Obituary: Bernard McKenna

Sep 10 2008 by David Charters, Liverpool Daily Post

HIS opinions were formed by what he saw and his politics rose from the streets. Six of his younger brothers and sisters, born into a desperately poor family, had died in infancy.

The need for change was all around his home in the Hulme area of Manchester.

So, Bernard McKenna became a “class warrior”, fighting against fascists on the streets, in the Spanish Civil War, in World War II and then in numerous campaigns.

In later years he would declare, “I am buoyed up by that . . . Franco”, choosing an adjective, which alliterated with the name of the Spanish dictator, who was supported by Hitler and Mussolini in the crushing of the elected Spanish government.

An exhibition at the People’s Centre, in Mount Pleasant, Liverpool, is presently commemorating the Merseyside men, who joined the International Brigades to fight against Franco.

There was a similar mood in Manchester, and McKenna was one of 66 men to go to Spain.

After leaving St Gregory’s Grammar School, Ardwick, McKenna became a textile-mill clerk, but his true interest lay in radical politics and he joined the Labour League of Youth and then the Young Communist League.

In a demonstration against Oswald Mosley’s fascists, outside Hulme Town Hall, he helped push over a tram.

On the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, he started fund-raising for the Republicans. That led to his being enlisted as a brigader. He was wounded at Brunete, in July, 1937. On the Aragon front, he was wounded by shrapnel, and then shell-shocked. He almost died in hospital but recovered, and fought again.

In 1938, he was captured by Italians on the River Ebro and taken to a camp in Burgos, where was interrogated by the Gestapo, already anxious to eliminate Europe’s Communists.

He was taken to the town’s outskirts, expecting to be executed, but was randomly chosen for a prisoner exchange.

During World War II, McKenna served in north Africa, the Middle East and Italy. After demobilisation, he became a teacher in Manchester, specialising in the education of the disadvantaged.

Stalin’s post-war policies persuaded McKenna to leave the Communist Party and join Labour, which he left in the 1990s as a protest against Tony Blair’s policies, to join the Socialist Workers’ Party.

He married twice and had five children.

Bernard McKenna, anti-fascist; born September 11, 1915, died July 31, 2008