NEW SEPTEMBER 2025.  The General Strike of 1926 is far from being a dry topic from past history.  Its story reveals thinking and attitudes that are interesting and have parallels with today - and the way the railway responded was fascinating and sometimes almost unbelievable.

You get five separate files.  The main one tells the story of the strike - what triggered it, which groups of workers were called to withdraw their labour, why Stanley Baldwin's Conservative government was so determined to crush it, what ordinary people in the country of different classes generally thought about it and so on.  The role of newspapers is considered, and so too are aspects of the efforts of voluntary workers trying to keep the railway running.  Some reminiscences of a Cambrtidge undergraduate of that time are included

File 2 is scans of a very rare confidential handbook of an organisation previously set up by right wingers to try to ensure that in such circumstances the nation's food and fuel got through - complete with a warning to guard against infiltration by Communists!

Files 3 and 4 provide a complete Strike issue of two local newspapers - the Eastern Daily Press at Norwich and the East Anglian Daily Times at Ipswich.

File 5 is the official report on the accident which happened at Bishop's Stortford during the Strike, where a goods train ran into the back of a passenger train and a disembarking passenger was killed.  It gives an excellent insight into the shortcuts the railway had to take in order to get essential supplies through.

All the files are in a zipped folder which you will need to unzip before you can read them.  This folder will be available to download as soon as payment has been made. You go to your account and click on ‘Downloads’. New customers create an account as they place their order.