On 24 February 1909, Ethel Macdonald was born in the Scottish town of Motherwell. As a teenager, she moved to Glasgow, worked in retail, and became an active socialist. In 1931 she began a long collaboration with the famous anarchist Guy Aldred. When the Spanish Civil War started in 1936, she helped publish and circulate “Regeneration,” a newssheet that supported the anarcho-syndicalist Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT). And on 20th October 1936, she left Glasgow for Spain, planning to provide English language reports on the revolution in Catalonia and Aragon. She spoke no Spanish, and by the time she got to Paris she had no money and no travel documents. Undaunted, she hitchhiked through France, sneaked across the border, and arrived in revolutionary Barcelona. She sent regular reports, which were published in radical and mainstream Scottish papers, describing how factories and villages were collectivised and how religious buildings were turned into hospitals, libraries, and schools. Her writings also contain interesting social details that help us to picture life in revolutionary times: British volunteers tended to get drunk upon arriving in Spain “perhaps (…) because they are unaccustomed to wine”; men and women soldiers were indistinguishable in dress, except that “all the girls had beautifully permed hair and were strikingly made up.” From January 1937 she achieved fame as the English language voice of the CNT’s anarchist radio station. Her reports were listened to around the world and her Scottish accent proved especially popular in the United States. In May 1937, the Stalinist Communist Party began to purge the anti-fascist movement of revolutionaries who didn’t agree with the Communists’ authoritarian structure. In Barcelona, Ethel helped anarchists defend the barricades against Communist soldiers, and later she smuggled food and letters to imprisoned comrades. She helped foreign anarchists to escape Spain and the British press dubbed her the “Scots Scarlet Pimpernel.” Soon she too was imprisoned by the Communists, and upon her release she went into hiding, moving from house to house as she sheltered among Barcelona’s remaining anarchists. On 24th September 1937, The Evening Times ran the headline, “Miss Ethel Macdonald reaches Paris.” She returned to Glasgow and embarked on a speaking tour across the UK. Following the outbreak of WW2, she received call up papers for the Women’s National Service. She returned them with the words “Get Lost.” When she received further papers, she wrote back, “Come and get me.” The authorities decided against chasing the famous Scots’ Scarlet Pimpernel. She remained active in the radical movement, until she died of multiple sclerosis on 1st December 1960. This our archive of content on the Spanish Civil War: http://ift.tt/2ChqLLW http://ift.tt/2sPo2Fw
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