Origin: We Met Them at the Door

Subject: RE: We Met Them at the Door -Anyone Know It
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 16 May 08 - 01:50 PM

Thanks for that EB

Subject: RE: We Met Them at the Door -Anyone Know It
From: EBarnacle
Date: 15 May 08 - 09:11 PM

The words scan fairly well to the melody of "We Parted on the Shore."

Subject: RE: We Met Them at the Door -Anyone Know It
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 15 May 08 - 07:38 PM

Thanks Peace.
This is the site I got it from

I am at present trying to find out as much as I can about the eight men from Hull,UK, who volunteered to go and fight for the Spanish Republic against Franco in the thirties.

There is very little that is easily discovered. From an old newspaper obituary of one of the men, Jack Atkinson who was killed at Jarama, I read that he had spent time in OZ and had been involved in political activity in Brisbane and Sydney including eviction resistance. Through the magic of Google I followed up a reference in the obituary and ended up in touch with Daryl Croke in Australia who told me that Jack Atkinson does not seem to be known to history there. Like me, Daryl thinks that Jack Atkinson led an amazing life for one who died so young,(killed by a sniper at 25) and is now trying to uncover more of JA's story. It was Daryl who searched out and sent me the link.

When I saw the song fragment in the radio programme I was curious about it and being a Mudcatter thought it worth a punt to recover anything more about it. Of course I was also hoping that something might also be revealed that would help to illuminate the Australian life of Jack Atkinson. I have become quite shameless in tracing down e mail addresses of anyone with the slightest chance of helping to piece his life together so why should Mudcatters be safe from my obsession ?( I am not safe from theirs am I ?) Anyway I really would like to know if there are more words to the song. Has anyone ever recorded it? It was sung in the radio programme so there must be a tune.

Here's hoping, Geoff

Subject: RE: We Met Them at the Door -Anyone Know It
From: Peace
Date: 15 May 08 - 05:17 PM

Yep. I did look. Google in quotes give only the site from which you got that snippet and this thread. IMO, it'll have to come from someone who knows it. However, it might be worth writing to the town/city it took place in. Perhaps their public library would have it.

Subject: RE: We Met Them at the Door -Anyone Know It
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 15 May 08 - 05:12 PM

I should have put Australia in the thread title shouldn't I ?

Subject: We Met Them at the Door -Anyone Know It
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 14 May 08 - 06:44 PM

In the transcript of a radio program called Forever Striking Trouble broadcast in Australia in 1999, I have just come across the partial text of an Australian song which was about eviction resistance in the Brisbane and Sydney during the thirties.

"for we met them at the door,
And we knocked them on the floor,
Bankstown and Newtown, we made the cops feel sore,
They outnumbered us ten to one,
And were armed with stick and gun,
But we fought well, we gave them hell,
When we met them at the door."

Does anyone know any more of the song ? Or more about the song