Fighting fascists on Tyneside; When the leader of the British Union of Fascists, Oswald Mosley, planned to come to Tyneside in 1934 he thought he would be welcomed with open arms as his extreme right movement was on the rise. Instead, his supporters were left in fear for their lives, as MIke kelly reports.

IT was in 1936 that Oswald Mosley's blackshirts were attacked in Cable Street, London, in a clash which the history books say halted the rise of the fascist organisation and hastened its demise.

However, what is not so widely known is that two years before, with Mosley's political star apparently on the rise, his group got its first real bloody nose in clashes on Tyneside, revealing he did not have the popular support he thought he had.

Over two days in May of 1934, meetings had been organised at Cowen's monument in Newcastle and then at Gateshead Town Hall which ended with the fascists beaten and having to rely on police protection. Nigel Todd, whose book about 1930s Newcastle - In Excited Times - captured the moment, said: "The Oswald Mosley movement was characteristic of the time, modelled on Mussolini in Italy and to some degree Hitler in Germany, that if you wanted to take power you had to be seen to be strong, that you could control the streets, that it was the party of order.

"There was a lot of social life on the streets, lots of entertainment, which meant political meetings taking place on them and it was seen as the place to be.

"Fascists behaved in a paramilitary fashion, marching about wearing uniforms, hence Mosley's 'black shirts', as Mussolini had put his supporters in black shirts."

With the backing of the Daily Mail newspaper, which included recruitment posters in its pages, and a number of businessmen and industrialists, notably Vickers' boss Lord Armstrong on Tyneside, he thought fascism was on the march in this country.

"However, what happened in Newcastle was to prove a seminal moment in all of this plan," said Mr Todd.

In May, 1934, a fascist meeting was arranged, without Mosley in attendance, at Cowen's monument in Newcastle - erected in honour of the owner of the Evening Chronicle - which had become a regular place for political meetings.

There they encountered the recently formed Tyneside Anti-Fascist League.

"It had tremendous support from the trade unions and people in general," said Mr Todd.

The fascists had come from their meeting room in Clayton Street to be met by a violent response which drove them back there.

Mr Todd said: "A Journal reporter infiltrated the meeting room and described what he saw as being something like a retreat to the trenches in the First World War."

The next day they went for a second meeting, this time at Gateshead Town Hall and, with a huge police turnout from the Northumberland and Durham forces, they managed to stage a march across the Tyne Bridge.

But Mr Todd added: "The anti-fascists got within an ace of throwing them over the bridge. It was another night of mayhem that actually became a big national story, about whether you should allow people to wear uniforms when they're attached to political parties.

"The whole thing was a great flop from the blackshirts point of view."

It turned out to be a prelude of what was to happen when Mosley actually turned up on Tyneside for, as Mr Todd put it, "a Nuremburgstyle rally on the Town Moor".

It was in August, before the Hoppings was staged, when the Town Moor became like a "political market place".

"He was sure of getting a big crowd," said Mr Todd. "However, it didn't go ahead as Mosley was told by police they couldn't guarantee his safety.

"They said whatever happened would be down to him and they might prosecute him for provoking disorder. Mosley went berserk, accusing police of being in league with the antifascists.

"He did hold a rally later on the Town Moor but it was a bit of a washout and he got heavily heckled.

"Wherever else he went - like Glasgow and Manchester - he was greeted in pretty much the same way. When he got to Cable Street two years later his movement was on the decline in relation to his ambition to dominate the streets."

As a result, it was to have long-term consequences for the fascist movement.

"One of things that happened was the money from Mussolini all but dried up because he didn't think Mosley was running an effective movement, and the blackshirts went into something of a decline."

The rejection of fascism was interesting, as it had attracted working class support in Italy and Germany, particularly in times of economic hardship, which the England of the 1930s, and in particular the North East, was suffering.

Mr Todd said: "In the North East, with the shipyards, coal mining and the railways, there were strong trade union traditions and solidarity.

"With shipping there were strong international links and a tradition of supporting refugees from oppressive regimes."

Such was the vehemence of the North East's rejection of fascism that it led, according to Mr Todd, to the inclusion of a certain Mr J White, then North East secretary of the Transport and General Workers union, on a list of people to be "liquidated" in the event of a successful German invasion of Britain in the Second World War.

"An invasion handbook, written in the Second World War, was found in 2000, about what the Germans would do. Mr White's name is included in those people who should be rounded up and liquidated. He had obviously made an impression."

Mr Todd said he was inspired to write the book after anti-fascist music festival was arranged on Nun's Moor, Newcastle, in the early 1990s. In Excite Times - People Against the Blackshirts, was published the following year.

"I came across so much information about how the people of Tyneside fought fascism that I decided to gather it all together.

"I think the actions of the people of Tyneside are something we can be justifiably proud," he said.

Mosley was told by police they couldn't guarantee his safetyNigel Todd

CAPTION(S):

Oswald Mosley, who led an ultimately doomed bid to create a fascist state in the UK

Sir Oswald Mosley, second left, among <Bblackshirts at the Haymarket, Newcastle in July 1934 following a rally on the Town Moor

The Joseph Cowen monument in Newcastle, <Bwhere the fascists held one of their rallies

Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the Fascists Union Movement

Sir Oswald Mosley's fascists' meeting In Hyde Park