Hooray for the blackshirts (book)
October 31st, 2006
Apparently, Plymouth used to be the fascist capital of the South West, with some 1,500 local people joining the British Union of Fascists party.
That’s according to author Todd Gray who will be talking about his new book, the snappily titled Blackshirts In Devon, at Plymouth’s In Other Words Bookshop tomorrow evening.
Anyone who’s read the WMN letters page recently may disagree that this subject is ‘a surprising and shocking aspect of Devon’s history’ but the tome’s unusual archival sources, including MI5 files and fascist newspapers, should be pretty interesting.Â
For more information contact Prudence de Villiers on prudence@inotherwords.co.uk
In more book news (oh yes!), Plymouth’s favourite local historian Chris Robinson releases his new tome on Friday. Called Then & Now, it boasts loads of pictures of Plymouth then and pictures of Plymouth now. Do. You. See?
We’re big fans of Robinson and, having had a sneak peak, can highly recommended the latest book - primarily because we’re gonna be buying copies for our entire family for crimbo.
Although, considering our family, the blackshirts book will probably be more warmly received.
Posted by Thin White Duke
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3 Comments Add your own
1. Trotboy | January 7th, 2007 at 7:18 pm
Just got this book for Christmas, I have a few of Todd Gray’s Books already, and this Book looked interesting.
I am dubious however, now that I’m reading it, about the motivation for writing it. It seems very sympathetic to the Fascists, and certainly seems to ‘big up’ their presence in Devon.
As someone who has been Politically active on the Left in Devon on and off for 25 years however, I’d say the evidence is scant and rather shows that Fascism was a very peripheral movement in Devon with little or no roots in the working class and a lot of support from ex-military Officers and the Ruling Class, along with a few Farmers.
What’s more, it seems they reguraly faced, particularly in Plymouth and Exeter, physical confrontations by the working class, with a number of meetings broken up, and even speakers being thrown into rivers! It seems they were regularly outnumbered by Communists, Independant Labour & Labour Party activists, and their large meeting numbers were often swelled by a sizeable opposition.
However, Grey in his obsession with the Fascists, negates to elaborate on this in the slightest - indeed he ignores the political opposition to the Fascists except where he is forced to mention it, and even then paints it often in a negative light as ‘heckling’ or ‘interruption’.
He also misses the wider political picture a lot, for example he points to a drop off in support for the fascists in 1936 and an increase in attacks on their meetings. He completely misses the fact that the Spanish Civil War was occurring at this time, and volunteers from Britain were fighting Fascism in Spain and dying, including volunteers from Devon! This might just have had something to do with the increase in hostility towards the ‘Devon Fascists’.
Numerically it seems the Devon Fascists were no stronger than are the Revolutionary Socialists of today - similar membership & paper sale figures and meetings + attendance - yet would we merit a book by Mr Grey? I doubt it. I remain suspicious of Todd Grey’s Political motivations for this book, it would make a good Public Meeting, if he would be prepared to debate it.
2. Adrain Romley | January 17th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
So now any one who writes about our history is a SUSPECT!.
GROW UP
3. Trotboy | March 3rd, 2007 at 9:06 pm
I didn’t say he was a ‘SUSPECT’ - I said I am suspicious about his motivation for writing the Book.
But thankyou for the volumnous and erudite response to my post, you dealt with my points succinctly, I must say.
I would suggest, if that’s all you can manage, it might just be you with the problem in the maturity dept.
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