The Jarrow March was not the first or the only Hunger March in the UK & Hunger Marches also happened in other countries. Most were organised by the National Unemployed Workers Movement, Jarrow was unusual in gaining official Labour party support, thanks to "Red Ellen" Wilkinson MP and is therefore much better recorded. There were at least 4 National Hunger Marches during the 1930s. The NE contingent of the second National Hunger March set off for London on February 1st 1934. There are photos and first person accounts (John Longstaffe) that show music on that march drums and harmonicas. Not sure about pipes or squeezeboxes. The songs were often American ones from the Wobblies, "Pie in the Sky", Alleluia, I'm a bum." A particular favourite was Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow, Shouting out the battle-cry of freedom And everywhere that Mary went the lamb was sure to go, Shouting out the battle-cry of freedom. Hurrah for Mary, Hurrah for the lamb. Hurrah for the bolshie boys who don't give a damn, And everywhere that Mary went the lamb was sure to go, Shouting out the battle-cry of freedom. On 17th-18th February they passed through Cambridge. I think this is what others on the thread are remembering when they talk about the responses of the students, which were mixed, most then as now probably avoided politics, many were right wing, but the student Socialist Society raised £120 for the marchers & met them outside Cambridge for the final march in. The left wing students who were there on that day have since recorded it in many places. One of the earliest is the chapter on Cambridge Socialism 1933-36 in John Cornford: A Memoir, first published in 1938. In it a group of Cornford's contemporaries recall, as if from a great distance, something that happened long ago. 'Going through town, shouting "Down with the Means Test" you would see some student you knew slightly staring, a little frightened, at the broken boots and old mackintoshes. The phrases about the power of the workers and the right to a better life suddenly meant something concrete and real.' The next day their leader Wilf Jobling of Blaydon gave a speech that made an enormous impression on the students who heard it. One of them, Margot Heinemann said later, "It was the first time I had a feeling of being part of the working class movement, and that the working classes were not people you led but were the strength, the power that was going to bring socialism about. The exploited themselves- Sklaven werden dich befreien- the slaves will set you free, the Brecht song says." Some of the Cambridge Communist students did indeed later work for the Comintern. Others joined the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War where both John Cornford and Wilf Jobling were killed. Cornford died at Lopera on 28th December 1936 , the day after his 21st birthday. Wilf Jobling in February 1937 in Jarama, he was 27.
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