Alfie Norris. November 2024
Alfie became interested in his subject whilst he was still at St Wilfred’s
school in Featherstone and went on to research the histories of several
Wakefield volunteers. He started his talk by giving us information about the
Spanish Civil War itself; there was a lot of unrest going into the 1930s and
uprisings occurred in all the major Spanish cities in July 1936 when the war
started. It would continue for three years.
Alfie discovered that some of these men had fought in the First World War
and become politicised but some were younger men in their teens and 20s.
We learned about Sgt Peter O’Day whose father was a trade unionist. Peter
had fought in the First World War, joined the Labour Party and later the
Communist Party. In 1936 he was working as a butler for a Harley Street
doctor who disliked him holding Communist Party talks at his house. He
fought between 1936 and 1938 when he was killed in fighting in Caspe,
Aragon.
We were told about John Foster from Hemsworth, another man who had
fought in the First World War. He was a coal miner who had worked in various
Yorkshire pits and was involved with communist and left-leaning activities,
engaging in strikes and hunger marches in the 1920s and 30s. He fought in
Spain, returning home to Hemsworth in December 1938.
George Bennett was from Ossett and he went to Spain when he was 17,
lying about his age. He arrived in Spain in February 1938 and was captured
six weeks later and held in San Pedro concentration camp until October 1938
when he was repatriated. Alfie was able to meet George’s descendants who
showed him a photo of ‘Dad with his Spanish friends’. It seems that George
met some of the Basque children who came to England and Wakefield
specifically in 1937 and this may have been his motivation for going to fight
in the war. He had an illustrious career with the British Army in World War
Two and the Korean War, all before he was 30. MI5 kept records on him until
1950 because of his Communist Party membership between 1938 and 1939.
John Spencer, a trade unionist in his early 20s and Sam Taylor, a 19-
year-old coal miner and trade unionist travelled to Spain together in 1938.
Sam was shot during the Battle of Ebro and recovered in hospitals across
Catalonia. They both returned to Wakefield in 1938. Edward Whittaker was
born in Pontefract in 1906, a fitter and mechanic who joined the Communist
Party in 1936 and served in the Spanish Civil War for a year until he was
repatriated back home on health grounds. Robert Brown was a coal miner
born in County Durham who moved to Harworth, Doncaster where he met
Hemsworth miner John Foster and the two travelled to Spain together to fight
in 1937. He deserted and returned to live in Normanton. Robert Feasey was
another Durham coal miner and also a member of the Yorkshire Miners’
Association. He fought between 1936 and 1938 when he was badly wounded
and repatriated on health grounds when he returned to Ossett.
But the man who had started Alfie’s research was Fred Spencer. Born in
Featherstone in 1899 he had served in World War One in the Middle East
and France, and had worked at the militant Ackton Hall pit. He married Mary
Trickett in 1919 but tragically she died giving birth to a daughter in 1920. By
1936 Fred was in the Communist Party of Great Britain and local activist for
the unemployed and helped organise a hunger march to London. He was
killed in Spain in February 1937 at Jarama while defending Madrid. Alfie was
able to show us photos of Fred and Mary and of Fred at an unemployment
march. We also saw an image of Fred during the Spanish Civil War and were
given some details about his life there; the Battle of Jarama was brutal, most
volunteers were killed which led to a decline in the enthusiasm of people to
fight.
Alfie gave us some insight into how he had researched his subject and the
resources he used, from the Russian Social Historical website where he
found images and letters to the Sheffield City Archives who have an
interesting Spanish Civil War collection. He told us of how he had been able,
through his research to show the 90-year-old half-sisters of a young Jewish
volunteer, David Buffman, the only images they had seen of their younger
half-brother.
Alfie drew to a close by saying he now worked as a teacher in Valencia
and how his daily train commute to work follows the same route the
volunteers would have used in 1936.
