IN SPRING, in the presence of relatives of some of the Teesside Volunteers, we dedicated the Stockton International Brigade Memorial. This meant that on Teesside we had both the youngest and the oldest International Brigade memorials in the UK.

My friend Bob Beagrie, a Senior lecturer at Teesside University, performed at the dedication events that day; since 2020 he has regularly performed his poems at our annual commemorations. A collection of his poems inspired by the International Brigade entitled Romanceros is due to be published shortly. Whilst working on this collection, just six weeks after the dedication, Bob asked me about Thomas Carter; a volunteer from Hartlepool who is named on the Teesside memorial. I replied adding a eulogy written in 1937 by George Short, the Communist Party district secretary for Teesside.

After rereading the eulogy the line “In a letter from his commander, also of Teesside . . .” caught my eye because the only company commander from Teesside at this time was Bert Overton of No 4 Company and Thomas Carter was in No 2 Company. Bill Meredith would command No 2 Company but he was from Bellingham in Northumberland, not Teesside.