OUR Volunteers for Liberty (VFL) commemorations, where we remember the volunteers from the north-east of England who fought fascism in Spain, just keeps growing and growing; we affiliated to the National Association of Italian Partisans (ANPI UK) and we are adding a third commemoration.

For the past six years men from our region who died defending democracy during the Spanish civil war have been remembered at special events in Newcastle and Teesside. We began in 2020, to mark the centenary of the founding of the Communist Party and have continued to hold annual commemorations close to the anniversary of the International Brigade’s farewell parade on October 28 1938.

Last year we held the Teesside VFL commemoration in Hartlepool for the first time, at the Heugh Battery Museum, opened by Cllr Carole Thompson, the newly invested mayor of Hartlepool. We had Jonathan Brash, the MP for Hartlepool, also address us.

This year we have added a new commemoration, making three commemorations in total: one in Newcastle, one in Sunderland and one on Teesside. The VFL commemorations are special as we are always joined by relatives of some of the volunteers, relatives of some of the Basque refugee children who were evacuated to our area following the bombing of Guernica in 1937 and representatives from associated national and local organisations; for example Dr David Gordon Scott will be speaking at the Sunderland commemoration on the 1825 North Sands Massacre.

The reason why we have chosen to host an event in Sunderland is that my friend and colleague Jamie Tucknutt, working for Solidarity Sunderland, now has a much clearer picture of the support the town gave to the Spanish Republic and the anti-fascist activities on Wearside prior to the Spanish civil war.

We will present some of this information at the Sunderland Volunteers for Liberty commemoration in Mowbray Park on Sunday October 26 2025. Here we will remember the five Sunderland volunteers who lost their lives in Spain and the Sunderland volunteers such as the publisher Frank Graham, the weightlifting champion Robert Qualie and the master of the MV Thorpehall, Captain Joseph Andrews.

We will also commemorate women such as Enid Ramshaw from Houghton Le Spring, a nurse in Spain and Eileen O’Shaughnessy Blair, the wife of the author George Orwell.

The Newcastle commemoration is now supported and organised by the Newcastle Trades Union Council, it will be held at the Newcastle International Brigade memorial in the grounds of the civic centre.

In a further development we will now read the names of all 32 north-east volunteers who lost their lives in Spain at each of these three commemorations.

The Teesside commemoration has also developed substantially; in 2020 we held a brief commemoration outside the Dorman Museum, Middlesbrough. In 2025 we will be hosting a full day event in Billingham, this is because we are working with the Friends of St Cuthbert’s Church, who are fighting the decision to close the historic 9th century church, the oldest building on Teesside.

The group was formed by the community to take on the running of the church, to create a dedicated centre for heritage, cultural and entertainment events such as our VFL commemoration.

A further reason is the campaign for a memorial to Billingham International Brigade volunteer Ron Dennison.

Working with the Friends of St Cuthbert’s, we will hold our annual commemoration in Ron’s local church on Saturday October 25 2025. The commemoration will be just one part of a series of events held throughout the day: we will parade the 500 metres from Ron’s Billingham home to St Cuthbert’s Church, where we will hear from relatives of International Brigade volunteers and Basque refugees, representatives from the Association of the UK Basque children, the ANPI, the Communist Parties of Britain and of Spain, the Friends of St Cuthbert’s, the GMB union, the local Labour Party and Solidarity Park International.

We are thrilled that The Che Men have chosen to launch the CD of their debut album Echoes of the ’30s to coincide with our commemoration.

In 2020 Dr Bob Beagrie read poetry at the very first VFL commemoration, and he has since read at every subsequent commemoration, so we are honoured that he will read from his anthology Romanceros again.

We are also pleased that Mark Boden, Sara Dennis and Harry Gallagher have also agreed to perform in the church and that Billingham South School, the Prince Bishops Wargames group, Drake the Bookshop and the GMB union are supporting us with displays. The Friends of St Cuthbert’s are hugely supportive, they will be putting on refreshments in the church.

The commemoration will be followed by an evening social in Billingham Social Club to raise funds for the Ron Dennison memorial; here Bob Beagrie, Ron Brown, Sara Dennis, Harry Gallagher and some surprise guests will be performing on stage.

Everyone is welcome to join us at our commemorations, if you require further details please contact: NEVolunteersforliberty@gmail.com.