On arrival, Murray was sent to work in the Primere Unidad Ingles hospital in Grañen, near Huesca on the Aragon Front. The hospital had been paid for by the Spanish Medical Aid Committee in Britain, though it contained both native and international patients. An early task for Murray and her colleagues was to make the run-down hospital functional:
Annie Murray, centre, takes part in the vital work of preparing bandages for reuse.
The hospital was a very old building, badly in need of repair. The unit got working together to make it a fit place in which to nurse the wounded. The yard was very dirty and bad-smelling, and had to be drained and levelled after many loads of refuse had been removed. We worked at these and other improvements between each attack, so that even if the front was quiet we were always busy.
At Grañen, she was impressed to see female soldiers taking part in military actions: ‘There are many women in the army here and they appear exactly like men when they come in from the front. I think some of them are very brave.’
This was to be one of the few comforting sights of her experiences. Murray had to treat the most harrowing of injuries. Despite being republican-run, the hospitals she worked in treated the wounded of both sides during the conflict, and one of the earliest wounded combatants she saw was a Moorish nationalist soldier, brought to the hospital after having lain injured on the battlefield for five days:
His broken, lacerated leg was literally crawling with maggots. The poor devil was so frightened, not knowing what he was coming to, but we tried to the best of our ability to assure him that he was here to have his wound treated and generally cared for. Unfortunately we had to amputate his leg immediately but he died the next day.
By late October 1936, Murray, in one of her regular letters home to the family, wrote how the paucity of hospital equipment available meant seriously ill people were being discharged to make room for new arrivals. As the war intensified, so did the quantity of patients and her frustration at inaction from Britain:
We have had an extremely busy and rather a depressing time at hospital here lately. We have been taking all kinds of cases and I can tell you we have had many very tragic ones amongst them and many deaths. Many have been shot through the lungs and heads, many legs, arms, abdomen and other injuries. Few of the lung and head cases have recovered. We are certainly seeing war at its worst now. Many just bleed to death. I wish more of the people at home realised what war actually means, then they might do more to try to prevent it.
Notwithstanding these appalling experiences, in an early demonstration of the tenacity that was to characterise her stay in Spain, she signed off with the message: ‘I would not like to have missed this experience for anything, gruesome though it is. I have not felt homesick yet.’
Of all the horror Murray witnessed in Spain, it was an incident later in the conflict that was to seal her lifelong hatred of fascism and warfare. In November 1938, she was working in Portbou, north of Barcelona, when an unusually large intake of child patients arrived in the hospital, all with disfiguring injuries to their hands and faces. Writing to her sister Agnes, Murray related how Italian aeroplanes had dropped
pretty little cigarette boxes and chocolate boxes with hand bombs neatly packed inside. The poor little mites of children picking up what they took to be the long-desired chocolate and quickly opening them were suddenly left handless, their faces burned beyond recognition. Nothing could surely be more brutal. What a bloody awful war this has been.
A conflict initially waged through field methods mirroring those of the Great War now featured civilian aerial attacks with all their intrinsic, callous brutality. As Murray had witnessed, in Spain modern warfare was born.
Though embroiled in the world of medicine, Murray’s time in Spain allowed her to develop her political interests and views. Like her brothers, she had a great deal of faith in the Soviet Union, writing of Muscovite policy on Spain that ‘we trust her [the Soviet Union] to do what is best in the long run’. Diametrically opposed to Murray’s belief in the Soviet Union was her sense that the British Labour Party’s policy on Spain amounted to ‘criminal’ inaction. In early 1937, she wrote home ‘When are the Labour leaders in Britain going to come to their senses and do something about saving Spain?’, a question echoed in her subsequent letters from Spain.
Having been posted to Barcelona in the first half of 1937, Murray had a first hand view of the internecine squabbles among republicans that were to rock that city in May 1937:
The political situation in Catalonia is very complicated. There are so many different parties, and until one had actually lived in the district, it is very difficult knowing just who is who.
Prior to the civil war inside a civil war that broke out in Barcelona, Murray was moved back to the Huesca region, to a hospital at Poleniño, where she continued to treat both republican and nationalist patients, the latter of whom were surprised by the care they received, as she wrote to her brother Tom:
We have dealt with many hundreds of seriously wounded men, and incidentally a dozen or more of them were fascists who were delighted with the treatment received in our hospital, and want to join the government side.
Conditions at Poleniño, largely through better organisation and increased government and foreign aid, were a huge improvement on those at Grañen. Murray and her co-workers were able to turn a private house
into an almost model hospital with sinks and basins of running water near the theatre – cold water only but such an advantage over Grañen with no running water at all. We have managed to make a very nice operating theatre which is praised by all who see it.
Annie Murray with an ambulance lorry, many of which were purchased following the efforts of the British aid movement.
Such medical improvements, coupled with her political faith, left Annie Murray with an unshakeable faith in republican victory that lasted almost until the end of the conflict. Even after the March 1938 capitulation in Aragon she remained convinced of government triumph, remarking, ‘Spain, I think, is going to go right forward now to victory after a short spell of setbacks.’
This resilience could not mask the fatigue that came with extended spells in Spain without leave and the hopelessness generated by not knowing just how long the war would last:
I wish things would get a move on. We expected to be out here for three or four months and we have been here now seven and there is little sign of a stoppage yet.
It is a tribute to Murray’s dedication that at the conclusion of her first leave period for 14 months, in September 1938, she returned straight to the front, abstaining from the home comforts of Scotland for a life at war once again.
After a year in Spain, Annie Murray was moved again, this time south-west, to Huete, where she was appointed head nurse and put in charge of training new recruits. Happily, her wounded brother George was able to obtain a transfer there from a hospital in Murcia. He immediately wrote home boasting of her status as ‘a favourite with patients and staff’, and mentioning her fluent Spanish.
Through 1937, Murray felt increasingly that the nationalist air force was specifically targeting hospitals, sometimes successfully; a fellow nurse had lost an arm in a raid on a nearby American hospital. A further worry was the state of hospital equipment and Murray frequently dispatched missives home to press the British Medical Aid Committee into sending surgical instruments and medical clothing. Within this atmosphere of hardship grew a sense of camaraderie. Perceiving the importance of morale, Murray organised activities for patients and staff, such as 1937’s Christmas Day fiesta, reported on here in a letter to Tom Murray:
I made with help a large Christmas pudding enough for 200 people, and it lasted for two days. It took four men to lift it into the pot. I went down to Murcia to buy such things as nuts, raisins, fruits etc. for the dinner, then spent the evening preparing the fruit. We had a concert in the afternoon, the dinner at 6 o’clock and a dance at night. It was a very enjoyable function. The young Spanish lads and girls are ve
ry good, natural actors, and they worked hard for this.
In April 1938, Nurse Murray was transferred to Barcelona again. She journeyed across Spain on a medical train which frequently came under nationalist fire. She admitted that republican morale was low but sought comfort in her political faith, writing that ‘Russia had the same struggle before it was victorious.’ In Barcelona, Murray worked for a Spanish surgeon and his team, though remained ‘very anxious to get to the front again as I like it there better than anywhere else.’
Her wish was soon granted; from late May 1938, she found herself working on a hospital train, marginally behind the front line of engagement. During the Ebro campaign, the three Murrays were often within metres of a frontier reunion. However, though she treated many of their comrades, Annie was unable to meet directly with her brothers, writing, ‘it is tantalising to think that we are so near each other and yet cannot meet’.
After an intensive time on the hospital train, where staff worked 24-hour shifts, Annie Murray was finally granted that long-overdue period of leave. She reflected upon her time at the Ebro in a letter to George and Tom:
By my experiences I have more idea of something of what you boys must have come through. As you say it is a wonder any human being is normal again after the dreadful things he has to come through in a war and especially such an offensive as that one you have seen.
On her return from leave, Murray found herself glad to be back in a country whose people she had fallen in love with regardless of its bloody war. In November 1938, she commented to Tom:
I feel very glad to be back here again; the people are so bright and optimistic, it doesn’t seem to get one down like the continued moaning of most British people. They are a lovely and most kind-hearted race. I could stay here always.
Annie Murray’s optimistic mood on her return was to be short-lived. As 1939 began, nationalist victory seemed increasingly inevitable, and in February she began the journey north from Barcelona towards France. On the way, she treated the walking wounded and volunteered to work in a refugee camp. She described the horror and destitution of the people she saw on that final journey:
I never want to see anything like it again. Hell is putting it mildly. This has left a black mark in my memory which I shall never be able to throw off.
Her last act of the Spanish war was to locate a friend of the Murray family, Margaret Powell, who had been working in Spain, and obtain her release from a concentration camp near Perpignan. Murray then flew to Toulouse and took a ferry back to Britain, arriving alone and unheralded in London Victoria station, the silent and unassuming Scottish heroine of a titanic battle. ‘It was,’ she later said, ‘the most important thing of my life. It was a terrific experience I would never like to have missed. I have certainly no regrets at having gone there at all.’20
PART 2
Scotland’s War
CHAPTER 8
The Home Front:
Scottish Aid for Republican Spain
I would say that there’s never been the like of it in this country. I cannae think of any village or town in the country where there were not masses of people who were involved in raising money for Spain.
James Miller, Methilhill
WHEN CIVIL WAR erupted in Spain, Scotland rallied to the republican cause with remarkable speed and commitment. Initially, money and food were collected by individuals, forming an unofficial humanitarian response that was to be gradually succeeded by more formal and sustained campaigns. Reaction to Spain’s plight was immediate, instinctive and characterised by a generosity above and beyond the call of duty and the reality of means available.
Concerts, fiestas and film showings were staged to raise both funds and awareness, and ‘Flag Days’ for Spain became a regular feature of Scottish life. Such was the scale of the aid Spain movement in Scotland, on 8 April 1937, CPGB leader Harry Pollitt felt able to declare in the Daily Worker that ‘Scotland does better than any other part of the country in its contribution to our fund.’
A large proportion of aid for Spain work was carried out by working class women. Prams were utilised for collecting food from door-to-door, tins rattled on street corners, and fundraising events were meticulously and prolifically organised. Women, previously excluded from the male world of party politics and trade unionism, became impassioned and emboldened supporters of republican Spain, the volunteers of the home front.
Their work was complemented by that of a woman far more familiar with the political sphere. The Duchess of Atholl was Conservative MP for Kinross and West Perth, and the first Scotswoman to be elected to the Commons. From the instant civil war started in Spain, she campaigned fervidly for the rights of the elected republican government and its citizens, incurring the wrath of her largely pro-Franco Conservative peers. Indeed, her support for the republic more or less ended her political career.
Publicity material for a two-day fundraising fiesta and fair organised by the Edinburgh and District Emergency Committee for Spanish relief.
The Duchess became chair of both the National Joint Committee for Spanish Relief (formed in November 1936) and the Basque Children’s Committee. She toured Scotland on numerous occasions to muster support and funds for the cause, stirring audiences into action with her oratory. In a meeting at St Andrew’s Hall, Glasgow, on 18 January 1939, the Duchess showed that in spite of mounting republican setbacks and the effects of two and a half years of campaigning, she remained tireless in pursuit of her enemies and aims:
Franco’s victory in Spain means Hitler all over Europe. Franco claims to have two million people in lists who have committed ‘political crimes’ and if he wins they will be sent to concentration camps.
While the Duchess retained many conservative views – in her autobiography she stated that she supported republican Spain for the protection of British interests – neither her commitment to the cause of Scottish aid nor her political prescience can be doubted.
To coordinate fundraising efforts, from August 1936 joint aid boards were established in cities, towns and even villages across Scotland under the banner of Atholl’s National Joint Committee for Spanish Relief. By mid-1937, Glasgow alone had 15 such groups. Though political hostilities often made harmony between different committees difficult, a unified Scottish Joint Committee for Spanish Relief was eventually established in February 1938. In May Edinburgh and Glasgow campaigners brought about an alliance of their respective trades councils to fight under the banner of ‘Arms for Spain’, reflecting a definite shift in the campaign movement towards demanding military aid alongside humanitarian. On the 15th of that same month, a ‘broad church’ group, including the Duchess of Atholl, Labour MP Wilfred Roberts and communist British Battalion Commander Fred Copeman, held a rally in Glasgow to demand for republican Spain the right to buy weapons.
Collecting for Spain on a ‘Flag Day’ in Aberdeen, 1937. Such events were held several times a year in cities, towns and villages across Scotland for the duration of the Spanish Civil War.
Yet the progress of such joint campaigns continued to be checked by members of the Labour Party and STUC hierarchy who were irrevocably opposed to working with communists or members of the ILP, as the CPGB found when it instigated a campaign to engender solidarity.
The Unity Campaign was announced in the pages of the Daily Worker over the festive period of 1936. From the beginning of the fighting in Spain, the Worker had been a focal point for republican fundraising. In the first week of December 1936 alone, reader contributions amounted to £1,700, with a healthy sum from Scotland included in that total. Donating to the Worker’s appeal, a couple from Edinburgh wrote in with an accompanying note that hinted at the impoverished context in which so many Scots offered what aid they could: ‘Please accept from man and wife the sum of one shilling towards Spanish workers. Sorry we can’t send more. The reason is not hard to explain.’
The Unity Campaign was a joint venture between the CPGB, the ILP and the Socialist League wing of the Labour Party; it was
founded, according to its manifesto, to demand ‘unity of all sections of the working class against fascist reaction, war and the National Government.’ Groups striving to help republican Spain would now, it was held, work together. There was considerable support in Scotland for the Campaign, and a number of large meetings were staged, culminating in a gathering at St Andrew’s Hall in September 1937, when 3,000 people listened to speeches by Stafford Cripps, the group’s figurehead, and International Brigader George Aitken.
On 3 February 1937, the Glasgow Herald labelled the Unity Campaign a ‘grouping of extremists who pose a threat to democracy’, while the Labour Party leadership denounced it from its inception, refusing to work with any movement containing CPGB members. Without their key support, and after splits with the ILP, the Unity Campaign struggled to make a tangible impact and gradually fizzled out.
While national movements proved difficult to build, galvanising local activity was more straightforward. The Scottish aid campaign for republican Spain largely revolved around activities in Glasgow and the surrounding areas. May Day 1937 can be taken as a yardstick indicating how entrenched support was there for the Spanish republic. It was the largest May Day rally since 1926, the year of the General Strike; 15,000 people turned out to march in endorsement of the day’s main theme, ‘Solidarity with Spain’. Of three resolutions passed at the conclusion of the rally, two were in support of republican Spain. The attendees roared with approval as the second resolution, sending ‘Greetings to the comrades of all countries fighting in the International Brigades for the restoration of democracy’, was read out.
The mood was summed up by a teenager from Paisley, who wrote in to the Daily Worker with a donation of 1s. 6d., his pocket money, and a demand to be allowed to fight in Spain where he promised to ‘dust the pants off every fascist that comes my way’. Indeed, pocket money was regularly diverted to the Spanish cause by local youths, as a retailer from Bellshill confirmed in a March 1937 edition of the Worker:
Homage to Caledonia Page 10