Harry Brown
Brown was a Coventry Communist shop steward, prominent in the city during the Second World War.
The famous air raid on the city, which came on the evening of 14th November 1940, saw the Communist Party rising to the occasion.
A specific instance of the indominitable spirit that was nurtured by the Communists was ensuring that, within two days of the disaster, that local Daily Worker sales were resumed. It was the only paper available in the city.
Brown recalled the following about this:
“Frank Magee brought some Daily Workers up from London in an ancient Austin Seven that was blown off the road twice on the way up. On one occasion he pulled it back on by borrowing a farmer’s horses. He called on me dirty and tired with this huge pile of Daily Workers at about 4.00 in the morning. I got another Party member and we stood in Broadgate just after daybreak. We made people, indeed ordered them, line up to buy the paper. It was a most delightful experience. We had a line of people of many hundreds all patiently waiting for their penny copy of the Daily Worker.”
Sources: `Coventry and Communism’ James Hinton (1980); Jack Cohen in `World News and Views’ 7th March 1942
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