The History Thread

[Xela]

Fascinating. Could watch all day. Just the peoples reactions. Looks like another world but the people are just the same as they are today. 

 

[VILLAMARV]

Oakies knife polish eh. I was stating to think I knew all these brands on the advertising.

[chrisp65]

8th November 1910,  miner’s strike in Tonypandy (morphing in to the Tonypandy Riots) - the mine owners fear for their safety and for their property.

Home Secretary Winston Churchill dispatches:

Two special trains from London with 1,000 Met Police Officers

A further contingent of police from Bristol

120 Mounted Police

2 squadrons of the 18th Hussars

200 infantry from Swindon Barracks

later, a further 200 Met Police 

A further 500 infantry held in reserve at ‘southern command’ in Cardiff

A further squadron of cavalry held in Cardiff and Newport

 

Newspaper reports of the time report 500 injured locals (no clear evidence on how they came to be hurt) and one man tossed in the canal.

 

In 1950, on being heckled at hustings in Cardiff, Churchill explained he personally had been on the side of the miner’s and the working classes, but y’know, it’s the job innit!

 

 

 

[tonyh29]

20 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

and one man tossed in the canal.

i really wish you'd have said thrown in the canal 

[chrisp65]

Just now, tonyh29 said:

i really wish you'd have said thrown in the canal 

Quote lifted straight from a newspaper of the day.

If they say he was tossed, he was tossed.

[chrisp65]

Just to bring recent events in to focus.

 

 

 

[MakemineVanilla]

21 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

8th November 1910,  miner’s strike in Tonypandy (morphing in to the Tonypandy Riots) - the mine owners fear for their safety and for their property.

Home Secretary Winston Churchill dispatches:

Two special trains from London with 1,000 Met Police Officers

A further contingent of police from Bristol

120 Mounted Police

2 squadrons of the 18th Hussars

200 infantry from Swindon Barracks

later, a further 200 Met Police 

A further 500 infantry held in reserve at ‘southern command’ in Cardiff

A further squadron of cavalry held in Cardiff and Newport

 

Newspaper reports of the time report 500 injured locals (no clear evidence on how they came to be hurt) and one man tossed in the canal.

 

In 1950, on being heckled at hustings in Cardiff, Churchill explained he personally had been on the side of the miner’s and the working classes, but y’know, it’s the job innit!

 

 

 

Most books about Churchill are hagiographies which have created a cult, where every PM wants to emulate Churchill's military adventures, whether they be Thatcher, Blair or Boris.

Churchill was to play the villain all over again, when he returned to the gold standard and the miners had their wages cut and their hours increased, which led to the General Strike.

What amazed me, on reading The Bantams by Sydney Allinson, is that so many Welsh miners, who were too short to be soldiers in the Great War, campaigned for the right to serve, in a war which some historians claim Churchill was responsible for starting.

The best book I've read about the struggle of coal miners and their dilemmas, was Zola's Germinal.

[chrisp65]

6 minutes ago, MakemineVanilla said:

Most books about Churchill are hagiographies which have created a cult, where every PM wants to emulate Churchill's military adventures, whether they be Thatcher, Blair or Boris.

Churchill was to play the villain all over again, when he returned to the gold standard and the miners had their wages cut and their hours increased, which led to the General Strike.

What amazed me, on reading The Bantams by Sydney Allinson, is that so many Welsh miners, who were too short to be soldiers in the Great War, campaigned for the right to serve, in a war which some historians claim Churchill was responsible for starting.

The best book I've read about the struggle of coal miners and their dilemmas, was Zola's Germinal.

There’s a very strange claim in the Churchill biography written by his son, that Churchill sending troops to South Wales was a myth. It’s written in such a way that he disputes whether Churchill ever said if the strikers were hungry he would fill their bellies with lead. But it goes further in the way it sort of ties that myth in to the whole question of whether troops were in Tonypandy. I think many people like simple stories not complex ones.

I think the First World War might have been the last throw of jingoism. Home by Christmas, teach the hun a lesson, god save the King. A chance at paid adventure in France being a hero, against working underground for low pay and a real risk of death or life changing injury. I suspect it would have looked like a no brainer to your average 20 year old male sharing a two bedroom terraced house with seven others.

 

[MakemineVanilla]

1 hour ago, chrisp65 said:

There’s a very strange claim in the Churchill biography written by his son, that Churchill sending troops to South Wales was a myth. It’s written in such a way that he disputes whether Churchill ever said if the strikers were hungry he would fill their bellies with lead. But it goes further in the way it sort of ties that myth in to the whole question of whether troops were in Tonypandy. I think many people like simple stories not complex ones.

I think the First World War might have been the last throw of jingoism. Home by Christmas, teach the hun a lesson, god save the King. A chance at paid adventure in France being a hero, against working underground for low pay and a real risk of death or life changing injury. I suspect it would have looked like a no brainer to your average 20 year old male sharing a two bedroom terraced house with seven others.

 

What always surprises me is how bellicose the British nation was in the early years of the 20th Century, and how the propaganda of the second half of the century, has presented it otherwise. Having just fought the Second Boer War, and having enjoyed a "turkey shoot" at Omdurman, the popularity of books like The Riddle of the Sands suggest that the nation was contemplating a confrontation with a recently united Germany (1870), well before the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand.

According to The Bantams, the main motivation of those men demanding to be allowed to serve (one even travelled from South America), was the dishonour of being considered not being man enough to serve, an anxiety which was cynically exploited by the white-feather campaign.

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori!

I am surprised that after the Government had shown their willingness to use the military against them, that their patriotism survived.

 

 

 

[mjmooney]

15 minutes ago, MakemineVanilla said:

What always surprises me is how bellicose the British nation was in the early years of the 20th Century, and how the propaganda of the second half of the century, has presented it otherwise. Having just fought the Second Boer War, and having enjoyed a "turkey shoot" at Omdurman, the popularity of books like The Riddle of the Sands suggest that the nation was contemplating a confrontation with a recently united Germany (1870), well before the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand.

According to The Bantams, the main motivation of those men demanding to be allowed to serve (one even travelled from South America), was the dishonour of being considered not being man enough to serve, an anxiety which was cynically exploited by the white-feather campaign.

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori!

I am surprised that after the Government had shown their willingness to use the military against them, that their patriotism survived.

Happened all over Europe. In both Germany and France the socialist parties were vehemently anti-war. But the minute it was declared, they fell in line and started flag waving. 

[chrisp65]

15 minutes ago, MakemineVanilla said:

What always surprises me is how bellicose the British nation was in the early years of the 20th Century, and how the propaganda of the second half of the century, has presented it otherwise. Having just fought the Second Boer War, and having enjoyed a "turkey shoot" at Omdurman, the popularity of books like The Riddle of the Sands suggest that the nation was contemplating a confrontation with a recently united Germany (1870), well before the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand.

According to The Bantams, the main motivation of those men demanding to be allowed to serve (one even travelled from South America), was the dishonour of being considered not being man enough to serve, an anxiety which was cynically exploited by the white-feather campaign.

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori!

I am surprised that after the Government had shown their willingness to use the military against them, that their patriotism survived.

 

 

 

 

I think (and I’m no expert here) from what I’ve seen from the late 19th century and in to the 1900’s there was something of a re awakening of a Welsh identity. But the industrial areas, the coalfields, the docks, they would have seen significant influx of workers from all over the country and overseas. So whilst Wales in general was rediscovering itself and inventing the Welsh flag and resisting the destruction of the language via the notorious Blue Books and the Welsh not, some areas would have been majority anglicised. I think this would have included much of the valleys.

Photos of the valleys terraced streets, or the terraced streets of Barry at the turn of the century would have included union jacks and Union Jack bunting as a matter of course, not related to any special event or celebration. So perhaps with the churn in the population there was a need for some sort of identity and ‘king and country’ would be the obvious identity for mining and dock people moved to the area from Cornwall, Ireland, Scotland, and even Italy? 

We were a different place then, far more deference to our ‘betters’, and all our betters would have been very invested in Britain as the head of a great empire and all that. It would have been ingrained what the right thing was and the responsibility to do the right thing. Perhaps the fast approaching two world wars shook a lot of that out of people.

The photo below is the police station, 3 doors down from my first house:

 

The level of poverty must also have played a massive role.

The footballer Derek Tapscott left Barry to go to Arsenal in 1953. So pushing on half a century later. He lived here, in one of these houses across the road from mine, he was one of sixteen children and when he left for London, he took the family’s good shirt! His father had to write to him and ask him to send it back once he’d been paid enough to buy his own shirt. When I moved in to one of these houses in 1990, it had just had its first ever central heating system installed. With that level of deprivation, taking the king’s shilling back in 1914 must have been a very viable anttractive option. 

[MakemineVanilla]

1 hour ago, chrisp65 said:

 

I think (and I’m no expert here) from what I’ve seen from the late 19th century and in to the 1900’s there was something of a re awakening of a Welsh identity. But the industrial areas, the coalfields, the docks, they would have seen significant influx of workers from all over the country and overseas. So whilst Wales in general was rediscovering itself and inventing the Welsh flag and resisting the destruction of the language via the notorious Blue Books and the Welsh not, some areas would have been majority anglicised. I think this would have included much of the valleys.

Photos of the valleys terraced streets, or the terraced streets of Barry at the turn of the century would have included union jacks and Union Jack bunting as a matter of course, not related to any special event or celebration. So perhaps with the churn in the population there was a need for some sort of identity and ‘king and country’ would be the obvious identity for mining and dock people moved to the area from Cornwall, Ireland, Scotland, and even Italy? 

We were a different place then, far more deference to our ‘betters’, and all our betters would have been very invested in Britain as the head of a great empire and all that. It would have been ingrained what the right thing was and the responsibility to do the right thing. Perhaps the fast approaching two world wars shook a lot of that out of people.

The photo below is the police station, 3 doors down from my first house:

 

The level of poverty must also have played a massive role.

The footballer Derek Tapscott left Barry to go to Arsenal in 1953. So pushing on half a century later. He lived here, in one of these houses across the road from mine, he was one of sixteen children and when he left for London, he took the family’s good shirt! His father had to write to him and ask him to send it back once he’d been paid enough to buy his own shirt. When I moved in to one of these houses in 1990, it had just had its first ever central heating system installed. With that level of deprivation, taking the king’s shilling back in 1914 must have been a very viable anttractive option. 

The photograph reminds me of something I failed to take into account, and that is the amazing affection ordinary people had for the King, during that era.

They may have hated the owners and the government but for reasons beyond my understanding, they thought of the monarch as someone who understood and sympathised with their problems.

One of the many interesting things in Juliet Gardiner's book about the 1930s, was that during the depression the suffering was not equally spread across the country, and that places like the Midlands were not as badly affected as the likes of Wales and Scotland. The government did their best to persuade those in the worst affected areas to move to where the prospects of employment were much better, but those who took up the offers mostly returned home after a short while because they couldn't bear to be away from their families.

I suspect that the close-knit famlilies as depicted in How Green Was My Valley, weren't as exaggerated as cynics like me assumed.

[chrisp65]

It’s pre name change.

Everything was fine when they were Saxe Coburg Gotha. Lord knows why they re branded.

[mjmooney]

Flight attendant on the airline Lufthansa serving draught beer from a wooden barrel and ham on a flight in the 1960s.

[maqroll]

Does Neville Chamberlain get a bad rap?

[mjmooney]

4 hours ago, maqroll said:

Does Neville Chamberlain get a bad rap?

Yeah, he does a bit. 

He did buy time. 

[villa4europe]

Watch Munich the edge of war on netflix

Exactly that moon man, britain wasn't ready, based on what then transpired when war did break out you could argue they still weren't ready in 39

[AVFC_Hitz]

Germany had a war economy since, arguably, '33. Guns versus butter. Hitler had already annexed the Rhineland and Austria. He clearly wasn't stopping.

Chamberlain bought time.

[chrisp65]

 

 

[maqroll]

If Franco caved to Hitler's pressure and joined the Axis...

It's possible that the Americans couldn't have landed in Morocco to join the North Africa campaign, giving Rommel one less thing to worry about fighting the British. 

If the British were defeated in Africa, the Italian campaign never happens, meaning Hitler doesn't pull battalions from the eastern and western fronts, and German positions in France are fortified by Spanish forces making an amphibious invasion from England a virtual impossibility. 

In other words, Franco won World War 2.