The BBC series Ridley Road dramatising events surrounding the British fascists lead by Colin Jordan in the 1960’s has captured the public imagination. But for families like mine it is less of a historical drama and more our heritage and a part of our family history.
For my family Colin Jordan isn't an on-screen bogeyman, but the person that my grandmother answered the phone to when he rang to say he was going to firebomb her house. The reason being my Family were in his way. This is their story.
Like other young servicemen, my grandfather, David Brooke, had been politicised during the war and he wound up becoming a councillor for West Ham. He would speak all over the borough, and most notably, opposite Forest Gate station where Sir Oswald Mosley used to speak. My grandmother helped run Ivri Maccabi in Forest Gate and she knew an ex-boxer who helped out there. So as well as youngsters, many boxers also used to turn up to support David. Fights often broke out and David would pay their fines.
It was inevitable that David would confront Colin Jordan after he wrote to the Council Clerk asking to hire the Town Hall for a rally. When the request was read out David spoke against it, arguing that just as they would not let the hall out to communists, neither should they let it to the fascists. He was supported loudly and the request was refused. But Colin Jordan was furious and organised a campaign against David.
And so the fascists put up a BNP candidate to stand against him in his ward. The Stratford Express published a letter claiming that this candidate was a resident of Poplar who was unsuccessfully seeking work. David smelt a rat, and painstakingly established that the story was false with the Daily Mail publishing his findings. From then on he received a series of threatening phone calls and the family had to be wary about even opening the front door.
David has people on the inside letting him know when marches were happening. In those days if you set up a stall where the march was intending to go, the police were supposed to defend the first one attending. So David made sure he was there first. Often by himself and sometimes all night, just waiting for a mob of fascists to descend. He heard the BNP were going to hold a meeting over by Wanstead flats and spend the night there to secure their pitch and with it, the right to speak. So he took his small card table, posters and a chair and went there to stay for the night. Eventually, Colin Jordan arrived and confronted him. David spotted he was carrying a Bible and asked how he could read it and do what he did. Jordan replied “it was either a case of joining the fascists or joining the Communists, and so I decided to join the fascists.”
Reinforcements arrived, with ten car loads of Jewish youngsters from Ilford. But in the morning an open lorry of men arrived, all wearing Nazi style uniforms. Jordan shouted over the loudspeaker that Councillor Brooke was stopping him holding his rally. It looked like there was going to be a brutal finale, but fortunately the dockers turned up, relishing the action. Finally the police arrived, moving the fascists far away across the fields where no one could hear their message.
A similar thing happened at Ridley Road, on the corner where it met Dalston High Street. There was a lot of fighting when they found David there, and it mostly involved the same people from the previous clash.
He told me about how he gatecrashed their meetings and confronted them, pointing at individuals and noting how they were different and that punishing people for the differences between us was wrong. He appealed to the better side of their human nature. I recall perhaps 15 years ago, in his old age he showed me that he still received threatening letters. The one I saw was crudely cut-out of newspaper headlines, with the letters reordered to read ‘The Jews killed Jesus’. Someone took time to craft this statement of hatred. Of course, these days they can simply post it on social media and they regularly do.
I am so glad my grandfather explained to me what happened and why he did what he did. Hatred towards Jews must never be allowed to take hold, and the people spreading it need to be stopped. Jordan's fascists just wanted to cause havoc, get publicity and terrorise the Jewish community. They were well funded but it was never likely to take off in a big way. Most of the country hated Nazis and were therefore by definition anti-fascist, especially in the East End where so many livelihoods and lives were destroyed by the Nazi bombings. But these things can fester.
In the literature Colin Jordan and the fascists used, I recognised many of the ideas being recycled by the left after Jeremy Corbyn came to power. Some of it could be rebranded and you would struggle to decipher which decade or political tribe it belonged to. It’s why I refused to stand by and let this thinking enter the mainstream without a battle. And I remember why never again isn’t a slogan. It’s an action.
