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.

In 1919 Short married the 16-year-old Phyllis and shortly afterwards their first child Doris was born. After the 1924 and 1926 miners’ strikes Short joined the Communist Party — as a result of this and the 1926 General Strike he was blacklisted. Unable to mine coal, Short eventually found work mining anhydrite at the recently opened mine at Billingham.

In 1929 Short was elected to the central committee of the CP. In 1930 he and his best friend and comrade Wilf Jobling travelled to Russia to study at the International Lenin School (ILS) in Moscow; the “revolutionary university” for communist leaders, studying there for almost three years, spending some time on the construction of the Moscow metro.

On his return the family moved to Stockton when Short got a job in the Billingham anhydrite mine that became part of the ICI chemical plant, he lost his job when the police informed managers of his CP membership.

Short was the CP district secretary for Teesside, whilst Jobling was the CP district secretary for the North East Coast, effectively North Durham and Tyneside. Both Short and Jobling were also District organisers for the National Unemployed Workers Movement (NUWM) which was the CP’s response to the problem of unemployment. The NUWM is possibly best known for the national hunger marches, first organised by the CP in 1922. There were further national marches organised in 1929, 1930, 1932, 1934 and 1936.

On his return from Moscow Short led the Stockton contingent on the 1932 march, with Phyllis part of the 25-strong women’s contingent. Short organised the Stockton contingents on the 1934 and 1936 hunger marches.

On their return in October 1932 the Stockton magistrates banned Short’s NUWM Saturday evening surgeries that were held at the Market Cross on Stockton’s high street. In response Short relocated, instead helping the unemployed in the churchyard of the Holy Trinity Church and holding his political meetings at the Five Lamps in Thornaby. He also organised a series of sit-down protests at Stockton’s Market Cross.

In April 1933 Short and Phyllis were arrested for defying the ban and speaking at the Market Cross, jointly charged with disturbing the peace — and she was additionally charged with assaulting a policeman.

At the magistrates’ court Short refused to be bound over to keep the peace and was sentenced to three months in Durham Prison, where he joined his close friend Jobling. When the 5-foot tall Phyllis was asked if she had assaulted the 6-foot 6-inch policeman standing next to her, her shrug reduced everyone in the magistrates’ court to fits of laughter.

Found guilty, Phyllis reluctantly, for the sake of their children, agreed to be bound over.

“I was in prison when the first attempt by the Mosley fascists to organise their first meeting on Teesside happened and that was in Stockton — they held a meeting on Stockton Cross — and whilst it was a rowdy meeting, they carried it off,” remembered Short.

On his release Short and Phyllis organised real resistance to the next BUF meeting due to be held on Sunday September 10 1933. Short and Phyllis organised a crowd reported to be 3,000 strong. Teesside also had a strong Young Communist League branch, one of the largest in the country and with its own premises.

The BUF’s national propaganda officer Captain Vincent Collier was unable to speak, despite the support of 100 blackshirts, most of whom had been specially bussed in from the BUF’s Manchester “defence force.” The police ordered the abandonment of the meeting and helped the BUF to withdraw, escorting them back to their buses.

The police report states: “The fascists appeared to be keen on fighting and we had to give them a sharp reminder to get moving and get away out of the town before any further damage was done.”

It was a hugely significant setback for the BUF on Teesside, resulting in the BUF’s north-east organiser, Michael Jordan, submitting a long and rather acrimonious resignation letter. He left the fascist movement, taking a number of experienced activists with him.

When the Spanish civil war broke out 36,000 men and women volunteered for the International Brigade. As Communist Party district secretary Short vetted and organised the 21 Teesside volunteers for liberty who joined up — seven did not return.

“My job became a very difficult job because comrades who wanted to go to Spain had to report to me,” he said. “When these lads fell, it was my job to go and visit their relatives and explain to them that they had fallen and it was a very hard job.”

Short and Phyllis also organised the Aid for Spain campaign on Teesside, raising funds and supplies for humanitarian aid. They also worked with Ruth Pennyman who had arranged for 37 Basque refugee children to be cared for at the colony at Hutton Hall, Guisborough.

In 1938, Short successfully persuaded Middlesbrough dockers not to load the SS Haruna Maru with pig-iron bound for Japan, one of the first industrial actions in British ports in protest against the Japanese war effort in Manchuria.

After the second world war Short and Phyllis organised Ban the Bomb demonstrations, which later developed into CND. They were also both active in the campaign for pensioners rights; this was when they resurrected the surgeries, this time however they were not for the unemployed but to assist their fellow pensioners in dealing with benefits claims.

The nationwide campaigning led to the graduated retirement benefit in 1961 and then, in 1978, to the State Earnings-Related Pension Scheme. Ever the campaigner, in the 1960s Short volunteered to be a “lollipop man” — when he found there was a variance in pay and conditions he campaigned for uniformity and once again was successful.

In the 1970s and 1980s they campaigned and help establish the Teesside Pensioners Association, linking many local pensioners’ clubs together. Through an agreement with the local unions and major employers like ICI, employees could donate a penny a week to the central organisation. They lobbied for free bus passes — Sheffield had been the first to achieve this and Teesside became one of the next.

It saddens me that the only commemoration to them is a neglected and largely ignored plaque which is trodden on by the occasional shopper as they hurry across the high street. For this reason, I have begun to campaign for the erection of a plaque to be hung proudly on the house that still stands at 25 Derby Terrace in Thornaby.

I want my local community to know about this magnificent couple who campaigned for the disadvantaged on Teesside and who fought for a better world: they saw injustice locally, nationally and internationally and took action. I think the whole world should know about George and Phyllis — but a little local recognition will do as a start.