Remembering Hull's heroes

Audrey Wardle with a portrait of her husband as a child with his father

Audrey's grand-children at the cemetery where their great-grandfather was re-buried

An image of an International Brigade soldier

Honouring the volunteers from Hull who fought in the Spanish Civil War

All she has left are photographs and memories.
But Audrey Wardle wants to carry on her late husband's passion to commemorate the lives of the men lost to the Spanish Civil War.
In 1937, Robert was just five years old when his world was turned upside down because his father was killed in the Spanish Civil War, and the impact was lifelong.
Until his own death in 2005, Robert made huge efforts to raise the profile of the International Brigade, with whom his father fought.
"It was made up of volunteers from all walks of life," says Audrey.
"Rob's father was a dock labourer and a union steward. He felt so strongly about the rise of fascism that he wanted to do something about it.
"But he couldn't tell his family where he was going, because it was illegal to fight for another country's army."

The rise of the right
Historians ask the question: if the fascists led by General Franco had been defeated, would Hitler's Nazis, without their Spanish ally, have been in a strong enough position to start World War II?
"The volunteers in the International Brigade saw something coming that many others didn't," says Audrey, a grandmother of five from east Hull.
"It was only in the late 70s, after Franco's death, that the Spanish authorities were able to rebury bodies from a mass grave where we believe Rob's dad's body was buried. We erected a plaque in the new cemetery."

Rededication ceremony
Meanwhile, Robert had also managed to have another plaque erected in Hull, at the Guildhall, as a tribute to the Hull volunteers who fought in the International Brigade.
And this month, on February 21, exactly 17 years to the day since the plaque was first erected in 1990, it will be rededicated in a special ceremony.
This year also marks 70 years since the first death of a Hull volunteer in the Spanish Civil War. His name was Jack Atkinson.
The ceremony will be attended by members of the International Brigade and the anti-fascist organisation Searchlight, as well as Hull City councillors and officers from Humberside Police.
There will also be a screening of the feature film "Land and Freedom," directed by Ken Loach, which tells the story of the friendships between some of the 2,000 members of the International Brigade.