Our Fathers Fought Franco

There was no good speaking of the menace of fascism, and not going to fight it myself. - JAMES MALEY, GLASGOW

It was an atmosphere I will never forget – there was the sense of freedom in the air, of workers’ power. - DONALD RENTON, PORTOBELLO

You fight for your beliefs, not medals. - GEORDIE WATTERS, PRESTONPANS

There have been reports that [when we were released] we shouted ‘Long Live Franco’. Not on your life! - ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL McASKILL WILLIAMS, PORTSMOUTH

A resonant piece of working class history, this book is a living link to four extraordinary stories. Why did these young men put their lives on the line and go to Spain to fight with the International Brigades? How did they all end up in the same prison cell? And what is their legacy today?

James Maley, George Watters, Donald Renton and Archibald Williams were members of Machine Gun Company No. 2 of the XV International Brigade. This is the first book to focus on a small group of men who, from different starting-points, ended up on the same battleground at Jarama, and then in the same prisons after capture by Franco’s forces.

Their remarkable story is told both in their own words and in the recollections of their sons and daughters, through a prison notebook, newspaper reports, stills cut from newsreels, interviews, anecdotes and memories, with a foreword by Daniel Gray.

Our Fathers Fought Franco is a collective biography that promises to add significantly to the understanding of the motives of those who ‘went because their open eyes could see no other way’.

From the foreword of Daniel Gray:
In being told by those who listened to and were affected by those stories, this wonderful and moving book adds something completely original to the Spanish Civil War narrative. It represents, too, the handing on of these vital yarns.

These are individual accounts, full of nuance and difference. Yet they are also representative of fathers (and mothers) from across the world who went to Spain with one shared aim: to smash fascism.