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About this book:

There was no good speaking of the menace of fascism, and not going to fight it myself. - JAMES MALEY, GLASGOW

It was an atmosphere I will never forget – there was the sense of freedom in the air, of workers’ power. - DONALD RENTON, PORTOBELLO

You fight for your beliefs, not medals. - GEORDIE WATTERS, PRESTONPANS

There have been reports that [when we were released] we shouted ‘Long Live Franco’. Not on your life! - ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL McASKILL WILLIAMS, PORTSMOUTH

A resonant piece of working class history, this book is a living link to four extraordinary stories. Why did these young men put their lives on the line and go to Spain to fight with the International Brigades? How did they all end up in the same prison cell? And what is their legacy today?

James Maley, George Watters, Donald Renton and Archibald Williams were members of Machine Gun Company No. 2 of the XV International Brigade. This is the first book to focus on a small group of men who, from different starting-points, ended up on the same battleground at Jarama, and then in the same prisons after capture by Franco’s forces.

Their remarkable story is told both in their own words and in the recollections of their sons and daughters, through a prison notebook, newspaper reports, stills cut from newsreels, interviews, anecdotes and memories, with a foreword by Daniel Gray.

Our Fathers Fought Franco is a collective biography that promises to add significantly to the understanding of the motives of those who ‘went because their open eyes could see no other way’.

From the foreword by Daniel Gray:

In being told by those who listened to and were affected by those stories, this wonderful and moving book adds something completely original to the Spanish Civil War narrative. It represents, too, the handing on of these vital yarns.

These are individual accounts, full of nuance and difference. Yet they are also representative of fathers (and mothers) from across the world who went to Spain with one shared aim: to smash fascism.

Reviews:

An extraordinary example, and an unforgettable, essential book. - ANGUS REID, The Morning Star

Such openness connects us readers to the vulnerabilities of a family, life in all its complexity and difficulty. This is a virtue of all four accounts in Our Fathers Fought Franco… What comes through persistently in ‘Our Fathers Fought Franco’ is a sense of how much we have to learn from the past. - ALAN RIACH, The National

Part first-person history, part war memoir, part working-class polemic, it is a valuable addition to the canon. - RB, The Scottish Field

Too often their experiences went unrecorded. - THE PENNILESS PRESS

Each of the authors calls us to read the signs for our own times in the legacy of these men of the IB. This book is a fine tribute to them and their comrades. - LESLEY ORR, Bella Caledonia