The Communist general secretary of Britain's non-Communist coal miners' union is a twittery little Welshman named Arthur Horner. At 12 he was a wobbler (the boy who lathers customers' faces in barbershops); in his teens, he was a Baptist preacher, calling on the coalowners to repent of their "anti-working-class sins" before it was too late. In & out of jail, "Li'l Arthur" Horner worked wonders for the miners, and they loved him for it. Most of them thought he was simply daft when he announced, in 1947, that "if there were a possibility of war with Russia, the [British] coal fields...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
