1. The General Strike of 1926 was the culmination of a period of intense industrial conflict in Britain following the failure of the first Labour government, headed by Ramsay MacDonald, in 1924. Britain’s economic position has been seriously affected by the aftermath of the First World War, and a series of strikes by miners against efforts by owners of the mines to lower their wages had left them worse off than they had been in 1914. When the miners struck for better wages in 1926, the Trades Union Congress called a ‘sympathetic’ or General Strike of workers in the major unions to support them. After nine days the General Strike collapsed. The miners struggled on alone for several months but in the end were defeated. The Government made ‘general’ strikes illegal and no left-wing party would hold office in Britain again until 1945.
2. blackleg, a strike breaker.
3. strap, leather belt or tawse used by teachers on the hands of children, often for academic failure as well as disciplinary reasons.
4. Pairish, the Parish Council provided poor relief.
5. double, an accumulating bet on the outcome of two horseraces.
6. The Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917 had established a Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in Russia and its former imperial territories. Fear of Russian influence in Britain had been inflamed by the ‘Zinoviev letter’, which, it was claimed, showed that the Labour Party was acting in the interests of International Socialism. This played a significant part in the failure of the Labour Party to be re-elected after its first term as a minority government in 1924.
7. Bolshie, from Bolshevik, the Russian Revolutionaries.
8. The Red Flag, anthem of the international socialist movement; sung at Labour Party conferences until the 1990s.
9. Carnegie, Andrew Carnegie, Scots multi-millionaire owner of steel factories in the USA.
10. Comic Cuts, magazine of comic strips.