When I was an apprentice or slightly after, an old labourer worked with me, he was an ex-railwayman LNER and a Communist Party member, spent about forty years on the railway and ended up Fireman on the "Flying Scotsman" he had lived in London for most of these years, although born and bred in Perth. It was he that got me interested in Socialism.

Anyway he lived through the era of Oswald Mosley and British Fascism, was involved in the Anti Fascist street fighting at that time, Cable Street etc....he told me that the fights were solely between the Fascists and the Communists, well organised battles in which the two sides were pretty evenly matched.......he was amazed at the apparent apathy of the ordinary uncommitted Londoners, "They used to just stand around and watch" he said