, “We can only think she has returned to the Argentine”’. (12)

The men on board had travelled five thousand miles and called in at many countries without seeing land. The Empire News, Sunday, 24th April 1932, had a front page headline as follows: ‘Black human cargo of the Chaco’ —Floating hell for Thames?’—‘Scotch the idea of dumping mutineers here’.

Among other things this article said:

‘... Probably the least disreputable of the two hundred and fifty are the Communist firebrands among them, but even they are tainted, for among them are men who have stooped to assassination, arson and the lowest of intrigues. A score of them belong to the notorious secret society which exists exclusively for trapping Jewesses for sale in the white slave market of South America. This society has established itself firmly in the Argentine, and its deeds were of such a nature that the Argentine Government was forced to act, and over 400 of its members were rounded up and bundled out of the country. It is the worst specimens of these four hundred that are on board the Chaco, and some of them are former
inhabitants of the East End of London, though not necessarily of British birth, it is possible that they will be permitted to land.

The only one of the deportees who had papers to support his claim to British nationality is named Cohen who seems to have been something of a political adverturer.

There are drug addicts, degenerates, drug traffickers, thieves, spies, mischief-makers and crooks of all kinds among the “cargo”’.

Twice since the ship left, mutiny has broken out among them, and on one occasion they had full control of the ship for hours until armed force reduced them to order. . . Some of the gang are suffering from diseases of the worst kind, and with a limited medical staff available, conditions equivalent to plague exist on board.’ (13)

This is an example of the worst kind of ‘yellow’ press reporting, with its total lack of respect for truth and invention of stories calculated to deceive its readers. To say nothing of the blatent anti-semitism, which this paper among others, were giving more space to at this time. This report was alongside the report of Newcastle United’s victory in the F.A. Cup.

My 19th birthday, (as reckoned by my mother’s mistaken presentation of my circumcision certificate, and not according to my birth certificate) was near. Now that ‘old man’ Appel my old top presser had retired and I had stepped into his shoes it was possible for us to change from working on Sunday mornings, which we had had to do because Appel was an Orthodox Jew, to working Saturday instead. Mike Appel, the boss’s brother was a keen supporter of Tottenham Hotspurs, as were a large number of Jewish football fans.

I don’t know why this was so. Mike was the top-machiner and now that my status was raised, became closer to me because we had to co-operate both in the production process and in respect of our mutual interests when it came to negotiating piece-work prices, at the beginning of each season. Now that we were working on Saturdays, we would go to the pub when we had finished work, and then on to see Tottenham play when they were at home. I was flattered to be regarded as an equal by all my older friends and acquaintances, and the extra money I earned enabled me to keep up with them. As things tumed out my attendance at football matches didn’t last long, but not before I had switched my support to Chelsea.

The Daily Worker reported that the Chaco was expected in London before May Day. Another letter from Nat smuggled ashore at Barcelona on 17th April said, ‘I expect to arrive in England about the 28th, in time to participate in the May Day demonstrations.’ (14) This man was evidently very capable of conducting the struggle against his persecutors even from the confines of a prison-ship.

There were 33 ‘class-war’ prisoners in Britain, serving sentences. Six from one to three years, nine from six to ten months and others for shorter periods, when May Day arrived. There was a call for building strong sections of the ILD (15). On the 10th May, the Daily Worker reported that J.T. Murphy had been expelled from the CP. This came like a bolt from the blue. The article was a blistering attack for so-called anti-Party activity. According to the Daily Worker, Murphy had been advocating the extension of trade between the Soviet Union and the capitalist world. He also thought we should support the idea of extending credit to the Soviet Union. This apparently was antiParty. I didn’t know enough about these matters and I’m afraid I only heard’ the official Party line. -

When J.T. Murphy was invited to speak at the Circle House in Aldgate, I helped to break up his meeting, so that no one would hear what this ‘traitor’ had to say. That’s how things were. I feel ashamed of this action now. Murphy joined the ILP. Ten days after Murphy’s reported expulsion, Harry Pollitt, (General Secretary of the CPGB) wrote, ‘War to the death with the ILP!’ ‘The Independent Labour Party and the Communist Party have nothing in common.’ ‘Not a lesser evil.’ (16). During the next few weeks the Daily Worker gave a lot of space to attacking Murphy, using language which was usually reserved for use against Fascists. Murphy had been a leading and much respected member of the Communist Party for a long time. As time went on his views were adopted, but I can’t remember a single attempt to withdraw any of the awful things said about him and his ideas. This practice was commonplace without my being aware of it, at this time. I had not read Trotsky or any other person who had been cast out. We learned to accept all this as the years passed, only to find that the accusers were the guilty parties in respect of the charges they made. This is not to say that all those accused were themselves innocent of any crimes. Murphy did manage to make it clear that he had resigned, but we were told you can’t resign from the Communist Party, you can only be expelled. I did not understand the significance of this.

It became clearer very soon, as more and more leading Bolsheviks in Russia were ‘expelled’.

At this time Len Wincott was in custody, awaiting trial on a charge of having incited a crowd to assault the police, under the ‘prevention of crimes act’, in Dundee. (17) He had been campaigning in Scotland to raise money for the dependents of the victimised Invergordon sailors, and following the arrest of th 24 workers in Dundee on May Day, had been helping to build up the ILD in that area and to assist in raising money to help the dependents of the persecuted workers of Dundee.

A new name had appeared . . . Fred Copeman. (18) He had been a close friend of Len Wincott since boyhood and he was an Invergordon mutineer, like him. He freely admitted Len’s role as a leading light during the mutiny.

Fred became a leading member of the National Unemployed Workers’ Movement (NUWM), and a full time Party functionary, like Len. Fred also became an officer and commander of the British Battalion of the International Brigade, during the Spanish civil war. Later still he was expelled from the Communist Party.

* * * * *

Every day brought fresh reports of the whereabouts of the Chaco and its human cargo. 12th May we learned that nine prisoners had landed in Poland.

The day before the Chaco arrived at Gdynia it appeared unexpectedly in German waters. Here the Communist Reichstag Deputy, Hueck, demanded that the remaining Polish and Lithuanian deportees on board should be transferred to Soviet vessels. He declared that he had been informed that the men were to be landed at the Polish port of Gdynia, where they would be executed.

Hueck’s request was refused. This report also said, Nat Cohen was on the way to England. (19)

17th May press reported, . . “Chaco lands Lithuanians at Memel’—Deportees don red ribbons on May Day’—‘Hull on Friday?’ In a letter smuggled ashore at Gdynia, Nat wrote, ‘Instead of leaving Barcelona on April 20th, we stayed in that port another eight days, so as to avoid arriving anywhere on May day, or just before.

Instead of going to England direct, which we would have reached on May 1st, we went straight to Poland—the naval base, a place of great strategic importance to the war plans of the Imperialists against the Soviet Union. Here we said good-bye to eight comrades who were handed over to Pilsudsky’s Fascist bloodhounds. On May 1st, we all put red ribbons on our coats. Of course the sailors immediately saw the difference and asked us the reason why. We told them that today is the First of May, and we explained to them the significance.

At the table before dinner, we sang the “International” and waited for the expected “beating up”, but the officers, for political reasons cocked a “deaf ear’ and the day ended without any “casualties” on our part.

Going through the Kiel Canal the German comrades breaking through great difficutlies (I don’t know how) managed to get on board and handed over to the commander cigarettes for us.

You can imagine what effect this act had, to lift up the morale and fighting spirit of all comrades here. I expect to arrive in Hull round about the 20th of this month.’ (20)

Right up to the last minute all the imformation was misleading. I don’t know why it was so difficult to get mere accurate intelligence on the precise whereabouts of the Chaco. It seems incredible to me, today, unless there is some other explanation which I never learned about, although I have every reason to believe that Nat’s arrival was not altogether being welcomed by some people higher up in the Party organisation.

However, the great day did come, on 30th May, but we had to wait until Wednesday June 1st for the Daily Worker report. The headlines on page five of the Daily Worker read: ‘Imprisoned in the hold of a ship for four months.’ ‘Nat Cohen. . . The last of the prisoners of the Chaco released.” This was followed by Nat’s story as told to a reporter.

‘On February 9th the Chaco started off from the Argentine with 112 politcal prisoners, who were being deported after terms of imprisonment for their working-class activites. These men were to be distributed to various European countries—Spain, Italy, Poland, Lithuania and England,—to be delivered, in most cases, into the hands of the police and hangmen of the boss class.

All of the prisoners had been incarcerated in the Argentine prison, “Villa Devoto”’, and the news of their impending deportation gave rise to a mighty protest movement throughout the Argentine, taking the form of mass strikes in support of the prisoners.

The deportation of the prisoners was a move on the part of the new Fascist Government of Argentine, under General Justo, who wanted to get the leaders of the rising workers’ movement out of the way, so that he could, as a magnificent gesture, proceed to declare an amnesty to ‘all political prisoners’’.

Immediately on hearing of the decision to deport them, the prisoners declared a hunger strike, which was carried on for five days.

Immediately after, the police gave the prisoners two days to overcome the effects of the strike (which was the third hunger strike they had organised in three months) and carried out the deportation. Prior to being taken on to the ship, the prisoners were not allowed to see or hear from their friends, or to receive money or clothes from them The authorities chose as the opportune moment for taking the men away, a day upon which a carnival was being held.

While being prepared for their voyage, the prisoners shouted slogans and sang the “International”. For this they were attacked by their guards with swords, and a number of them were wounded. The money which prisoners had deposited with the Prison Gorvernor was denied them, and their receipts were torn up. Then they were transported in closed vans to the docks where the Chaco was lying. On the way the prisoners shouted slogans in an endeavour to draw the attention of the workers on the streets to the fact that the deportation was being carried out. For this they were brought back to the prison and beaten up, after which they were taken out to the vans and rushed to the Chaco, where they were placed in the hold of the ship, behind barbed wire and under the guard of armed sentries.

The authorities kept them abroad the Chaco for four days before sailing in order to see what effect the deportation would have on the population. Eventually, on Friday 13th, the Chaco sailed. The conditions on board for the prisoners were indescribably horrible. Despite the terrific heat, they were given no sanitary facilities and all their lives had to be spent in the hold of the ship. Big tubs were provided as lavatories and the stench they had to endure was unbearable. The facilities for bathing was farcical. Add to this the fact that in order to try to break the morale of the prisoners, the “‘caborsi” in charge of them treated them in the most brutal manner, beating them up on the slightest pretext.

Once in two days the prisoners were allowed out of the hold of the ship for half an hour, but when the Chaco was in port, this “privilege” was withdrawn.

This treatment continued until the Chaco reached European ports, after which, because of the tremendous world-wide agitation in support of the deportees the brutality of the authorities relaxed somewhat. The boat sailed to Bahia in Brazil, thence to San Vicenti, Las Palmas and finally to Cadiz, where the Spanish comrades were taken off the ship and marched off to goal by the Spanish police. Later, as a result of the mass agitation of the Spanish workers the police were forced to release them.

From Cadiz the Chaco sailed to Marseilles, where a cablegram was received announcing the fact that 33 of the prisoners were to be sent back to Argentina because an amnesty had been declared in their favour.

However, the French Government would not allow the Chaco to remain at Marseilles because it feared demonstrations of the workers in favour of the prisoners. Consequently the Chaco had to sail without having arranged for the transportation of the 33 prisoners back to Argentina.

The next port was Naples in Italy, where the black shirts of Mussolini came aboard to claim their prisoners, who were marched off to prison.

After remaining at Naples for a few days the ship proceeded to Genoa to report to the Argentine Naval Attache.

Here the prisoners learned that the Chaco was also carrying the crews of two submarines that were being built at Tarranto, and which were practically completed and ready to be taken back to form part of the war equipment of the Argentine Government.

The Chaco then entered into negotiations with the Italian Fascist Government for the transportation of the 33 prisoners who had been amnestied.

Mussolini, however, would not allow any arrangements to be made, and the Commander of the Chaco had to travel to Barcelona (Spain) to try to fix things up. Apparently he was successful, as the Chaco followed him to Barcelona after being held up at Genoa for 14 days. When they arrived at Barcelona a hitch occurred.

If the 33 were sent back to Argentina at that time they would arrive home in time for May Day — and this did not suit the authorities.

Consequently the ship was held up at Barcelona until April 20th, when the 33 prisoners were finally sent home. Even then the Chaco did not leave, as it was discovered that by sailing for England then it would arrive in time for May Ist, and this, also, did not suit the plans of the authorities in view of the tremendous interest the whole matter had aroused.

Eventually, on April 20th, the Chaco set sail on an altered course.

Instead of sailing for England, she sailed for Gdynia — the Polish military port — where the Polish prisoners were taken off. The Chaco then sailed for Danzig for fuel.

May Day was spent by the prisoners on the high seas. The prisoners dressed in their best and sported red rosettes to show the crew the significance of May Day. At the dinner table, speeches were made and the prisoners sang the “International”. The authorities strangely enough did not raise any objections to this.

From Danzig the Chaco sailed to Memel where the Lithuanian comrades were put ashore. Here a further hitch occurred, as the Lithuanian Government refused to take two of the prisoners, and a delay was caused over this. Eventually after a great deal of negotiations the men were taken ashore and the Chaco sailed for England to get rid of its last class-war prisoner, Nat Cohen, at Gravesend. When Nat was alone on the ship the sailors were forbidden to speak to him on pain of dire punishment.

On arrival at Gravesend, Comrade Nat Cohen was given five minutes to get ready, and he was smuggled off. Ashore he was taken charge of by the CID and port authorities who after questioning him, let him go. They offered to have a whip round to pay his fare to London, but Nat Cohen preferred to walk 23 miles rather than accept help from the agents of the Imperialists.’ (21)

That’s how the report ended. I don’t know why it was not possible for someone to be there to meet Nat and take care of him. He never managed to explain this to me when I got to know him. What I did learn, is why this incredible character could walk 23 miles to London, after more than five months in gaol and four months on the Chaco which had included bouts of torture in the generally harsh conditions of his confinement.

What the report did not tell, is that Nat went straight to 16 King Street, Covent Garden, headquarters of the CPGB, to report for duty and instructions, before he went to the East End to see his parents, three brothers and two sisters, who he had not seen for almost eleven years. That’s how much he considered his responsibilities and how he rated his priorities.

I had become very active by this time, alongside Willie Cohen (no relation of Nat), Sid Kersh and ‘Shimmy’ Silver, among many other serving members of the YCL. I was a member of the YCL, but mostly I worked with the older people who were members of the Party itself. In fact I don’t know how I became a Party member by the time I was still not 20 years old.

I knew Hymie Cohen, Nat’s brother, by sight, but had not yet become very familiar with him. I was a frequent visitor to Andy’s Cafe in Great Garden Street, the place where so many CP and YCL members and their friends met, for cheap snacks and much discussion. There was an air of excitment throughout the period leading to Nat’s arrival. After all, here was a person who had left Stepney over ten years ago, suddenlv returning in a blaze of publicity, and offering us an opportunity to further our political aims.

Hymie Cohen was very close to Bert Teller who also knew Sid Kersh very well, through their common connection with the ships going between Britain and South America, in which they both served as ships printers. Bert, as I have shown, was the bloke who first made contact with Nat in South America, and was the one responsible for the initial information leading to the world-wide publicity regarding the voyage of the infamous Chaco. Nat and Bert became life-long friends, and remained so until Nat’s death recently.

When I first saw the report of Nat’s arrival, in the Daily Worker, I felt a bit disappointed because it was on page five and not on the front page. All the other reports were on the first or second page, which I thought, somehow made it seem more important. I didn’t quite understand why his arrival should take two days to get into the paper. The fact that Nat actually lived in my street and that I had been reading about him in the press, and hearing first-hand reports from people who actually knew him, may have made me exaggerate the importance of his arrival. I still don’t think so.

We had to wait 17 days before he was given an official welcome home, at the St Georges Town Hall, on 17th June. (22) Surely he merited an all London welcome, if not more. I went to the meeting and saw Nat. He had obviously been through a very hard time. From a distance, I saw a medium built man, slightly rounded shouldered, with a thick barrel chest, and the rest of him as wirey as can be imagined. He looked strong, despite his apparently run-down condition. He gesticulated a great deal and appeared to be talking very quickly. His eyes were darting about in all directions. He kept wiping them from time to time, as they appeared to be watering badly. I actually thought he was crying. I learned that his tear ducts had been punctured by the insertion of needles into the corner of his eyes, when he was tortured, while in gaol in South America.

People near me, were talking about him and J learned he had managed to get a couple of sailors from the Chaco, to come to London, to join him at meetings which he had attended during his first few days here in England.

These sailors had been at his home for meals etc. and some of these people, who were talking, had met them. I was soon to learn how typical of Nat Cohen, this kind of thing was. He could make contact with anybody in any circumstances, and try to enlist them in some form of revoiutionary activity.

The meeting opened. The speakers were Isobel Brown, Mrs Despard, the ageing Irish revolutionary and J.R. Campbell. When Nat was called, he got a rousing reception. When he finally opened his mouth to speak, I got the shock of my life. He could hardly speak English. He had been in South America eleven years and had almost forgotten his native tongue. His accent was as deep as any I’ve heard from a foreigner. Every few words were interrupted with the phrase, ‘How you say?’ He did his best but I could see that he was not a public speaker of any quality. He was too excitable and spoke too quickly. His energy seemed to be too much for his body. It was trying to get out.

Seeing and hearing him for the first time was an exhilarating experience.

I did not meet him that night. The following Sunday, there was a demonstration at Trafalgar Square to protest on behalf of the Scottsboro boys.

The mother of two of them, Mrs Wright, was on a world tour on her sons’ behalf. (23) Nat was one of the speakers at this meeting. He was already fully engaged in his work in the movement. He never stopped. The Daily Worker did not report his welcome home meeting at all. I did not notice this fact, at the time. But I had reason to think about it, later among other things, which came to my notice, regarding Nat’s relationship with the leadership of the CP.

A couple of days later, I finally met Nat at Andy’s cafe, late in the evening, after we had done our usual task for the day. I listened to him as the conversation proceeded between many people, without regard to which table, they happened to be sitting. It must have been well past midnight when we left for home. A group of about eight or nine, headed in the direction of my street. By the time we got there only a few of us were left, and finally Nat and myself. When we got to his door we stopped to finish our conversation, and I knew then that I was ‘hooked’. He insisted on seeing me the following evening, early. I was in his company almost every moment of my free time, for days on end. Nat was 32 and 13 years older than me. We met at his home and I got to know his parents, brothers and sisters. We visited all the many places from which CP and other working-class activities were conducted.

‘Circle House’ was one of the best, because there was a bar with good Jewish food and above all, lots of people at all times of the day and night.

Nat soon got to know everybody and lost no time in making contacts, always with a purpose in mind. He always carried a small notebook and never stopped scribbling, names and addresses, phone numbers etc., he was always making notes in his little book. Sam Berks told me recently, that Nat kepta ‘file’ on nearly all the people he knew, and was most annoyed when Sam actually got hold of his ‘file’ by accident, when he was visiting him in his home. Sam said he was described as, ‘politically unreliable’, among other things. Nat started to work on me with all his mighty energy. ‘Had I read Lenin.’ ‘What did I know of Karl Marx?’ ‘Who else?’ Get this — get that.

We'll discuss . . . and so on, all the time.

He introduced me to three new subjects, almost immediately. You may not think these matters had any revolutionary connections. According to Nat you would be wrong. The first was, a game: chess. Yes, he insisted that this was a very enjoyable game which helped you to think more clearly, to learn to analyse, to concentrate, to control emotion and not to be caught napping.

We spent a lot of time playing chess and I thank him for introducing me to the game. The second subject was mathematics, for much the same reasons, but more important still, was the need to train your mind to think logically.

With my very scant knowledge of this subject, I had to struggle with very elementary concepts before I could get to know some of the language of mathematics, and its more difficult functions. I never became very good. Lastly, he taught me to walk. I couldn’t keep up with him. He walked so much and so fast that I would be exhausted after going anywhere with him. He did this deliberately. ‘It helps to keep you fit’ — It saves fare money. — You may find the need for long sustained effort, as do soldiers, who have to learn to march.’ Life with Nat was exciting in other ways. he was completely uninhibited.

He would enter anywhere at any time, if he thought there was something he needed. He had a habit of making the most innocent sounding requests for information. Always or usually, he knew the kind of answer he would get, and so he was ready with a suitable follow up, which would achieve his objective.

He used this method to travel around any country he was visiting, with very little cash. He once went to France, with a camera but no film. In the villages he would get a few children together and pretend to take their photographs. Sure enough, the parents would come to the doors to see what this stranger was doing. They would invite him in for a drink, or a meal, and in this way he would enjoy their company, and they his. This enabled him to go anywhere, in an interesting way, at very little cost. He was chock full of initiative and was able to adapt to the most impossible situations. I began to idolise him, and he was not slow to exploit me for all he was worth without seeming to do so. It was always something for my benefit that he wanted done. ‘It’s a good experience. — It’ll do you good. — You never know until you try. — You'll be surprised. — They won’t say, “no” ’ This kind of thing, when he was proposing a most unlikely kind of cheeky project.

He liked women friends and lost no time in becoming friendly with a young woman called Yetta. She came from Poland, some time after the war.

So far as I knew, she had no family here. She was a lively girl and laughed often. I had not known her before, but she had been an active Communist for some time. There were others who began to meet Nat and Yetta, and by this time Bert Teller came home from sea and joined our group. We engaged in activities mainly in connection with campaigns being carried on by the ILD.

Nat had become attached to the ILD and was becoming increasingly active in the local CP. Our group was growing all the time, as we engaged in activity Berlin’ —‘Hitler called in’ —Dismissal of Breuning’ —‘German Crisis’ (24).

Don’t think that all was grim, because it wasn’t. Just at this time, I was doing a job for a man living a few doors from Nat’s place, My permanent job was slack and I did this sort of thing at times. His name was Mr Phillips and he had a small workshop. His son was Sid Phillips, the claronetist and band leader. His other son was Wolf Phillips, who played the trumpet, at this time.

It so happened, that Larry Gains was due to meet Primo Carnera in a world heavy weight boxing contest, at the White City stadium. I wanted to see this fight, so I pretended to be sick and left early on that day, leaving poor Mr Phillips with ail his work unfinished. That’s how I remember this period so well. These things seem to stick.

The ILD announced a drive for the release of class-war prisoners. A three months campaign, culminating in a meeting to elect a delegate to the World Congress of MOPRA. These were the initials for the International Red Aid, and I have forgotten what they stood for in Russian. The Congress to be held in Moscow in October. (25) A discussion was opened in the columns of the Daily Worker, in preparation for the coming 12th Congress of the Communist Party of Great Britain, (26) Hitler’s influence was getting stronger — ‘Mass shootings in Berlin’. In India, the Meerut prisoners were found guilty after a trial lasting three years (27). The first anniversary of the Invergordon Mutiny had arrived. Len Wincott wrote an article for the Daily Worker in which he retold the story of the mutiny, this time with the benefit of some hindsight.

There was also a copy of the now famous ‘Mutineers’ Manifesto’, as a special feature. We had an anniversary meeting, speakers — Len Wincott, Fred Copeman, J.R. Campbell, Tom Mann and Saklatvala. (28)

The Hunger Marchers were on the way, from Scotland. At this time my reading material included Thesis of the 12th Plenum of the Secretariat of the Communist International. There were lectures and discussions going on almost every night, at the Workers’ Circle, the T & GWU, No. 2 branch, Buckle Street, the UCWU premises, and in other places. ‘The Friends of the Soviet Union’, held regular meetings of their local branch. The National Unemployed Workers’ Movement, (NUWM) was very active at this time. The Stepney NUMW did have some CP members, but most members were unemployed people who may have been sympathetic, but by no means all.

However, the organisation nationally was firmly in the hands of well known Communists, like, Wal Hannington, Harry McShane, Emrys Llewellyn and others. Locally, there was Morrie Silver, Alf Sheldon, and a little later Gordon Roper, a Scot, CP member who was drafted in as the full-time organiser.

They became exerts in dealing with individual cases under the ‘Means Test’, and could wring the last ounce out of the authorities. They used these cases to agitate and win the support from the unemployed and tried to enlist the local trade union and Labour organisations, for the fight on behalf of the unemployed. They were up to their necks in preparing a reception for the Hunger Marchers who were getting nearer London.

During the early part of October, I read, ‘Zinoviev and Kamenev Expelled’, (29) Old Bolsheviks. I could hardly believe my eyes. The unemployed in London, demonstrated against the Means Test, by marching to the LCC offices, where we engaged in fights with the police. (30) The Hunger Marchers arrived in London and were greeted by over one hundred thousand Londoners, in Hyde Park. (31)

There were many arrests and casualties. Wal Hannington was arrested for a speech ‘liable to cause dissaffection among the police’. They wanted him out of the way. Sid Elias, Chairman of the NUWM was arrested on a charge of ‘Incitement’. Same reason. Wally got three months. Sid was remanded. (32) Another name came forward in the leadership of the NUWM, Pat Devine. I got to know him too.

The headquarters of the NUWM was raided. ‘They’ demanded one thousand pounds bail for Sid Elias. He eventually got sentenced to two years. An article in the Daily Worker, on the first anniverssary of the imprisonment of Allison and Shepherd, told the story of how they were trapped by the secret police department, which led to their imprisonment. (33) Mary Mooney, aged 84, mother of Tom Mooney, was here with William Taylor of the ILD (USA), to campaign for the release of her son, trade union leader, who had been framed on a bomb throwing charge. (34)

During the middle of Deceinber, we saw the biggest bit of cheek on the part of the National Government. Tom Mann and Emrys Llewellyn were arrested under an Edward III Act for ‘Incitement’ in which no specific crime had been alleged, but they could be convicted if they did not give an undertaking not to commit one. They naturally refused to be bound over, as required under the act, and were sentenced to two months in gaol, each. Tom Mann was seventy-six years old. Kath Duncan was given one month, under the same act. There were others. (35)

Harry McShane and Bob McLenan were leading the Scottish NUWM and the Scottish contingent of the Hunger Marchers. I got to know both of them, particularly Bob, who came to live in London as a full-time Party functionary.

I met Harry years later, when he had left the Party.

K. Beauchamp and C. Mason of the Daily Worker were sent to prison for offences relating to publishing material ‘likely to lead to a disturbance of the peace.’ (36) Peace. I ask you? Millions starving and a few of them daring to protest. As far as I was concerned, it was meetings and demonstrations, going on all over the place.

1933 had arrived and we hardly noticed that Mosley had formally constituted the ‘British Union of Fascists’ (BUF). This does not mean that we were unaware of what he was doing. The name ‘Fascist’ was adopted and the ‘New Party’, as the Communists had predicted was transformed into ‘The British Union’. Late 1932, ‘The Fascist Defence Force’ was established.

Mosley had arrived with powerful support behind the scenes. 8th January, was Tom Mann Sunday and the fight for his release, along with other imprisoned militants, served to focus more attention on the plight of the unemployed.

(37) Wal Hannington was released after serving his sentence, at the end of January.

At exactly this time, on Thursday, 26th, our group, working with Nat Cohen, decided it was time to form a Stepney branch of the ILD. I’m sure it must have been decided in conjunction with the National Committee, ILD and the local CP, but I would not have known this kind of thing at that time.

A meeting was advertised and invited all interested parties to attend the ‘Dewdrop Inn’, 71 Vallance Road, E1 (38). This had been a pub bearing that name, and was now the headquarters of one, Mary Hughes, grand-daughter of the author of Tom Brown’s Schooldays. She had arrived in Stepney many years ago, to help the poor. She was a very old woman when I first met her.

Small, thin, but still very active. The building has recently been demolished, but until it was, it bore a plaque recording her residence there. Directly opposite, there is a large double block of council flats called ‘Hughes Mansions’. She was some ‘lady’. She had served on the council. She was a declared Socialist, but would enlist the help of anyone in her mission to help the poor. She was sympathetic to the Communists and her little meeting hall was Open to us or anyone else for meetings which she felt would contribute to the general good. She only charged a few shillings to cover the expenses, which sometimes included tea and biscuits or buns.

Mary was not going to wait for the revolution before behaving as a Socialist should. She was a Socialist today, not some time in the future. Whenever I met her, she would ask if I would like a cup of tea. Was I hungry? Was I working? How were my friends? I never actually discussed ‘Politics’ with her. She was too busy anyway. There were always people waiting to see her.

She would be listening to them patiently, and never let anyone go away without good advice or immediate material aid, where she felt able.

She was a power in Stepney, because she was able to open all doors. Nobody could say no to her without good reason. For all her frail appearance, she was tough in her dealings with anyone who was not showing enough compassion for the poor workers, particularly the unemployed and the children.

She didn’t question you about your political affiliations before deciding to help or accept your help, in the great work she was doing. Nobody dared ‘question’ her about her politics or who she associated with, either. Anyone who didn’t know Mary, didn’t really know the East End, and were much poorer human beings for not having met her.

When we arrived for our inaugural meeting, she was busy making tea and telling us where we could get more chairs for the expected arrivals. Don’t let anyone tell you, that all the so-called do-gooders are people with ulterior motives. Some have beliefs which they seek to further, like the Stepney priest, Father Groser, for instance, but like him, there are many who do a good job as humanitarians, and in his case, also as Socialists. He was a member of the ILP, but was always co-operating with us, and like Mary Hughes, was a name to be reckoned with in Stepney.

That evening at the ‘Dewdrop Inn’, as we waited for more people to arrive, I was looking at a chap I had not seen before. He was short, fat and had a badly crossed eye. His hair was brushed smartly back and his clothes were the usual well made garments worn by tailoring workers. It was his appearance which attracted me in the first place, because he was more like the boys from the ‘shpielers’, than those we normally attracted. He had a deep, husky voice and it sounded as though he was a bit ‘chesty’. His accent was ‘pure Jewish cockney’, if you know what I mean. None of these fancy words used by people who pretended to be ‘educated’. He laughed out loud, very loud. I went to sit beside him, I think, because Nat Cohen told me to make ‘contact’. We started to chat and I felt he was there for a lark. He wasn’t sitting on the chair, he sprawled. His name was Harold Cohen, and he was four years older than me, but as usual this didn’t matter. We started to talk, while waiting for the meeting to open. I could see that he was interested, but not sure what it was going to be like.

Nat was fussing around welcoming people he had invited, and then Bob Lovell, from the National Committee, ILD, entered. He was to make the opening statement. Among those present, were many I was destined to get to know intimately. As far as I can remember, there was one called Gorty, from the Workers’ Circle, about Nat’s age. Then there was Alf Finklestein, a little younger, cabinet-maker and an experienced trade unionist and young Joe Davishall, from the YCL—a good speaker. There was Hetty Stern, a good typist (very useful). Yetta, of course and Esther Wynne (Wienberg). whose father and brother were the owners of a local printing works (also very useful). This family were closely associated with the best branch of the Workers’ Circle and did some good work in the fight against Fascism. There was ‘Shorty’ Brooks, a tall young man, Pat Byrne and McNulty, two seamen, Joe Sims, a baker, Bert Foote, something to do with engineering, and Dinmore and Coleman, two dockers I had met before. The last four names were something to be glad of, indeed. Obviously not Jews. Altogether there must have been about thirty-five in attendance. Not bad to start with, especially as it was such a mixed group.

Esther Wynne took the minutes and was elected secretary. Nat became the organiser. You could see the way he worked, at that meeting. His mind was working away like mad, trying to find ways of involving people in some form of activity. For example, the collection had to be taken, so obviously we needed a treasurer. I can’t remember who, but I think it was Finklestein.

After all he was an experienced trade unionist. There would be a few columns of figures to add up, at times, so we needed at least two auditors. Then what about literature? So a ‘Lit-sec’ had to be found. Any volunteers? We were going to conduct propaganda and agitate for the defence and release of classwar prisoners and against Fascism, so why not an ‘Agit-Prop’ secretary? He or she would need help, so why not an ‘Agit-Prop committee? It was endless as far as Nat was concerned. He wanted to give everybody an official title. If he had his way everybody would be an officer. We would find the rank-and-file members later. He would not accept me for any of these positions. Nor some of the others who were already actively associated with him, because he was reasonably sure we would stick. What he wanted was to hold all the newcomers.

I began to learn a lot from him about how to handle people. Very important if you want to organise.

The meeting was a great success. We could go ahead with the full title— ‘International Labour Defence, Stepney Branch’. We elected a committee, including me, and agreed to meet, assuring all present that they would be informed of the next meeting, not forgetting to tell them to bring their friends along. It was a long meeting and quite late when we left the ‘Dewdrop Inn’.

I left with Harold Cohen and found out that he lived at number nine, Varden Street. So we walked up Vallance Road, crossed Whitechapel Road and continued along New Road until we got to Varden Street, the last turning on the left, before it reaches Commercial Road. We turned into Varden Street and number nine was just five doors up. Harold invited me in for a cup of tea.

You may not believe this, but as I entered the kitchen in the back basement room, sitting at the table with her mother was Pearl Cohen. I swear I did not know that Harold was her eldest brother. I blushed and felt very embarrassed.

Harold introduced me to his mother.

The rest of the family were already in bed. It was clear that Pearl and I were acquainted. She struck me as being a little subdued that night. Not her usual bright, cheery self. I had tea, spoke to Mrs Cohen and then left, after Harold and I had arranged to meet the following day, after work. I walked up Varden Street towards my home, feeling a bit strange. I wasn’t thinking about the meeting or the world in general, or the movement in particular, but only of Pearl.

I met Harold the following evening at his home and once again Pearl was there. Harold and I left to go to the committee meeting as arranged. Nat lost no time in organising the committee, and outlining a programme of activities.

Outdoor meetings, whitewashing slogans, leaflet distribution, canvassing and literature sales, etc.

Harold was committed, as were many more. We arranged things so that I would be with him in the different jobs that had to be done. We were to become firm friends very quickly. I was a bit puzzled about what this unlikely type was doing in the movement. I soon found out.

Harold was a waistcoat machiner, like his father, who had a small workshop at the back of the house. His brother Myer, was a waistcoat fixer, who had learned the trade working for his father, as did the others. Myer was already married when he was 19, and a father at 20. He worked at a big factory in Hackney, Polikoffs. Pearl was a waistcoat buttonhole hand and also worked at Polikoffs. Their eldest sister Becky, was married to Mick Gilbert (Gilbovsky), who worked in Mr Cohen’s workshop as the fixer. He was a very fast worker and the family called him ‘Mick-Flick’ whenever the conversation was anything to do with work. Mick was keen to get on and hostile towards those of us who were silly enough to be interested in politics. Mick and Becky lived in two rooms on the top floor of the same house. Arthur was the youngest male member of the family and was learning the trade in his father’s workshop. He was already a member of the YCL. I had not met him, as far as I know, prior to this time. There was a younger sister, Sylvia, still at school.

Mr and Mrs Cohen’s bedroom was the front, ground floor room. Pearl and Sylvia shared the back room on the ground floor. Harold and Arthur shared a couch, which opened for the night, in the front basement, which was also the parlour. Myer and his wife, Fay, and their young son Arnold lived in Hackney. Fay’s brother Harry and sister Rose were in the movement and Rose was a close friend of Pearl.

Harry became a life long member of the Communist Party. Pearl didn’t seem to be very active at this time. I had noticed some time earlier that she was not around. She did not seem to come to Andy’s and was not with her usual crowd; Harold told me why.

It appears that she had been involved in an argument with someone in the UCWU and had recently ended a short affair with Willy Goldman, and was spending more time at home. Harold had actually decided to come into the local political scene to find these people who had upset his sister, and in some way to deal with them.

His previous life had been very much the ordinary one in the East End.

He had mixed with a gang of tough street-corner boys and was himself, useful with his fists. Despite his build, he was an amazing short distance runner. His speed approached that of the National champions. His short legs would move like lightening. Also, he could do cartwheels all along the road in a perfect straight line, for quite some distance. He was his mother’s pride and joy. Very considerate where she was concerned. He made sure she would have a week’s holiday at the seaside every year, even though he could not afford one for himself. Another thing he did, even before I got to know him, was to bring home any poor ‘down-and-out’ he encountered, so that they would get a meal and a night’s rest, in his already overcrowded place.

Basically he was good material for the Communist Party because he was capable of deep compassion and concern for anyone who suffered.

We went everywhere together and no matter how late at night, I always went to his home on my way to mine. So I was seeing Pearl every night, when she came home. She was resuming her old way of life and was never short of boy friends. She rarely arrived home unaccompanied. I felt very jealous, but tried to conceal my feelings from everyone. As far as all were concerned, I was Harold’s pal and nothing more. In any case, I did not fancy my chances as I was big and bulky and she was just five feet tall and in very good proportion.

So very pretty —her father’s favourite. The ‘little cow’, he used to call her, because she had a biting tongue and a mind of her own.

She didn’t get on too well with her mother, who was a very shallow, selfish type of person who liked being pandered to, the way Harold pandered to her. Pearl used her ‘wit’ on me quite a bit, as we became more familiar.

She would often say that I was getting more attention in their home than some of the family. That I seemed to live there more than in my own home.

She wasn’t altogether wrong. I think she took a great delight in making wisecracks at my expense. I was naive enough to think that this was because she didn’t like me. I never realised that the best way to show disapproval was to ignore someone completely.

There were times when we were alone because Harold would be tired and had to get up early, and went to bed, leaving us talking. Our seasons did not coincide as he was in the gents’ trade and I was in the ladies’. I tried to delay going home as long as possible in the hope that he would go to bed and leave us alone. Pearl never seemed in a hurry to retire. As the weather improved these meetings usually ended on the doorstep, where we had no choice but to sit close together. We talked alot, but I did not attempt any familiarity. We were becoming good friends. She began to join in the activities of the ILD more and more. As I have said, she knew Nat Cohen through the Silvers, before I did. From the day of his arrival from the Argentine, he welcomed her into the fold. At times, when she was associating with some young chap or other, I only saw her later, when she came home.

One such young man was Lou Sherman, who lived in Varden Street, and was a leading member of the YCL for a time. A good speaker. He joined the Labour Party and emerged as the leader of the Hackney Branch, after the second world war. He married a girl called Sadie Parrish (now Sally). I knew her as a small child because she lived exactly opposite me in Bedford Street, next door to that cloth shop owned by Mr Pyzer, whose son had thrown the dirt in my face when I was three years old. Ours was a small world. In due course, both Lou and Sally became Mayors of Hackney, and they are now Sir Lou and Lady Sherman. They were not the only ones who started out to defeat the ‘system’ and became the respectable defenders of the same ‘systemPe’a.rl had other hoy friends and although most of them were about my age I regarded them as ‘youngsters’. All my friends were so much older, and that’s another reason why I thought Pearl would not be really interested in me. In addition, I had been Harold’s friend for some time and it might be a bit much if I was to take advantage of his sister. Or so I thought.

Meanwhile, things were happening in the great big world outside. Hitler was preparing to take over in Germany, without Von Papen or anyone else.

Here there was a dock strike and talk about a General Strike. Four South Wales militants were charged with ‘Incitement to Mutiny’. Len Jeffries, Sam Paddock, Ernest Watley and Chas Stread (39).

The Labour Party organised a big demonstration against hunger. We did our best to join in, but were not allowed to get into the demonstration, other than at the very end of the column (40). Harold made us laugh on this occasion. We were shouting slogans for all we were worth—‘We refuse to starve in silence’. He looked at me, pointed to ‘Tubby’ Goldman and several others nearby. About five of us big, fat, young men. It must have been quite a sight.

The Daily Worker carried an article attacking Trotsky for his statements regarding Germany (41). I didn’t pay much attention. The Stepney ILD was running its own public meetings now and bringing forward its own speakers.

New ones. Tom Mann and Emrhys Llewellyn came out of gaol and were welcomed home. Really big headlines in the press (42). The Daily Worker said, ‘Nazis burn down German Parliament’. Communist Party leaders in Germany were arrested and their press was closed down (43). The UCWU called a meeting, addressed by Dave Gershon and Sarah Wesker, against the employers’ proposal to cut wage rates by a penny an hour (44).

The Stepney ILD got a bigger meeting place for our growing membership, at 288 Commercial Road (45). The opening meeting there was addressed by Alun Thomas, National Secretary, ILD. He came from South Wales and was a full-time CP functionary. A fine young man who I liked and got to know well. Our newest recruits included a little, middle-aged man called ‘Harry the Barber’ and a Russian immigrant who didn’t care about the fact that he was an alien. This was unusual but not unique. Some of the older Jewish immigrants were quite militant but afraid because they were foreigners. And well they might be. The whole movement seemed to be attracting more mature men and women at this time. There was Mr Lazarus who also brought his son Alf and daughter Sadie into active Party work.

Jews were fleeing from Germany and we began to get a trickle of poorer ones into the East End. Most of those able to get away were people with money or other assets, and didn’t come to the East End. Some of them were not too welcome after being here for a time because they were generally not such good anti-Fascists, or, for that matter, good Jews. They were business men and their families, who had been behaving as though they were not Jews at all, in Germany, before Hitler came along. They were often described as being more German than the Germans themselves, even though most of them were immigrants or descended from immigrants from Poland, Russia and other Eastern European states, before they went to Germany. When they got to London they were more interested in establishing themselves in business here. Their behaviour was often very arrogant and they were not liked by the London Jewish community. It was early days as yet, and the growing number of arrivals from Germany had not had much impact.

Keeping in mind what I will reveal of what happened much later, I had better tell you that a pamphlet written for the CPGB by Idris Cox, price one penny, was issued at this time. It dealt with an internal Party matter. It was called, Factory, cell and street work (46). At this time Nat Cohen made sure that some of us were recruited into the CP. I was one of them. This meant that I had to attend Party cell meetings too. We were initiated into the ‘mysteries’ of faction work. This meant that all Party members working in a mass organisation had to meet to discuss and plan their work in their own particular organisation. For example, Trade Union, Friendly Society, Labour Party or ILD, Friends of the Soviet Union, NUWM, etc. This would hope to ensure that the Party line was being operated correctly. After all, the CP was ‘The General Staff? of the working class. Was it not? Without a well disciplined and tested organisation, how could you expect to overthrow Capitalism and establish ‘The Dictatorship of the Proletariat’? Also one must not forget the need for flexibility. The line had to change; sometimes very quickly and often. Only a disciplined type of organisation with strict adherence to the decisions of the leadership could be tolerated.

There were about six of us in the Party faction working in the Stepney ILD. Nat used us ruthlessly. He was always telling me about my heavy responsibility.

I had to see that our work was carried on ‘correctly’. I was not a very energetic person and had to be prodded all the time. I only acted when I felt the matter was urgent and when I had neglected to do something, I was inclined to panic. Nat must have understood this. He was a hard taskmaster.

He continued to prod me with my Party training too; making sure that I attended classes and lectures, in addition to carrying on my private studies which he personally took it upon himseif to supervise.

The comrades arrested in South Wales were tried and sentenced: Stead to 21 months, Whatley to 12 months, Paddock 15 months and Jefferies to 18 months to run concurrently with the three years he had received at an earlier trial on his own (47).

The ILD was a very busy organisation. Harold Cohen, Manny Zalsberg, N. Gorty, Bert Foote and myself had all become local public speakers for it; in addition there were the original ones, Finkelstein and Joe Davishall. We were able to run several meetings at the same time in different parts of the borough; and we did. We started to break into new territory outside Whitechapel, at places like’ Riverside Mansions, Wapping, Dellow Street, Shadwell, Philpot Street, Commercial Road and St Peters Road, Mile End.

Sometimes we would address several meetings during the course of one evening by running a shuttle service between the various locations where they were taking place. Net never lost an opportunity to push some new member on to the platform.

I think Nat did one kind of trick deliberately. If someone was speaking at one meeting and waiting for the next speaker to arrive from somewhere else, Nat would act in an excited fashion, approach some poor, unsuspecting member and say, ‘Look, Harold should have been here five minutes ago and Joe is due to speak somewhere else in ten minutes’ time, so I’m going to ask him to finish and you will have to take over until Harold arrives’. In this way he forced many unwilling people into becoming public speakers, no mean feat.

Harold’s photograph, taken while he was addressing a meeting at Vallance Road, Whitechapel, appeared in Der Sturmer, Julius Stricher’s antisemitic journal, in Germany, as an example of a typical ‘Jewish Communist agitator’ in England. Harold was a real mob orator and frequently used his arms and face to emphasise his points. This photographer must have had a field-day when he was taking these pictures of him. Social activity was not to be neglected either. Dances were also a good way of raising funds. Nat tried not to go outside the organisation for professional services if he could help it. so Harold had to be MC at our dances too. There were others too, of course. When time permitted we organised rambles, but this was not everybody’s cup of tea. In any case, some of us enjoyed the ordinary social events going on all around us.

Mosley was becoming increasingly active all over the place. The young Jewish boys were showing signs of wanting to resist. In addition, lots of people from the ‘shpielers’ who had helped Barnett Janner in the General Election were coming round to our way of thinking. An important place was situated right opposite Andy’s cafe, next door to the LTU. It was called ‘Chappers’. From this place we recruited Lew Mitchell, who was to become an active Party member and noted for his ‘fan-like’ devotion to Harry Pollitt.

He often appointed himself his bodyguard.

We got very good donations from ‘Ginger’ and others who helped to run this club. Ginger opened his own club in Whitechapel Road a while later and he always helped any organisation which opposed Mosley, as did many of his members. Other people besides workers were coming forward to be counted as anti-Fascists. The workers’ Circle Friendly Society had a meeting at the ‘Kingsway Hall’ in the centre of London at which the speakers covered a wide field: Lord Marley, Morris Myer (editor of the leading Jewish newspaper), Major Nathan (MP), T. A. Jacksom (CP), Hannan Swaffer, James Saunders from the ‘No More War Movement’, who had just returned from Berlin, as well as representatives of the ILP and other organisations. This was a protest meeting against the persecution of the Jews in Germany (48).

The LP and ILP also had a demonstration against Fascism on the 9th April, protesting against the murder of Jews (49). The Workers’ Circle Branch No. 10 held a united front meeting locally which was supported by speakers from the Labour Party, ILP, CP and some Trade Unions (50). Every organisation in East London was running meetings and campaigning, including, of course, the ILD.

The Jewish religious leaders were very cautious and calied on the community to behave with dignity and to pay attention to their religious observance and daily practice, as laid down. Their general idea was that if the Jews behaved themselves and did not offend the authorities, then God would deliver them from all evil.

The UCWU moved their headquarters to 60 Whitechapel Road. Bill Shepherd of the Invergordon ‘frame-up’ had finished his sentence and was released (51). The Communist International was calling for a united front against Fascism (52). The Metro Vicks Trial opened in Moscow (53). Mosley went to see Mussolini and his members had adopted the blackshirt as part of their uniform, to say nothing of the thick leather belt with a large, square buckle! (54).

Harry Pollitt wrote a strong article in the Daily Worker calling for the building of a strong International Labour Defence. He was supported by Bill Shepherd in an article the following day (55). There were others too. It seems the CP regarded our ILD as a very important organisation. It was my birthday at this time. I was 20.

Rosenberg was due to leave from Liverpool Street Station. I must describe this station in order to make clear what we Stepney International Labour Defenders did. The station is a terminus ending in Liverpool Street. For about a quarter of a mile its approach runs parallel with Norton Folgate from Shoreditch High Street until it joins Bishopsgate, which is the end of the line. There are about six bridges which connect the side turnings which run into Norton-Folgate. The trains run under these bridges into the station. We decided to see if we could catch the security forces napping. They would be expecting a demonstration in and around the station and they were not disappointed. We thought that it would be a good idea to create some diver- sionary incidents there while selected groups of our people with large, long banners suitably inscribed and leaflets etc., waited near some of the bridges. Just before the train was due to pull out all hell broke loose on the bridges. Our banners were strung along the iron sides of some of the bridges and we showered leaflets in all directions. We also threw a lot of other things onto the railway lines while chanting anti-Fascist slogans, as some climbed on to the girders. For gocd measure, we had not forgotten to put someone on the train to pull the communication cord just as the train was under the bridges. We had a good time. We certainly fooled the police on this occasion. We had begun to learn ‘tactics’. Rosenberg must have remembered his send off from Liverpool Street Station.

Regarding those Jewish youths who had been arrested in Piccadilly, we held a meeting at St Peters Road, Mile End, to protest at their sentences; just an ordinary street corner meeting with about 700 attending. We made 25 recruits to the ILD and sold over 200 items of literature (58). Feeling was growing stronger all over the East End. We called for an all-

London demonstration to the German Embassy to show solidarity with the German workers. An open conference was called at St George’s Town Hall for the formation of an East London Anti-Fascist Committee. Harry Pollitt who had been our candidate in the General Election, spoke as leader of the Communist Party. 179 representatives turned up and the committee was formed (59). Trade Union matters also needed attention. We clothing workers were balloting on the question of whether or not our National Union of Tailors and Garment Workers (NUTGW) should agree to the employers’ demand for a reduction in the hourly rate of pay. The Ladies’ Tailors were already opposing a proposed reduction of a penny per hour. Can you believe it now? Out of a national labour force of 250,000, only a small number were in the union (60). The Stepney ILD Social Committee advertised a Grand Coach Outing to Margate for Whit Monday: apply for tickets to Wynne, 30 Bedford Street, E1 (61). This was Esther, our social secretary, and this was my address, which was our only address as we did not yet have our own premises. I was virtually the secretary, assisting Nat Cohen, our organiser. Both Nat and I became the Stepney branch representatives on the National Committee of the ILD. There was still a couple of weeks to go before Whitsun and we had a lot to do. There were arrests at the Rosenberg send off, and we needed a lot of money. We held six meetings on Saturday and another six on Sunday, in- cluding one at noon, near the approaches to Petticoat Lane at the junction of Osborne Street, Brick Lane and Wentworth Street. This was outside ‘Bloom’s’ Jewish restaurant which became famous all over the world as a place to visit. I remember Max Bayer when he was world heavyweight champion, coming there. The crowds were so big, you could not get near the place. After that meeting, we held a poster parade all round the area, starting at 3.00p.m. and we did not finish until about 6.00p.m. We topped it all with more meetings during the evening (62). Nat Cohen was undoubtedly the human dynamo which kept all this feverish activity going. Arising out of the anti-war demonstration in Scotland, thirty-four workers were on bail in Renfrew (63). Alun Thomas, National Secretary of the ILD wrote a long article in the Daily Worker, calling for action to free Thaelman and Torgler who had been gaoled by Hitler (64). Fascists in black- shirts were appearing all over the place in the streets of London. We finally established the Stepney ILD in our own premises, situated at number 1 Rutland House, Christian Street, E1. This was a shop and room at the back (65). After our first meeting there, Nat had quite a row with Esther Wynne because he thought she was paying too much attention to me and was diverting me from the job in hand. I was getting a bit bolder by now and found females much more interesting for reasons other than those to do with politics. Esther was a good looking girl and we used to lark about quite a bit, and I had been escorting her home after some of our evening’s work was done. Nat was annoyed. Esther and I had a good laugh about this, but there was no need for Nat to be concerned.

Our outing to Margate was about due to take place and that changed everything. But before we come to that, I must tell you more about my mum and the family. I seem to have forgotten them in telling my story, just as I probably did most of the time then. Nat was introduced to my mother soon after I had met him. They got on famously. She liked him and I suppose, enjoyed the company of any friends I brought home. I did not take many of my friends home, up to this time, as mother was often away working and I did not want my friends to get to know that I had two sisters and a brother who we hardly ever saw. Harold also came home and met my mum. He could not fail to please her. She loved him. He was so homely and full of fun. She almost cried with laughter at some of his antics. He was always welcome and couldn’t visit my mum often enough to satisfy her. My half-sister Sophie’s girls were growing up. They continued to see their grandmother every Saturday without fail, walking all the way from Philip Street where they lived. Mum used to sit at the front room window high up on the fourth floor, waiting for them to turn the corner. They were a grand sight, all three of them. Rita, about eight, Nita, six and a half, Fay, almost five. Sophie had scrubbed them until they shone. She was a very good dresser herself and passed this quality on to her three daughters. My mother’s face lit up as they came into sight, and they made her very happy for the next couple of hours. My half-brother Harry was living nearby and his son Julius and daughters Maureen (Mushey), and Doreen, also came to see my mother very frequently, as did their mother Esther. They had another member added to their family later on, Jeanette. Harry himself saw my mum quite often because he was a waiter working at the same kind of functions as herself. He went on to become a well-known caterer for these same functions. Lots of people would know the name, Harry Jacobs, in the Jewish community. He often brought other waiters to see my mother. The man living on the floor below us was also a waiter. Mr Nelson had all those children I mentioned. Mrs Nelson was a good friend and neighbour, but a lot younger than mum. Harry brought news of Debbie, Annie or Hymie who he sometimes met in the West End. In a while they started to make an occasional visit home. Hymie did so in between spells in gaol, but my mother did not let on that she knew where he had been. I'm not even sure that she actually knew. But then she was a clever woman really and had learned to conceal most of her real feelings. When the girls came home on these rare occasions, mum would lay on a big spread and fuss around them, for all she was worth. No awkward questions, no recriminations, no sign of disapproval about their way of life or their appearance. She was so glad to see them, she could forget everything while they were there. Their visits grew more frequent over the next few years. I felt embarrassed in their company, but tried to be friendly though. I had never really managed to like the girls, even when we were together as youngsters. So I did not introduce too many of my friends to my home. There were all the other friends from the ‘corner’, who knew my family well, but I never talked to them about my sisters. k* k

Came the day of the outing to Margate, Whitsun, 5th June. I can’t possibly forget it. Eight shillings a ticket, if you could afford that much, plus some money to spend. Harold’s mother was there. So was Sam Berks. All the leading members of the ILD, and a few older people, probably parents or re- lations of some of our members. About 35-40 in all. But most important, there was a girl called Minnie, and Pearl. We were dressed for the occasion, and as we piled into the coach, Harold saw Minnie. I can’t remember if he al- ready knew her, but he sat beside her. She was dark and had very frizzy hair. A nice face with a beaming smile. She was well built but not fat. I looked around for a place. There was Pearl on the inside seat, about half way down the coach. I hesitated. She smiled, so I went towards her and she seemed to move over as if to make room for me. So I sat beside her and we started to chat. Her mother was way up the front. Harold had fixed that. We were all laughing and joking as the coach filled up. Finally we were ready to move off. We left our headquarters in Christian Street and headed for Margate. It didn’t take long for the younger people to get close to each other. Arms were already beginning to find their way round girls’ shoulders. Not everyone was as inhibited as I was. Before we were many miles out of London, the singing and laughing was almost deafening. The driver must have felt that we were a bit mad, or maybe he was used to such crowds. I didn’t know. I had not been to many coach outings, or even to the sea on many occasions, until this day.

I began not to notice what was going on as I wrestled with myself about whether to try putting my arm around Pearl. She was laughing and we got very close when the coach hit a bend in the road, going towards the left. I took all my courage in my hands and raised my arm above her head and she moved nearer and there was my arm right round her. She was so small and I was so big that my arm had no difficulty in really going all the way round and my hand was almost too big to fit in properly round her waist. Our eyes met and we kissed. A long, hard kiss. I had been in love with her for a very long time and here it was all happening.

Don’t ask me what happened as we sped towards Margate. There were only two people in all the world and I for one, was near to heaven. We cuddled and kissed, mostly in silence, for the rest of the journey. It was wonderful. On arrival, we straightened ourselves and only then did my arms leave her body, and hers mine. I felt a bit sheepish as we alighted from the coach and I saw her mother, who pretended not to notice. She must have known that something was happening, because we had been spending a lot of time on the doorstep over the last few months, late at night, when she and the rest of the family had gone to bed.

I still thought that Harold and his family would not notice that I was getting more interested in Pearl. I was obviously very young then. Harold, Minnie, Pearl and I formed a group and left the rest of the coach party after we had settled Mrs Cohen and her party near the sea.

There are only two things I remember about the few hours which we spent in Margate. All I could think of was the journey back home. The four of us went to sea in a hired boat. I was the only one with any rowing exper- ience, and that wasn’t much. The two girls sat at the back facing the stern and Hareld and I facing them, side by side, with one oar each. Before very long, we were about a quarter of a mile off shore and moving towards the pierhead, away from the spot where we had left Mrs Cohen and some of the others. We decided to turn round and get back, as we had exhausted the hiring time. We turned alright, and started to pull on the oars, but didn’t seem to be getting any nearer our objective. It was hot, so I stood up without warning the others, in order to remove my jacket and to make myself comfortable for a good, hard pull. Being on one side of the boat, it nearly capsized as I stood up. There were screams, but the boat righted itself. It didn’t really go over all that far, but it felt like it to my very inexperienced companions.

Harold gave me a piece of his mind and I apologised for not warning them that I had intended to get up. We soon realised that the current was carrying us away from the spot we had in mind. It was hopeless to row against this current. We might have succeeded in staying in the same place. I decided to head for the beach at the nearest point. This seemed to work better as we got in short; we tried heading towards the place where we had hired the boat. This too worked. We were out of the current. When we got to the boathouse, we had to pay for the extra time we had been out, from the money we had left as a deposit. This upset our budget for the day, but we were safe and happy. In addition we had a tale to tell. The boatman assured us that we were in no danger at any time, as we were being watched, and had we been in any real trouble, someone would have come to the rescue. We didn’t tell the others that.

I loved ice cream, and as soon as we saw where it was being sold, we headed in that direction. Harold and the girls had a normal size brick each, but I decided to get the biggest one available. A large family size. I certainly bit off more than I could chew. Before I could get half way through, it started to melt in my hands and I had to give up; but not before I had managed to eat most of the brick. We all laughed.

After a high tea in company with the rest of the coach party, at a restaurant which had been booked for the occasion, there was little time left before we were due to leave Margate.

This time as we boarded the coach, Pearl and I made a beeline for the long seat at the back end. We got a corner all to ourselves. As we moved off, we immediately get locked in each others’ arms and slid down well below the back of the seat in front. There we remained for the whole of the journey home, oblivious to anything which was going on in the coach. Once again I was near to heaven.

When we got back to the Cohens’ home, I realised that Minnie and Harold were already well acquainted. After a while, Harold decided to escort Minnie to her home in a narrow alley, just past Stepney Green underground station in Mile End Road, where her father had a barber shop. I finished up on the doorstep with Pearl. We were still there when Harold returned. He said good night, and he was the last of the Cohen family to go to bed, leaving us still on the doorstep. Pearl and I talked and cuddled and kissed and I told her I loved her. It must have been about 2.00 a.m. when I was able to leave her and walk up Varden Street on my way home. I was tired, Exhausted would be more like it, but so happy I could hardly believe that this was happening to me. Almost immediately, I thought that there would be some complications, but I hoped I could find a way of handling them, in a little while. In fact, we all carried on as though that outing had never taken place. Except that Pearl and I, in private, knew that we were now more to each other than we had been previously. I remained Harold’s friend and I met all my other friends for our various activities. I suppose 1 saw Pearl about three or four times each week, at the end of the day, when I got to her home with Harold. On almost every occasion we managed to be left alone, when everyone had gone to bed. The position was accepted as ‘normal’. I don’t know what anyone felt. It was never mentioned. Even less did I know what Pearl really felt. She was not very good at making her feelings known. She did not actually say how she felt. I suppose I never could be sure what she was thinking. This proved to be so for as long as I knew her. The position continued like that for at least six months.

Most of our crowd were getting a bit fed up with going to Andy’s cafe, and I forget the exact reason, but some of us started to go to a bigger cafe in Osbourne Street, called ‘Snelwars’. The number of anti-Fascists was growing so fast that several cafes were being used at the same time. There was ‘Curly’s’ a few doors from ‘Snelwars’, and, a little later on, another o Kid for Two Farthings. He also tells some stories centered on the Tailors’ Union in Whitechapel.

Osbourne Street and Brick Lane were not really funny places and I don’t know why they should have produced two good comedians and songsters. Brick Lane also housed the Russian vapour baths known as ‘Shefchicks’. Shefchicks has been referred to and described by Wolf Mankovitz in his book, A Kid for Two Farthings. He also tells some stories centered on the Tailors’ Union in Whitechapel.

Brick Lane also had a synagogue and Jewish school of a very orthodox sect. We called this place, ‘The Muzza Kadas’, which I think is its name in the Hebrew Talmudic language. I don’t know how they differed precisely from the other sections of the Jewish religion, numerous as they are, but they seemed to spend a lot more time in prayer.

There were lots of people who never used the cafes at all, but met privately in each others’ homes. This started to happen among the members of the ILD, especially as we were recruiting more married couples. Alf Finklestein and his wife Dora, with their two little daughters, lived in Buxton Street, off Brick Lane. Their home was open house to about a dozen of us, including Pearl. So I was seeing more of her away from her home.

There was Bert Foote’s place, in Lower Chapman Street, off Commercial Road. This was a typical East End gentile home and quite different from the Jewish homes. Bert was a middle-aged man. His wife was a jolly woman and they had two teenaged sons. We learned to drink beer in moderation at their home and began to use some of the local pubs on rare occasions. The Seals had arrived and George became the local Daily Worker agent. He made this a full-time job, ably assisted by his wife. They lived in the south side of Limehouse and we all met quite often in this house too. It must have been to- wards the end of 1933 that we recruited a young man called Sam Waldman. His uncle, aunt and cousins lived near me and his cousin Mary had been my sister Annie’s friend when they were still at school. Sam lived near the Searls but closer to our end of Stepney. He was very fair-haired and did not look so Jewish, except for his dress, which was always very good. He worked as a salesman in Houndsditch, which is a long street in Aldgate, full of wholesale shops and warehouses. Before that, he had been a violinist who had his musical career cut short before it had hardly begun when the talking pictures arrived. An intelligent bloke with a very nice manner. When Harold eventually started going steady with Minnie, he became my very good friend and we went around together for a long time afterwards. We liked to visit the West End and frequented the Holborn Empire and the Palladium for variety shows, usually finishing the evening at a decent restaurant for a meal. We were both relatively well off as we had what were considered to be good jobs. He must have been the first cloce friend I had who was actually a little younger than myself. He wasn’t so slow as I was with the girls, and I made more contact with some of them through his efforts.

I never stopped seeing Pearl regularly, although we never met by direct arrangement. I had not so far taken her out in the normal way. It was a strange sort of ‘carry on’. She continued to have other boy friends for a time. I know now that I was afraid to make our relationship formal, because in some vague sort of way, I knew this would mean introducing her to my mother and family. She, on the other hand, must have had some misgivings about the fact that we were so different in appearance. Also there was the fact that I was her big brother’s pal. I don’t think Harold had started to court Minnie regularly at this time. Pearl was becoming more involved in the ILD and we were all heading for an intense period of ceaseless activity.

1. DW 1.5.1932.
2. Ibid
3. DW, 14 & 18.1.1932.
4. DW, 20.1.1932.
5. DW, 23.1.1932.
6. DW, 23, 27 & 31.1.1932 and 4.2.1932.
7. DW, 12.2.1932.
8. London Evening News, 16.2.1932.
9. DW, 16.2.1932.
10. DW,6.4.1932 and 12.4.1932.
11. DW,3.5.1932 and 15.3.1932.
12. DW, 19.4.1932.
13. Empire News, 24.4.1932.
14. DW, 25.4.1932.
15. DW,7.5.1932.
16. DW, 20.5.1932.
17. DW, 11.5.1932.
18. Ibid
19. DW, 12.5.1932.
20. DW, 17.5.1932.
21. DW, 1.6.1932.
22. Meeting announced in DW, 15.6.1932.
23. DW, 16 & 19.6.1932.
24. DW, 25.6.1932.
25. DW, 18.7.1932.
26. DW, 15.8.1932.
27. DW, 19.8.1932.
28. DW, 15 & 16.9.1932.
29. DW, 12.10.1932.
30. DW, 19.10.1932.
31. DW, 28.10.1932.
32. DW, 9.11.1932.
33. DW, 30.11.1932.
34. DW,14.12.1932.
35. DW, 17.12.1932.
36. DW, 14.1.1933.
37. DW report, 12.1.1933.
38. DW, 26.1.1933.
39. DW, 31.1.1933.
40. DW, 6.2.1933.
41. DW, 7.2.1933.
42. DW, 16.2.1933.
43. DW, 1.3.1933.
44. DW, 7.3.1933.
45. DW, 13.3.1933.
46. Announced DW, 7.3.1933.
47. DW, 15.3.1933.
48. DW, 30.3.1933.
49. DW announced 30.3.1933.
50. DW, 4.4.1933.
51. DW, 8.4.1933.
52. DW, 10.4.1933.
53. DW, 12.4.1933.
54. DW,4.5.1933.
55. DW, 10 & 11.5.1933.
56. DW, 12.5.1933.
57. Ibid
58. DW, 15.5.1933.
59. Reported DW, 18.5.1933.
60. DW, 17.5.1933.
61. DW, 18.5.1933.
62. DW, 20.5.1933.
63. DW, 23,5.1933.
64. DW, 25.6.1933.
65. DW, 1.6.1931.