Interview with James Maley, aged 96, International Brigader, 12 July 2004
Interviewer: Craig Curran
JAMES MALEY: Well, I was born in the Calton, Glasgow. The 19th of February 1908.
My father had come from Ireland, county Mayo, along with his brother, and the three
sisters went to America at the same time, same day. Oh, the Calton was a busy place.
Well populated, tons of sport, tons of pubs, tons of everything.
CRIAG CURRAN: You were saying there were six pubs, and it was quite a hard area?
JAMES MALEY: Oh, aye, it was a hard area. It was a rowdy area, so far as the police
were concerned. They hated – I must say this – they hated the police. The police were the
enemy.
CRAIG CURRAN: And there were fights?
JAMES MALEY: Oh there were fights every Saturday night, last for hours. And that was
the thing. Well, I was a labourer, just a general labourer, and when the Spanish thing
came up, I recognized right from wrong. This was the first time there had been an
attempt made by working-class people to take power and they were being attacked. And I
was a member of the Communist Party, and I volunteered along with the rest to go to
Spain.
And we left in December 1936 from George Square, three double decker buses packed to
the brim, some standing, to London. We got off at London, we had a night there at the
pictures, then it was off to France.
CRAIG CURRAN: You went to the pictures?
JAMES MALEY: Aye, I went to the pictures. Jeanette MacDonald was in it, and the
man, the leading man, I can’t remember his name but he sang that song, “Donkey
Serenade”. And we came out and we got the train to France.
CRAIG CURRAN: And who was it you joined when you went to France?
JAMES MALEY: Well in France, we spent the day there, but we well, we never, the
French never made much of a welcome for us. I went to this pub along with two or three
other men that were my mates, and there was women walking up and down, and they
were prostitutes. And they wanted to know if you wanted to go upstairs? That was in
France, broad daylight. That’s right, broad daylight. Then from France we moved to
Spain. And first thing there we went into a big, like a big fortress, down the big slope,
like a what do you call it, the danger of the war and all these other things, and I got
washed and shaved. And then after that it was off to Madrigueras, which became our
base, and we were there for about four weeks, and all of a sudden [smacks fist] the
weapons came, and it was hell for leather. Everybody outside all at once, all lined up,
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then this and the other thing, and we were put in different squads. I was put into the
machine gun squad, and that was like we had two guns each squad, two men to a gun,
that was sixty men and we put two guns, two machine guns in the one lorry and two, the
four men beside them. And then there was, we had twelve men with us who were just for
the rifles, a support group, and that was off to battle, Jarama.
Well the rest of the battalion had broken through and they were on their way to Madrid.
And it was hell for leather with these Spanish drivers. By Christ they drove. And all of a
sudden we found ourselves in the war. And the drivers, “Out, everybody out”, and the
drivers turned round and away with the motors again, the lorries. And we were in the
war, and it was hell of a … it was some bloody war. We saw them dying before our eyes
… They were retreating all the time, and all of a sudden we were left, and over on that
right hand side was the Franco-Belgians and they were retreating too and we just emptied
the machine guns and machine guns and machine guns until there were no bullets left,
nothing left, and they were all away behind us in the battle. No more did we hear the
sounds of the war or nothing, but that was us left there (4.37).
We couldnae go back, couldnae go anywhere. And that was a Friday night. On Saturday
morning we got our first shell, one shell. Two hours passed, and we got another shell.
Then gradually the Moors appeared mounted on horses and we were surrounded, and
rounded up. They pulled out one – there were two men in charge of us, and one was
pulled out and shot right away through the brain. Just in time the Spaniards appeared on
the scene and they saved us, saved the other ones from being shot or we’d all have been
shot one at a time.
And then we got tied, we got lined up and our hands were tied behind our backs, by the
Moors, and lined up and we moved in twos and the horses on each side of us the whole
way for hours to where we were going. And we all came up to this place and we were
dismounted and put in, nine in a cell. All the cell had was a little toilet at the side that
didnae flush. (4.45)
And nine of us were there. And then the following morning they came in with the big
tureen full of, it was supposed to be soup. And there were no … we ate out the … with
our hands in [gestures, hands to mouth] and fed ourselves. You see, everybody’s hands
were black, never been washed, all the time. We’d nae toilet paper. We had to eat. So we
all ate. And after about a week, an Englishman appeared, from Britain, to see who we
were. And after that we got spoons. (6.35)
And we were there. Well, what could we do? That was us there. Until one night, the door
burst open and two Moors with guns came in. One of the captured soldiers was kind of
black looking, and they were pointing at him, saying “Moro, Moro”. They thought he
was a Moor. See him. Then they were away. And the door shut, the cell door, and then a
few months later we were taken away to a better place. A farmyard (7.01)
There was a real big place for you to go into. On one side going up there was the boards,
and up the other side was the boards, about this width, and up at the top, and it was more
2
comfortable for lying down there. Except that when you woke up through the night there
was someone standing above you with the trousers off and the lice was … feeling for the
lice, and there were plenty of lice. And still the big, the same thing for eating, they came
in with the big thingmy, like a basin full of soup, and we ate off that, we were dished out
of that into a plate and we got a round thing again, with the bread. That was to do you for
the day. Except for one day, by a bit of luck I was in the front. But this big Irishman was
in the middle and when it was his turn he leaned over it and his bread fell into the soup
and he took off the army jacket and rolled up the sleeves and his hand was down feeling
for the loaf, and all the ones at the back of him got off their mark, by Christ. Who was
going to eat after that, except him? And that soup was taken away, what was left of it,
and the following day it was just filled up and taken back in again and that was our grub.
Until as time went on we heard the Italians had suffered a big defeat (8.25) by the
Russians, air force bombing them and there was a possibility of us being repatriated. And
then we were moved to Salamanca, a big home, like home from home compared to where
we had been before. Then gradually we were told we were going to go home. And we
were rounded up and we went on the march and of course I was a quick walker. They
were shouting out ‘despacio despacio’, that means go slower. But I kept on going till we
come to this place, it was a border between France and Spain, and halfway across we
were in France, and that was us back home.
(9.05)
CRAIG CURRAN: What was the name of the battalion that you were fighting for in
Spain? What was the name of the International Brigade?
JAMES MALEY: Well we didn’t have a name at that time. We didn’t have a name for
anything. The ammunition and everything had just arrived, and it was onto the lorries as
quick as you could, and get there as quick as you could, and we died as quick as we
could. That’s how most of the battalion died, in that one day.
CRAIG CURRAN: Before you went, I mean, were you involved in anything before you
went actually over to Spain?
JAMES MALEY: Well I was a member of the Communist Party, and the Communist
Party of course that was them that started the recruiting, and made the arrangements for
them that wanted to go, and it was them that made the arrangements for everything, for
the three buses, and that was it.
CRAIG CURRAN: But I mean you were saying that, eh, prior to that, after 1934, that
you decided to join the Territorials?
JAMES MALEY: Oh aye. In Spain there had been trouble in 1934 up in the Asturias,
with the miners, and the thingmy, and the miners had been, had been firing, using
dynamite, against the thingmy, and I says that’s time for me to know what to do. And I
joined the 58th Cameronians, West Princes Street, and I was there for two years, till 1936,
when the war started in Spain, that was me. I knew I was able to shoot. And I knew how
to look after myself. While some of them who went on these buses had never seen a rifle,
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except in the pictures. And I’m only sorry to say that a lot of good men died. In one day.
The battalion never was the same. And after that it was whenever two Britishers come
over to Spain they were put in among the Spaniards, another two or three would come,
they were put in among the Spaniards, but the British battalion was finished, that one
day. (11.08)
CRAIG CURRAN: When was this, do you know when that was?
JAMES MALEY: Well when we went into action it was the first Friday of ... the second
Friday of February 1937, that’s when we went into action, the second Friday.
CRAIG CURRAN: 13th of February.
JAMES MALEY: Well that’s when it was.
CRAIG CURRAN: Do you know where it was you fought? In Jarama?
JAMES MALEY: Jarama, they sound the “J” as an “H”. Jarama, that was the first big
thing in Spain.
CRAIG CURRAN: Was that Hill 481 you fought in?
JAMES MALEY: Well I don’t know the name of the hill or nothing else but when we
got there was no time to think about nothing, but get off the lorries, get the guns fixed
right away, the ammunition boxes open. That’s the only thing that held us back. When
we got there the ammunition boxes hadnae been opened. And we got off there, well, two
of us jumped off the lorry, the other two handed the machine gun out, then the other
machine gun out, then they hand out the boxes of ammunition. We still had to open the
boxes of ammunition and it was hell for leather. The fighting was going on and then the
brrrrrrrr. And the ammunition only lasted us, it actually only lasted that one day because
the ammo in the guns, the ammunition just emptied like that. Guns – bullets, bullets,
bullets. It finished up, when we got captured there was nae guns, they were empty and we
had no ammunition. Well we had twelve men with us who had rifles, but they didn’t last
long either. Ammunition was the main thing. Once the ammunition was done you
couldn’t get any more ammunition.
CRAIG CURRAN: Did you get any training, well, apart from what you got in the
Territorials? (12:53)
JAMES MALEY: Well there was no training because at Madrigueras there was no
ammunition. There was no guns there, no nothing there. Well we got the uniform but I
think that was, I heard it first, it was Belgian, I don’t know whether it was Belgian or not,
it wasnae British but we got our uniforms before the ammunition. But there was no
training or nothing up until we got to Jarama.
CC: You’ve described it before as like running out of a tenement into a pitched battle. I
think you’ve said before that you still thought about what it was like in Scotland at the
time.
4
JM: We were there that night and you hear voices and you don’t know whether it’s
wounded or not. We didn’t know if it was real or not or if it was a decoy because the
Spaniards knew English and we could hear ‘Help, help’ all the Friday night but what
could we do? We couldn’t do much about it. And that was it.
CC: But when you were over there, when you were taken captive in Jarama, were you
still thinking about what it was like at home?
JM: Oh aye, well I was wondering what they were doing at home, or what I’d have been
doing at home, especially when it came to the Saturday morning, daylight, well that’s
when we got our first shell fired at us.
CC: What would you normally have been doing on a Saturday?
JM: Going to the football matches, Parkhead, when I was there back home, you’d
nothing else to think about except if you wanted to do the toilet you had to go to the back
of a tree and while you were doing it, whatever you were going to do, there was whssht
whssht of the bullets.
CC: Firing at you?
JM: Oh aye aye, we couldnae make a sound.
CC: So when did you actually come home?
JM: Well I canny remember now but it must have been about seven months later. But the
time passed quick. It’s different if it was just yourself that was a prisoner. But there was
eighteen of us.
CC: Were you repatriated, or when you came back to England, when you came back to
Britain, was there any problem?
JM: No no, while we were prisoners we were told that ... well we could understand a bit
of Spanish in the papers. The Russians had inflicted a big defeat on the Italians. The
Russian bombers had wiped a lot of them out and there was a possibility of us being
exchanged for men who had been captured. Well that came true through time and then
we got repatriated and we were told we were going home. And gradually, it took a while
before we went home, but soon we moved from one place to another up nearer the border
with France.
CC: I think there’s a story as well about your mum.
JM: Oh aye, in the local picture house, the Palaseum in Shettleston them that knew me
told my mother that I’d been seen in the Palaseum in a film, she went over but it had
been taken to another hall in Paisley and they gave her a line and she went to Paisley and
got the photo, the picture, and when I came home she had it. And of course I went to one
of the big chemist shops and got a lot of them made. At the end of the war altogether, the
Spanish war, when them that was left came home, I could give them the photos. I got
other ones made and I could give them the photos. There was a big meeting held (16.44)
in the hall in the Calton with the ones that were still living that had been in Spain and in
5
there, I says the photos, and everybody wanted a photo and I got more made out the
chemist shop. Just like a postcard.
CC: Since then, obviously, there’s been get-togethers and that kind of thing. But I mean
is there anything, I mean how do you feel about the fact that you went and fought for
something that people just don’t do any more?
JM: Well, do you mean....
CC: Things they believe in, people just don’t seem to do it that much anymore.
JM: Well, when I was born in the Calton, the Calton was a, what you’d call rebel place.
We got the Independent Labour Party, Jimmy Maxton and company. Although I had
never mentioned politics much, the soldiers who fought in the first world war asked me
when I was twenty years of age to go to the City Halls in the Candleriggs to listen to
Maxton talking and see what I thought about him. Well I know politics and I can go into
a hall, a hundred men can say the same thing and I know who’s the baddie. (18.01) I’m
good on politics. That’s the only thing I’m good at. Politics. I can tell right away who’s
good and who’s bad. That’s my object. Some people said to me, but why is it you never
stood for parliament yourself? I said well, the Communist Party never asked me to stand,
but anyway, I know I could better myself, but I didn’t want to better myself, I wanted to
better everybody. That’s all. And I know anyway that even in Parliament I couldn’t do
very much in Parliament because if people don’t want to fight there’s nothing you can
do. I know that they don’t get anywhere by voting. People vote, and after they vote, they
join a union. Why? Because they’re not going to get anything through voting. Nobody.
CC: Why do you think so many people went from Glasgow? I mean, what was so special
about Glasgow that so many came from there?
JM: Well there had been big demonstrations from the beginning of the thirties against
poverty, unemployed marching to London, as I did myself, and this and this and that, but
they never really got anywhere. There wasnae enough to do anything to change the
system, which we must change. Even now people go to war and they all know the old
saying: theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do or die. Soldiers in the First World War,
for the first time in British history, revolted in France. The Russian army, were first, they
revolted in 1917. There was a small revolt by the French at Verdun and there was a
smaller one by the British at Etaples, that was 1917 and the ruling class learned their
lesson. There were not going to be any more uprisings or revolts in the army. (20.10) A
lot of the men were shot. That’s life. A lot of men were shot. In the First World War it
was trench warfare. There was nae such things as aeroplanes or anything. It was in the
trench and shoot or jump over the trench and you get shot and everything else. And
people are actually afraid because it’s the old old story, if you don’t do it, I’ll no do it,
and naebody wants to be the leader or doing something wrong. And I know people in the
First World War who were shot for desertion or refusing to fight. That’s life. It’s the
same today. The army is still the same today as it was in 1914. They know that, well, if
they’re told to go over the top or over here they have to do it. Nobody wants to be the one
that revolts first. They need a leader.
CC: But I mean, you were saying that it was about fear. So many young men actually
went in the 1930s after the First World War to fight against, was it against fascism, I
6
mean, did you know about Spain? Had you ever been to Spain? I mean what was the
chances of you ever going to Spain if it wasn’t for this?
JM: You see in the Second World War Britain didn’t go to war against Italy. In the
Second World War the British soldiers went to France on holiday and the French troops
landed in Scotland. They landed in a place outside Baillieston, between Baillieston and
Coatbridge I saw them. Now where were they going? Well I’ll tell you where they were
going. Because away up in the top of the map there was another fascist and there was
going to be a war against the Russians, and that’s where the French were going. That’s
the life of the thingmy there. The British soldiers were taught not to reason why, but to
do or die. That’s as true today as it was when it was done. That man knew the British
soldiers. Churchill made a statement after the Second World War. He said the Russians
tore the guts out of the German army. The next thing he said was, the Germans had
ninety thousand men and the British had a hundred thousand men. For every five guns
the Germans had, the British had seven guns. And the Germans won. Even Churchill
knew. He was in the army. Even in that last month when they were all talking this new
thing about how the British went back to France in ‘44, near the end, it was because the
Russians were beating the Germans. So they had to get over there or the Russians were
going to have the whole of France. The British troops went back again after a few years,
back to France, against a German army that were down, that were not going to fight.
They were sixty years of age and too old for war. That’s where they went. That meant
that the Russians weren’t going to take the whole of France.
(23.24)
CC: But I mean, how do you feel about the fact that as soon as you came back, within a
couple of years the whole world suddenly got involved in the fight against fascism?
JM: Well you see, there’s a lot of people in this country, they don’t want a war and they
don’t want peace. We’ve got a population that’s divided into three: the rich, the middle
class and the poor. The rich are determined that the working class will never take power.
Them in the middle are like, well they don’t want any trouble. They want peace. And
that’s the system.
CC: What did you know about Spain before you went? I mean, what did you know about
it? How did you find out about it?
JM: Well in 1934 I found out there was trouble in Spain up in the Asturias. They were
fighting for their sort of independence.
CC: Was that through newspapers or newsreels?
JM: I read it through papers. And I decided there and then that I was going to join the
Territorials and get some army experience. And I joined the 58th Cameronians West
Princes Street in 1934. When I went there to join up there were seventeen people there
actually passed the doctor, seventeen. Well after you passed the doctor you were to go up
and see the man above, the heid man at the time, and only two actually got into the
Territorials. A young boy of seventeen and myself were the only two that got accepted.
The other fifteen weren’t, although they had passed the doctor. That was the 58th
Cameronians, they must have been very particular. And I went, we were in Girvan the
first year, putting up the tents, and then to Cambuslang for the shooting, which was good
7
for the thingmy. So I learned how to shoot, bullseye, bullseye. (25.21) And I knew then,
when the war came in ’36, I wasnae going there as somebody that had to learn anything,
and I knew what to do, that’s the main thing.
CC: I mean the people that went on the bus with you, did you know a lot of them, where
were they all from, I mean whereabouts?
JM: Well they all came from different, well mainly from the east end of Glasgow. And as
I say, I knew quite a lot of them, they’d been on hunger marches and I’d been on the
marches so I knew who they were. And it all seemed to be one of them cases, 99 per cent
were Catholics. And Spain was a Catholic country. So it proved the old old saying that in
all religions there’s the rich and the poor and that’s it.
CC: What kind of areas did they come from? Like yourself, you came from the Calton.
What other places? Do you know any other places in Glasgow?
JM: Well mainly the Calton and Royston, a sort of circle, we were never far from each
other.
CC: So it was all a kind of working class area?
JM: Aye, that’s right.
CC: And when you came home, what kind of reception did you get?
JM: Oh I came home of course, I was back to the talking because I’d been talking before
I went, and of course people knew the story. I believe if I’d stood for council or
parliament I could have got in, but as I said to myself, well, I knew, you see, the thing is
this, if I’d become an MP and got into parliament, it would take me years to change the
system, cause the system’s got to be changed and it’s not going to be changed through
the parliament.
CC: So I mean, when you think about why you went, obviously to fight, but there was a
reason. What was the actual reason you actually thought about going? What was it you
wanted to change?
JM: Well I knew that the working class in Spain had taken power. And if they could have
held onto power for long enough, they’d have made a hell of a difference to other
countries possibly round about them. We saw the progress that was being made, but you
see we didn’t get any time for that. (27.36)
CC: We’ll take a wee break then, cause it’s probably very hot on you. Is it hot on you?
{referring to the camera lights} Do you want to go for a wee break?
JM: No, no.
WM: Have a wee glass of water.
(27.47)
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{short break which resumes with James Maley telling the story of him working in
Parkhead Forge after coming back from Spain.}
JM: Naebody working. Not a sound. And we went to this big Nissan hut and all of a
sudden it was getting dark at four o’clock. Dim. The door opened, and a big light shone
out. Door shut, and a voice shouted ‘Hey you two, come on over.’ It was five men, they
were all shouting ‘fuck the union, fuck the union’. The next thing it transpired, that
everybody in Parkhead Forge had had a bonus except the brickies’ labourers. They broke
up and just dishevelled. So we left and went back up with the wagon. And this bloke said
to me, he came from Shettleston, he said ‘You could get them the bonus’. And the next
thing I says was ‘I know, I’m getting them the bonus.’ I says, ‘We’ll no be here the
morra, we’ll be going back into that work, and if we go in there some of them will
recognise me and we’ll get the bonus.’ Well we went back in the following day into the
yard to work with all the men. And the two young men had been going for months to that
place Dalziel in Motherwell and the other one was based at Glengarnock. They were the
three factories. They were going there with two men at each of them, so there was six
men at these tribunals.
Well five and a half months passed before they called the next meeting in Sorby Street, a
wee church hall empty at the corner of Sorby street and Westmuir Street, but by this time
I knew this meeting was finished cause I’d been talking. And I went, I became the man in
charge, and I said to this young guy: you and me’ll go to Dalziel Motherwell, you two at
Parkhead will go to the other factory at Glengarnock. Tell them it’s a strike. I’ll go to
Dalziel in Motherwell and I spoke there and that was them out, the other ones, two of
them, out. And I didnae bother with any meetings. That was it. They knew what we were
on strike for. The bonus. And we got the bonus. And I was put in charge of the air raid
precautions. And I was in this wee office and this man poked his heid in with a soft hat
and I heard this man saying to him ‘air raid precautions’, pointing to me, and he went oh
sorry, sorry. {laughs}
And then the next thing is, Russia had come into the war. Back up to the recruiting
office. And I walked in, and the man, the same officer had a smile on his face and he said
‘Do you want to sign up? Go down to Dumbarton Road - have you been to Dumbarton
Road? Do you know Woolworths? - well across the other side there had been a big shop
at one time, and that was used as a recruiting office. SO I went down there, Royal
Artillery, and I volunteered for overseas service right away. And there was a convoy in
the Royal Artillery, to London barracks, and there was bombardiers, oh different
regiments, a mixture. And first Saturday we were there, it was after dinnertime,
vamoosed out the road, into London. The following Saturday we were on parade and an
officer came over and he spoke to the sergeant major and then went away. I said ‘We’re
going to be left here.’ The first lot had been taken away to the dining hall. There were
two dining halls. A big one and in the small one there was about two hundred and fifty
men. And we were standing. I said Christ, this is going to be some stand. There was
bombardiers and corporals. I says well I can do three things here. I can leave the ranks,
walk down, get my dinner, go into the dining hall, and while I’m taking my dinner I
know that the top brass are in the big dining hall. Men here and there, just a wee talk, and
then I came onto the wee dining hall and there’s other men like myself they’re saying
look, they’re out there and if you give me a rifle I’ll go out there and shoot them all. Or, I
could sit here like a British idiot the same as the rest.
9
Then I said to myself, the girls who are serving this grub will be saying where the hell are
they? And I said well I’ll wait as long as I can, and I waited as long as I could, I says
right, down the front, Attention! By the right, quick march. In the first door, big long
table, the girls were serving. First one: a slice of cheese, two slice of corned mutton, next
one, some veg. And I only got from here to that window there, the door opens and who
come through but the top brass. Plastered with medals. And the three of them stopped
and I stopped, and they looked down at my feet and up at my face as if to say ‘who the
fuck’s this private?’ And they looked at my plate and they said ‘it’s two slices of cheese
and two slices of corned mutton {laughs}. Back to the dining table and served again, I
said to myself ‘they canny go back in the dining hall. The men was coming through one
at a time. They canny go oot cos there’s two hundred and fifty men coming in one at a
time {laughs}. I says they’re in one hell of a mess. And I walked by the three of them and
into the dining hall with my dinner and I never heard any more about it. I can picture the
three of them going out and saying, it’s just no worth the trouble, and just going out and
going home. And I can picture them saying in later years, “Who the hell was that
private?” (33.50)
That’s the truth. But if I hadn’t have moved, they would be standing there yet. That’s the
truth. The British. I’ll tell you one thing. The Royal Artillery was heavy AKAK. I went
there and it was divided. There was eight guns. Big guns. Divided into two. Four there
and four there. And I was on the switchboard. The officer at my back, phone’s going and
I’m writing it down, and he’s shouting outside to the guns ‘Fire!’ And the guns are firing.
Throughout this time of year...it’s like the weather slackened down, the war slackened
down, and I was sent to join the King’s Own Scottish Borderers. Oh I says ‘Action at
last’. So I goes there, the first thing that comes out, six men and a lance corporal. Say we
were here, and we saw the enemy down in Byres Road, so we leave together and all of a
sudden the six men all clamped down under this big tree. And I’m standing myself. I
says, what’s up? And they said, this is what they all do. This is what they all do. And I
says well we’re going to the village. I thought they were going to shoot me. They were
on their feet and they all sat down again, so I sat down too. I says well the other two
British battalions in the division are the Queen’s and the South Lancs so we’ll soon find
out. Two nights later we were going out again, only this time there was a sergeant with
us. As soon as we went out on the road, the sergeant said to me, right Maley, you go out
in front. They’d been talking about me. Well it didn’t frighten me, because well I’m good
with the rifle, anything I see, I’ll shoot. I’ll kill.
So I started walking and all of a sudden {he makes a whistling sound} I stand back and I
says, “See this whistling, I don’t want any of this, they’ll get this mela {gathering}, I
don’t want any of this whistling. If there’s anything to see, I’ll see it”. And I went in and
they were behind me, this sort of village, huts, and there were people moving about and I
sat down. I thought well they’ve seen me and I’ve seen them. I don’t know whether
there’s any Japanese or not. I sat there for about fifteen minutes and then I went out to
where the rest were and I said what do you want to do? We can go in, yous can wait
outside the tent, I’ll go in one hut at a time, you stay outside and I’ll do it, and the
sergeant says ‘No,’ he says ‘You’re taking a chance, better not doing that.’ He says you
canny do that. And that’s how it finished up. (36.33) They weren’t going to go at all. It
seemed to be rife in the army. They came back with false reports. I mind one time there
were six of us went out along with other six. We were going out together but the other six
were going to stay that night and we were coming back again. That six disappeared.
Don’t know what happened to them. That was the army. By Christ I wouldn’t give
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tuppence for it. I’m speaking quite frankly. The British soldiers, I tell you what, if they’re
taken to a place where it means going up and all being killed, they’ll go. Not because
they want to go, but because they’re afraid not to go. That’s the difference. Oh Christ,
orders is orders.
CC: Is that the difference between what happened in Spain, I mean, the difference
between what you...
JM: We were just ordinary, we were just soldiers. The ones in front of us were the ones
that had went on the demonstrations as well. My wife got a book down at Maryhill
Library, brought it home, it was about the First World War, Kitchener, I remember the
photo. And this man is there, he’s going to write the story, he’s going to write what’s
there, and he’s standing there, cold, cold winter’s day, very cold, and the soldiers are just
in uniform, no coats, just the uniform, and they’re standing. I’ve got it ben there, I took
out the book. All of a sudden half an hour passed. And then an hour. And the soldiers
started to drop on the ground. No movement. Two hours and some of them started to die.
This is your British Army. Four hours before Kitchener came. A lot of men had died. Not
firing a shot, no enemy or nothing. And that’s the British Army. That’s it. I cut it out. It’s
ben there.
CC: And what do you think, I mean obviously you volunteered for the Spanish Civil
War. What do you think you achieved?
JM: Well we achieved, we proved the question that if you want to get what you want,
you have to fight for it. We fought. The government was in, the rebel government was in,
and we were going to defend the government that had got into power. Now, as you’ll
remember rightly, Hitler came to power. Now Hitler came to power because, now Hitler
went about for years before the war. And it came to the point where the Communist Party
got six million votes in Germany ....The Reichswehr recognised the dangers. Hindenburg,
right Hitler, you’re in power. Now in his crowd were what you call the Brownshirts, sort
of working class ones that had joined them. The first thing he did was, right, he wiped
out the leaders of the Brownshirts. That just left the men. You know what like men are at
work. And he was in power, nobody invaded Hitler, nobody invaded Germany. He was
in power.
CC: Did you already know..
JM: For four...for a year, two years, three years, four years, five years, and then they met
a year before the war was declared in thingmy, Britain, France, Germany and Italy met,
the four of them met because in this place there was a certain amount of Germans lived,
and the Germans wanted that place as part of Germany, and they got it. (40.19) I’m
talking about Czechoslovakia who had a good wee army. And that finished them. And
then
CC: Was that Sudetenland?
JM: Aye. And then they declared war on Hitler but nobody went to war. The British
soldiers went to France, on holiday. And the French troops landed outside Baillieston, I
was staying in Shettleston at the time and I saw them walking from Baillieston to
Coatbridge. And I saw the French. And I realised that up in Finland there was another
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dictator and there was going to be a war there, and there was a war there against the
Russians. The Russian border stretched right to that place, if you get the map, and that’s
war. You read about the papers there, there’s boys that’s died in this Iraq thing and well,
he’s died for his country. It’s not their country at all. No. And all they demonstrations,
the anti-war demonstrations, they had nae purpose, there was no fighting, no nothing, no
purpose, there was no objective. Now instead of going to the barracks {and saying to the
soldiers} we’re telling you not to go {to Iraq}. If I was in Sheridan’s place, that’s what I
would do. I’d march the crowd that was following me up to the barracks: ‘We’re telling
you not to go.’ Because the soldiers are looking for comfort. I know that. I’m at my
work. Every job I’ve been at, ‘if you do the talking, we’ll stop too’ they said to me. Well
I’ll tell you what I did working at the Red Road (42.01) There was what you call men
who cleaned up the floor. Sweepers. That’s the bellrope. See that there. That’s the
bellrope. Now in all this multi-storey that was built, it was built not by the council but by
a firm. Well it was Whatlings that was doing this where I was. Bellrope. It was in, and
it’s got to be cut sometimes to fit in. For some it’s eighteen inches wide, other ones two
feet. And it fits in like a glove and it’s got bits cut off it by the joiners so that it will be
right. And there’s cleaners who cleaned it up. But Whatling moved to Sighthill and the
cleaners who were left, there were four landings still to be done. Well when the cat’s
away the mice will play. And they were called away. Now our cleaners were told to go
up and clean out the thirty-first floor. Now they were never on bonus but Whatlings men
were. So we go up there and there’s a drum with holes in it that they’d used from the
bottom up to the top as a fire, cause it’s all open, it’s all just wide open space. (43.20)
They did that. And this foreman in charge of the job had other four men under him, other
six men under him, for different jobs, from the labourers right up, and this man comes
along, right, and he does that {makes a kicking movement} knocks the fire over and of
course ashes {raises his hands to show the scattering of the ashes} bit of a trouble. ‘Right
yous two down to Ernie (?) he was in charge of the job in the office. So they goes doon to
Ernie and I hear this, I get to hear this, that they men were looking for me cause the two
of them that got taken to the office were threatened with ‘down the road’ and a man says
‘They’re looking for you’. I said ‘Well they’ll find me sooner or later’. I knew what they
were going to say when they came. I knew they were going to say, are we supposed to
take down the bellrope? And I was going to say no. And they’re going to say, are you
telling us not to do it? And I was going to say yes, I’m telling you not to do it. I knew
when he told their ganger he was going to go into the office and say Maley has told them
not to take down the bellrope. Right, send for Maley. Well they told me and I’m up as
fast as I could and him at my back. I didn’t open the door. I threw it open. He was sitting
at the desk. I done something never before in the history of the working class. I looked
around me, saw a chair, lifted it, I went down and I sat facing him. I says ‘What is it you
want to see me about?’ He says ‘You’ve told them not to take down the bellrope.’ I says
‘Yes. Are you telling them to take it down?’ He said ‘Oh, I’m not telling them to take it
down either.’
CC: It sounds like you liked a fight Jimmy. (44.46)
JM: Well, well, you see, I’ve got a brain. I knew that I could go away but I had won it but
I hadn’t really won it. I knew that he had the other six men under him who are general
foremen too. He also had a travelling ganger whom he could phone and he could come
and say to me: right, get yer hat, peece and can, as was done before, and say to me:
you’re going to another place. And I’m sitting there and I knew, I could see his brain
working, and all of a sudden I says to him, Have you been up there? I says the men are
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supposed to have this ready for Monday morning. He says no. I says well they’ll never
have it ready for Monday morning. I says, ‘now you’ve made a hell of a mistake by
threatening these men with ‘down the road’. If you’re wanting that place cleaned you’ll
not get it cleaned for Monday morning’. And I turned round and I says to the ganger,
‘would your men be prepared to work on Sunday?’ ‘Oh aye. Oh aye,’ he says, ‘they’d be
prepared to work on Sunday’. I said ‘well that’s arranged then, we’re working Sunday.’
This is the truth. {laughs} It’s like a ghost story! That was all.
But I’ll tell you one thing about him. The following week I was sitting in the dining hall
at four o’clock. I was writing out something, nothing at all, and the fellow who was
sitting there facing me, was dealing with the toilets. He says to me when I sat down
facing him, he says ‘I’m in here because I’m getting toilet paper for the toilets. I said
nothing. But Ernie Robertson comes in and he walks up and he says to him sitting facing
me, what you doing here? You get out of here at once, out. Out and get back to your job.
He never said a word to me, he just walked away and back up the hall. He never said a
word to me. But he was nice to me after that. He realised: this is a man, oh Christ aye, I
frightened him. But at the same time I knew he had the upper hand. But someone could
have a word and maybe say to him: what the hell are you worried about?
CC: What year was that by the way?
JM: That was about three years before I retired.
CC: So what year would that have been?
JM: What year did I retire? I was sixty-five. {This means the events to which he is
referring occurred in 1970.} I’ve told you before, the working man, well I worked in the
railway at the start, that was my first job after the war.{WW2} It was the same there.
Working away the first day it was pishing with rain, well it’s the ganger’s discretion and
then quack quack, quack quack, I heard this quack quacking. I just stood up, I put my
shovel and pick aside and walked away and walked down and the gaffer was further on
and I passed him and he says to me, ‘Don’t tell them that you’re going, I’m gonna keep
those bastards out in it all day.’ (47.32) Well I sat in there till dinnertime and the rest all
came in. Wet. Then the rain went off later on and we all went out. I know my men. I’ve
worked with them, oh Christ aye. That’s me at work.
CC: I mean, if you go back to Spain, do you go to the gatherings? Have you been to
Spain since? Back to Spain?
JM: I went back, aye, 1996. Well there was a man came up to me at that meeting, in
1996, he was wheeling a man, I didn’t know if it was his father or not, in the wheelchair.
He had been in Spain. He says, ‘I’ve been looking for you for fifty-one years. I landed in
India at the end of the war. Eighteen years of age. And all I heard was your name.’ He
said he had started a big Communist party in Calcutta and he says ‘everywhere I went I
heard your name and said to myself: he must have been some bloody man!’ Well the
same thing happened there. There was a man came up to me in Spain {he means
India}Well I started to speak first of all in Bombay. The barracks was only from about
here to outside the ground out there. I started to talk. And all the Indians were round me
right away. A talking soldier! They all could speak English. That’s one thing I can say
about them. And I remember them walking up in threes and the colours of the Indian
flag. One side was like a big long wide pavement from here to that wall and double that
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size, and the big ocean, that was the sea. There’s the three colours of the Indian flag and I
was giving it bellicose about Ghandi and the whole war and I frightened the army. Aye
there was one place there was a debate, this McKay was always talking about
communism. A debate was gonna be arranged: ‘Was Britain justified in going to war in
1956’ {he means 1939} and this soldier was for and I was against. And the hall was
packed and half way down each side there was a wee emergency door...leaning against
the door...now the other man spoke for about ten minutes and then I started to speak. Half
an hour passed and he straightened up and he went out the wee door and went outside
and across the parade ground and the next thing I see is him coming back with two of the
staff officers with the hats and three of them’s listening to me. The following morning
this guy comes over and he says, ‘You’re up for posting to the six P’s (Punjabs)
{laughs}. Right round to the door, I says to him ‘Who’s that up there?’ ‘Oh’ he says,
‘That’s you, this is the captain’ {captain’s orders}. I says ‘Well you can take it down.’
And walked out the door. Now you see, once you’re frightened, you’re finished. Once
you’re frightened, you’re finished, no matter what job you’re on. Once you’re frightened,
you’re finished for life. Well it wouldn’t be frightening me. {laughs} (50.29) Aye, I
frightened him.
The same the first time we were going to go on our first lindeting (?) at the end of the
first week, a three-day march in full military order. And I woke up with this guy in the
bed next to me staggering about lashing with sweat. I says ‘What’s up with you?’ He said
‘Oh I think it’s malaria.’ I said, ‘Well don’t take your kit to the store’ because you’re
supposed to take your kit to the store, because I knew he was going on the march, I don’t
make mistakes in politics. So half past five you get washed and then it’s breakfast. And
on parade at seven o’clock. We were all on parade and he comes staggering back this
chap, into the store, to get his kit, out with his kit and into the billet to put it on.
Staggering out into the ranks and on the march. About an hour passed, we all stop, and
the wee motor comes. He’s collapsed. Well I knew, you see I know things. I knew that
when we went back home again we were going to get a lecture on malaria. So we get this
thing, the captain, the dangers of malaria. And after he’s done I says, ‘But I can’t take
malaria.’ He says ‘what do you mean you can’t take malaria?’ I says ‘I lie in bed, and we
used to get these nets over us, I says I used to lie in bed, they didn’t bother me. He said ‘I
bet you a bottle of beer I’ll give you malaria.’ I said ‘no, as a soldier I’m refusing to take
malaria because once I take malaria I’m going to be incapacitated and I won’t be any use
as a soldier.’ Then I says to him, you know, you’re a lucky man. If you didn’t feel well
tomorrow morning you wouldn’t need to get up, and go to another doctor. You wouldn’t
need to do anything. You’re a lucky man. But we have a soldier collapsed, and you
passed him fit for duty. We don’t know whether he’s died or not, and you haven’t said a
word. You’re telling us about the dangers of malaria, I said, you’re a lucky man. Oh
Christ the audience loved it. Oh they loved it. Aye, naw, that was me. I made a lot of
enemies but I managed to make a lot of friends as well {laughs} (52.46)
Oh aye, that man fifty-one years after the war, he said, all I heard was your name. I had
them singing The Internationale in the hut. I’m talking about men who weren’t regular
soldiers. I could have formed them up and started a riot. I could have marched them
through the camp and all the rest. I had the voice. I could have done that. Start a
rebellion.
CC: Did you ever see anyone dying?
14
JM: Oh I saw them falling down, and whether they were dead when they fell down I
don’t know. But they died. It’s easy dying.
CC: I mean, the lines in Spain, I mean, was it like trenches? You were on the machine
guns?
JM: There were no trenches. When we went they were retreating, we weren’t in a trench.
They were retreating, it was a slow process. It was a wide, wide area, about twice the size
of a football field, more than that. And coming down the right hand side were the
Spaniards. And our crowd of course got off the lorries and joined them. So there was a
mass, a mass of fucking hell, and we were firing the machine guns. Well, we know them
at the back’s the enemy. And then gradually they disappeared out of sight. The FrancoBelgians were on the other side coming down from that end and we fired the guns then
when they got to here our friends are at the front, the enemies at the back chasing them
down and we just blazed away with the machine guns till the bullets were done. That’s
all we could do. That’s the only thing about us. You see you’ve got to have ammunition
coming up for the guns. The bullets don’t last forever.
...................................
{While we were in Albacete in January 1937} we all ate in a group with the Spaniards at
a table. Agua and water and everything else. And this wee boy came up to me one day
and he was talking about his mother. And I kind of, I said to myself, I know what he
means. They want food. Well I smuggled food with him and went down to where his
mother was. I don’t know whether he (the father) was in the army or not or what he was
in. I gave them the food. I did that two or three times till I went away to Jarama. They
must have been starving too.
CC: When you travelled through, did you see much of the countryside? Did you see the
people who were living there?
JM: Oh aye, this place we were in for two or three weeks, and we got the hair cut and
everything else. I seen the people. The people as I’ve said before, they could all speak
English most of them, the language. But this other fellow, a soldier, there was something
wrong with him and he had to go down to that place in Spain, what do you call it, and
they weren’t actually involved in the war yet. And the two of us went there and he got
sorted out. They wanted to know what battalion we were in and all this carry on. But eh
life, I don’t know. It’s the same as here, there’s different people here, there’s what you
call the high class, middle class and lower class with different ideas. There’s a lot of
people here against the war.
CC: Were they quite glad you were there? Did they welcome you?
JM: Oh aye, they welcomed us aye. But there were still some, as I say, different class.
Everybody’s not the same.
CC: When you were in prison, was it just the British people all kept together, when you
were in, was it Salamanca, or wherever it was?
15
JM: No some of them weren’t too bad. I’ll tell you what happened in Spain. First of all,
you know that the prisons here, you’ve got the prison warders and everything. The
soldiers came up and they were looking at the footwear. And they said we’ll buy this
British footwear you have, for money. And they’ll give us the sandals. We all sold our
army shoes, our army boots, to the Spaniards. They could have taken them off us,
without any money. And yet you could buy, actually, I bought six eggs when I finally
sold mine and I got a lot of, it’s goat’s milk they’ve got there. And I sat down with a big
bowl with the six eggs and I ate like a lord, and the rest of them were saying to me,
gonnae give us some. They had sold theirs too, but they had bought some cigarettes or
that. They got for you whatever you wanted. The warders were, you know the Spaniards
weren’t bad. Except there was one farm, I went up by this farm and there was this
soldier, he was in uniform. And I walked by, I was singing this song (de di diddle dum)
(laughs). He shouted at me and shook his fist, he wasn’t pleased. But the rest of the
Spaniards, the ones that were in charge of us, they were good to us. Right away they
started this thing, we’ll buy your shoes. You could send out for huevos, that’s eggs,
goats’ milk, cigarettes, or whatever you wanted. Some of them sold their boots...
CC: There were a couple of Germans?
JM: You see, I didn’t smoke...aye, a couple of Germans in it. You see I didn’t smoke.
Well the same thing happened to me here. When I came here I got word from the DHS
down there in the main road that I could have claimed something. But I didn’t bother,
because I don’t drink or smoke. You see, if there’s two men, and they’re gonna get a rise
of ten pound each, and one drinks and smokes, I’ve got the full ten pound because this
man, the cigarettes go up in price and the whisky or the beer, and he’s not got ten pounds
clear. So I’m better off that way. You get what I mean. I’ve got the ten pound but the
other man finds out the cigarettes cost him a few cents more or the beer or whisky,
whereas my money doesn’t cost me anything any more. That’s life. (59.23)
CC: Real spending power!
JM: Aye! The man that drinks, he thinks, by Christ, cigarettes have gone up.
CC: Is there anything else? Have you got any anecdotes about Spain? Anything else?
Any wee stories about Spain?
Anne Maley, James’ wife: ‘Anything about the people in Spain?’
JM: Oh aye.
AM: They made a barrier to keep them from getting into Madrid with furniture.
JM: Oh aye, the Spaniards were good, it’s just too bad they got beat. They wouldn’t have
got beat. You see Britain and France remained neutral, or were supposed to be neutral.
And Germany and Italy were nearer Spain than Russia. The rich are hard to beat. That’s
one thing I’ll say about the rich. They’ll fight for what they want. But the working class
is divided. So when you get them talking now about this antisocial this and that. I’d
rather that as have a war wi’ bombs dropping. Aye, they’re no’ killing anybody.
16
CC: Do you feel that maybe the veterans like yourself were forgotten because they didn’t
win?
JM: Oh no, that’s why that crowd ... you see, when we went to Spain in 1996, there was
that rebel group still there. And I spoke to them. And this woman went on a platform, and
I was on a platform with her, and they know who the enemy is. That’s how the Spanish
that are in now want the troops withdrawn and the guy now who’s in charge, because
there’s a rebel group in Spain. They’ve no time for this thing here. They’re more
rebellious in Spain. Here it’s dead. I mean there’s no purpose in the thing here. I mean
they go ‘Maggie Maggie Maggie, out out out,’ but there’s no threat. No fight, no nothing.
CC: See when you look back on Spain, did you know anything about La Pasionaria?
JM: Oh aye. She was good. Good speaker. When they put that monument up down on the
Green (Clydeside) {5 December 1979, La Pasionaria statue unveiled}. The man who was
in charge that had been in Spain after me, he was in, there was a place there where the
union met at the corner. He had a wee job in there. So they were going to put up the
monument, we were going to have a meeting at the monument and going to have photos.
Well they found out he had left something in the house and they were all sitting there
saying nothing. So I said I’ll go. Walked up St Vincent Street, all the way along that
street, right along, by Elmbank Street, right along nearly to the end. And that’s where he
stayed. And I went in, and his wife wasn’t too pleased that I had been there - I don’t
know what it’s like myself. I got what I wanted and I walked all the way back. I walked
all the way back and I gave him it. And then they found out they needed the platform.
The Communist Party was about from here up to the top of the main road there and I
walked up there and I got the platform and I carried the platform down, up to the
Cenotaph (La Pasionaria) and we got all our photos taken and I never got the photo
(laughs).
Another man said to me one time when we met in England at another meeting, he says
have you got any more of those photos left? I’ve lost the one I’ve got. {This is a
reference to the photos taken when the men were captured at Jarama in 1937 that James
Maley had copied on his return from Spain}. So aye, so I sent him another one, so you
see he was going to send me the one that was taken in England {at the unveiling of the
statue at the South Bank on 5 October 1985 by Michael Foot} but he never sent it. That’s
my life. Same at work. Well if I hadn’t been working in the railway they would never
have got the bonus in their lifetime. That’s my proud boast. If anybody’s in a factory, I’ll
get them the bonus, I’ll get them the rise. Because I know what the other side is going to
do, and I know what I’ve got to do.
CC: That’s brilliant.
JM: I’m a soldier.
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Transcribed by Dini Power and Willy Maley, August 2015.
17