London

Max Levitas, 92
I was born in Ireland and lived in Glasgow before my family came to the East End in 1930. There was masses of political activity in that period. On a Friday night I’d go to the Workers’ Circle at Circle House in Alie Street and there’d be hundreds of people having political discussions. I became secretary of the Mile End Young Comminist League and we were concerned that fascism shouldn’t take a hold here. We were angry that the Tory government was giving support to Hitler to build up armaments.

We heard about the East End march three or four months before and we developed a strategy, with Gardiner’s Corner as the main focus. On the day itself you couldn’t move through Whitechapel. We got hundreds of people into Cable Street, including support from the dockers. My legs were sore from running with messages from one section to another. Then I saw violence break out. Feature continues

The police were on horses with batons and were arresting people as well as beating them with swords and whips. I was scared but people stood in Cable Street and didn’t move. We stood there for about three hours. Then at 3pm, the police commissioner ordered the fascists to disperse and said that no march would take place. People still didn’t move. Then Phil Piratin [Secretary of Stepney Communist Party, later a Communist MP for Mile End] was lifted onto someone’s shoulders and told us the blackshirts weren’t marching. I’ve never felt greater in my life. After the march was called off, eight of us went to the pub – instead of my usual half pint I had a pint to celebrate. I feel extremely proud to have been part of it all.

Nicholas Mosley, 83, 3rd Baron Ravensdale, son of Oswald Mosley
The day of Cable Street I wasn’t actually in London. I was about 13 and I was at my prep school. I only heard about Cable Street after it had happened. But I do know that the story of the anti-fascists valiantly beating off the fascists wasn’t true. My father marched to the Tower of London and was told to wait until the police overturned the barricade at Cable Street. But because of the fighting with the anti-fascists and police, the police commissioner told him he couldn’t march. My father said, ‘Are you giving the order that we can’t march?’ The commissioner said, ‘Yes,’ so my father marched away. After the war he said to me that it was the most ‘terrible propaganda disaster’. I later found out that the reason he turned away so easily was because the next day he was due to marry Diana [Guinness, née Mitford] in Goebbels’ house in Germany [Hitler was one of the guests] and it was a strict secret. I think he was worried that if he had been arrested it would have been reported.

I also have a memory of the big rally in 1934 in Hyde Park. I was with my sister and we were on the roof of the Cumberland Hotel, watching it. I remember seeing my father at the head of the march followed by the blackshirts – although at that time they weren’t wearing the full uniform – they wore black polo necks and grey flannel trousers. The first time they really dressed up was at the Battle of Cable Street; I thought it sounded crazy, all this dressing up and talk of Hitler.

When I talk to Jewish people about Cable Street I try to explain that he had an enormous talent for making people follow him and huge charisma. Many years after the war, he went to a reunion of old blackshirts and when he walked in they all lined up and made the fascist salute and tried to touch the hem of his garment as he passed. He had that kind of effect. One old blackshirt once said to me, ‘We thought your father was a prophet.’ His great failing was that he lacked moral sense.

After the war, when he got involved in politics again around the issue of black immigration to Britain, we had a huge argument. I said, ‘What are you doing? You are either wicked or insane.’ He said, ‘I’ll never speak to you again.’ We never saw each other for seven years. Finally, I went to see him. He was living on the outskirts of Paris, ill with Parkinson’s Disease. We talked a lot about politics and he finally admitted that the Holocaust had happened.

I don’t think he ever would have got in power in Britain. All those who stood as BUF MPs lost their deposits. It was not made up of clever men. And all the talk about him being Hitler’s right-hand man in England is nonsense. Hitler didn’t actually like my father.