Blackshirts in Geordieland

by Gordon Stridiron

No region of Great Britain suffered more in the 'Hungry Thirties' than Tyneside and the North-East. When the Labour and Coalition Governments failed to stem the tide of unemployment, Geordies began to look elsewhere - to the Communist Party, Independent Labour Party and not least the British Union of Fascists led by Sir Oswald Mosley.

For the next eight years, these contenders for political power fought a bitter ideological battle on the streets of Newcastle, Sunderland, Gateshead, Durham, Stockton and elsewhere. The full story of this period of the North-East's past has remained untold - something that local historian Gordon Stridiron has now remedied following a study of primary sources never before undertaken on the same scale.

Mosley's 'Blackshirts in Geordieland' emerge not as the political thugs and would-be Quislings of stereotypical image. Instead, the reader discovers a group of patriotic idealists - against communism, against capitalism and against war - who whether right or wrong had the courage to face hostility and physical attack to make their message heard: 'The War on Want is the War we Want "

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1913176290
• ISBN13: 9781913176297
• Release Date: March 2019
• Publisher: Sanctuary Press Ltd
• Length: 260 Pages
• Weight: 0.99 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.5"