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The power couple of Teesside communism
George and Phyllis Short were working-class heroes, facing down all enemies to fight the class struggle — especially the British Union of Fascists. We should remember them better, argues local TONY FOX

I WAS saddened to see recently that the Battle of Stockton memorial unveiled in 2018 was partly obscured by a market stall, laying dirty and neglected at the foot of Stockton’s Market Cross.

The Battle of Stockton was the first and most significant action against the British Union of Fascists (BUF) on Teesside. It was a humiliating blow, so expertly delivered that the BUF never recovered nor developed locally thereafter.

The anti-fascist campaign on Teesside was led and organised by two people: George Short and his wife Phyllis. Short, the founding father of Teesside communism, was born in Chopwell in 1900 and so too Phyllis, in 1903. Short took up the only employment available, mining.

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