‘Just remember, if you allow the Fascists to provoke violence, the press will blame the Left for it, regardless of who really started it.’
Lenny said rashly: ‘If Mosley’s boys start a fight, they’ll get what’s coming to them.’
Ethel sighed. ‘Think about it, Lenny: in this country, who’s got the most guns – you and Lloyd and the Labour Party, or the Conservatives with the army and the police on their side?’
‘Oh,’ said Lenny. Clearly he had not considered that.
Lloyd said angrily to his mother: ‘How can you talk like that? You were in Berlin three years ago – you saw how it was. The German Left tried to oppose Fascism peacefully, and look what happened to them.’
Bernie put in: ‘The German Social Democrats failed to form a popular front with the Communists. That allowed them to be picked off separately. Together they might have won.’ Bernie had been angry when the local Labour Party branch had refused an offer from the Communists to form a coalition against the march.
Ethel said: ‘An alliance with Communists is a dangerous thing.’
She and Bernie disagreed on this. In fact, it was an issue that split the Labour Party. Lloyd thought that Bernie was right and Ethel wrong. ‘We have to use every resource we’ve got to defeat Fascism,’ he said; then he added diplomatically: ‘But Mam’s right, it will be best for us if today goes off without violence.’
‘It will be best if you all stay home, and oppose the Fascists through the normal channels of democratic politics,’ Ethel said.
‘You tried to get equal pay for women through the normal channels of democratic politics,’ Lloyd said. ‘You failed.’ Only last April, women Labour MPs had promoted a parliamentary bill to guarantee female government employees equal pay for equal work. It had been voted down by the male-dominated House of Commons.
‘You don’t give up on democracy every time you lose a vote,’ Ethel said crisply.
The trouble was, Lloyd knew, that these divisions could fatally weaken the anti-Fascist forces, as had happened in Germany. Today would be a harsh test. Political parties could try to lead, but the people would choose whom to follow. Would they stay at home, as urged by the timid Labour Party and the
There was a knock at the back door and their neighbour, Sean Dolan, came in dressed in his churchgoing suit. ‘I’ll be joining you after Mass,’ he said to Bernie. ‘Where should we meet up?’
‘Gardiner’s Corner, not later than two o’clock,’ said Bernie. ‘We’re hoping to have enough people to stop the Fascists there.’
‘You’ll have every dock worker in the East End with you,’ said Sean enthusiastically.
Millie asked: ‘Why is that? The Fascists don’t hate you, do they?’
‘You’re too young to remember, you darlin’ girl, but the Jews have always supported us,’ Sean explained. ‘In the dock strike of 1912, when I was only nine years old, my father couldn’t feed us, and me and my brother were taken in by Mrs Isaacs the baker’s wife in New Road, may God bless her great big heart. Hundreds of dockers’ children were looked after by Jewish families then. It was the same in 1926. We’re not going to let the bloody Fascists come down our streets – excuse my language, Mrs Leckwith.’
Lloyd was heartened. There were thousands of dockers in the East End: if they showed up en masse it would hugely swell the ranks.
From outside the house came the sound of a loudspeaker. ‘Keep Mosley out of Stepney,’ said a man’s voice. ‘Assemble at Gardiner’s Corner at two o’clock.’
Lloyd drank his tea and stood up. His role today was to be a spy, checking the position of the Fascists and calling in updates to Bernie’s Jewish People’s Council. His pockets were heavy with big brown pennies for public phones. ‘I’d better get started,’ he said. ‘The Fascists are probably assembling already.’
His mother got up and followed him to the door. ‘Don’t get into a fight,’ she said. ‘Remember what happened in Berlin.’
‘I’ll be careful,’ Lloyd said.
She tried a light tone. ‘Your rich American girl won’t like you with no teeth.’
‘She doesn’t like me anyway.’
‘I don’t believe it. What girl could resist you?’
‘I’ll be all right, Mam,’ Lloyd said. ‘Really I will.’
‘I suppose I should be glad you’re not going to bloody Spain.’
‘Not today, anyway.’ Lloyd kissed his mother and went out.
It was a bright autumn morning, the sun unseasonably warm. In the middle of Nutley Street a temporary platform had been set up by a group of men, one of whom was speaking through a megaphone. ‘People of the East End, we do not have to stand quiet while a crowd of strutting anti-Semites insults us!’ Lloyd recognized the speaker as a local official of the National Unemployed Workers’ Movement. Because of the Depression there were thousands of unemployed Jewish tailors. They signed on every day at the Settle Street Labour Exchange.
Before Lloyd had gone ten yards, Bernie came after him and handed him a paper bag of the little glass balls that children called marbles. ‘I’ve been in a lot of
