The People's Festival Celebrating Chartism

Preston Peoples Festival: Sat 16 June 2018 

Festival Facebook page here.       Blog Preston post here.

The March of the Banners will take place after the dedication ceremony to the life of Mary Slater, a Preston nurse and heroine of the Spanish Civil War.

Banners ready for midday please at the Peace Garden, Friargate. The Banner March will move of at 12-30 led by the Lostock Hall Brass band.

Mary Slater served as a nurse with the International Brigade to help combat Franco's fascism. She was born in Preston on 24 January 1903, baptised 11 February at Preston St Mary's. Her parents were Charles Stephen and Mary Jane Slater and her father was a biscuit maker. They lived at 27 Ephrain Street.

Mary Slater

Mary was originally a weaver and via a trade union scholarship trained as a nurse. She was active in politics from an early age and was a lifelong anti-fascist. In 1931 Mary qualified as a nurse and when the Spanish civil War broke out in 1936 she went there and later joined up with the International Brigade to help combat Franco's fascism. She served in field hospitals. Many were without water which was brought in by cart. Sometimes Mary and other nurses were accommodated in local homes and schools but often they had to sleep in the open. On one occasion they converted a slaughterhouse near the fighting line into a hospital. They carried out hundreds of operations and nursed both soldiers and civilians, many of whom had pneumonia. There was no heating and they only had a few blankets. She nursed in a hospital where typhoid and dysentery broke out. Supplies were short and they only had methylated spirits and creosote to use as disinfectants. Their food often consisted only of dry bread and beans. 

She twice returned home to Britain for rest but during her rest periods, she toured the UK extensively with members of the International Brigade to raise money for Spanish Aid. Mary stayed in Spain until the civil war ended and was repatriated to Britain in August 1938. On her return, she nursed in the London Blitz. After she returned to Preston in 1945, she became matron of Ribbleton Day Nursery and then transferred to Deepdale Hospital until she retired. Mary died on 30 November 1983.

There are tapes of interviews with Mary Slater recorded in 1975 in the Imperial War Museum collections. The Imperial War Museum gives an outline of what the tapes contain, including these facts: Mary Slater was a former worker in a cotton mill who had attended Hillcroft College and then trained as a state registered nurse in London She left for Spain in 1936 without giving them notice, for which she was fined £5. This was ultimately paid by the Medical Aid Unit for Spain. "Is true working-class, having been a Lancashire mill girl before she trained as a nurse". There is a News Chronicle cutting in December 1938 with a picture of her accompanying 55 wounded from Spain to Victoria Station.