Uncle Bill and The General Strike (page1)
Between the two great wars, there was much unrest in Britain, just as there was in the rest of Europe. In 1917 the Russians had violently overthrown the monarchy, and following the end of the Great War, the Treaty of Versailles had virtually scrapped the remainder of the European monarchies. However, the treaty missed ours out, and the class system continued unabated, and there was much distress amongst workers and their families, and violent revolution was never far away.
Finally this all came to a head over the issue of threatened wage cuts in the coal mines and in support of a strike by miners, the Trades Union Congress called a General Strike in early May 1926. The strike only involved certain key industrial sectors (docks, electricity, gas, railways) but, in the face of well-organised government emergency measures, and lack of real public support, it collapsed after only nine days.
Despatch Riders Outside The TUC
During those nine days, all postal services were disrupted and since very few local union or trades council officers had telephones, a communications network using dispatch riders was established. These messengers carried instructions and news reports from the TUC and union offices out into the country, at the same time collecting accurate news of the strike's effectiveness. The couriers travelled by bicycle or motorcycle, occasionally by car.
Sometimes the strikers, in desperation carried out very serious crimes.
Here’s a contemporary account by one of the strikers who derailed the
‘Flying Scotsman’ at Cramlington, Northumberland in the north east
coalfields:-
“I never did regret what I did and I never will. We were fighting for
our daily bread. When you come to think of the wages of the Government
and the Royal Family and their understrappers, you could go mad. What
with Lords and Ladies and the like taking the best out of the land. I
worked fifty two years in the pit to my sorrow.
The ‘Flying Scotsman in 1968, on it’s 40th anniversary
Our day, you had very little chance to do anything else. In
1926 there might have been a revolution. It was a very near thing. The
rich are trying their best to keep the working class down. They always
have done. As I have said, there is no call for these lords and ladies.
We should do the same as Russia did and clear them out.
Four or five of us were sitting on a log at the street corner,
somewhere about 9 'clock. Someone said "We'll have a walk." That we did.
We went up the old wagon way towards the N.E. Railway. When we got
there, there was a cabin where the platelayers kept their gear. We broke
in and got what gear we wanted, the tools and so on, that they used to
work on the railway line. Then we went to the meeting. After the meeting
was over and we were going home for dinner, we shouted to the other
lads, "Come up after dinner and we'll have a rail up!" We knew we could
do it, as we had the gear from the platelayers. We were telling the
bottom end lads to come up after dinner. Fifteen or twenty of them came.
Just as they landed, we saw the blackleg
platelayers coming along the railway. We all set out and stoned them. I
have no regrets for what I did. We were fighting for our rights and a
little bit of cake. Well, it was said, "Stop everything on wheels." We
planned the job and did just that. We took the rail up in record time
but, we thought it was a coal train that was coming.
We were amazed when it turned out to be The Flying Scotsman'. The scab
platelayers, ran about four hundred yards up the line, stopped the train
and warned them that there was something likely to happen as they had
been stoned. They stopped the train close to Cramlington Station. This
lad Joe, he was sitting on the embankment and he waved a white hand-
kerchief trying to stop the train. I saw him myself from where we were.
The train came on and we were standing behind a bush. It was derailed
and when I looked around I was standing by myself. They were shouting
out of the train, there were about 281 passengers I think, on the train.
When it started to sway, I was away! “