History, Politics & Civil Rights do not get more inspiring than LGBTQ Scot Kath Duncan

Katherine Sinclair MacColl was born in 1889 in Tarbert, Argyll, but lived for most of her youth in Kirkcaldy, Fife, which she always considered her home. Her father died when she was 5 years old and she was raised by her mother, who worked as a seamstress. She was one of the most important political activists of the last century, but her leading role as a campaigner for civil rights and social justice, a feminist, suffragette, anti-fascist, and LGBTQ icon in the Communist party has, until now, all but been erased from both Scottish and English history, despite her close personal and working relationships with prominent people such as Clementine and Winston Churchill.

Both the British and Russian secret services would do their best to secure the services of this so-called ‘Red Herring.’ Duncan was a committed communist, who was active in the party from 1926 and who had spies from various agencies and regimes lodged in her close-knit inner circle until 1948. She had the ear and friendship of Sir Winston Churchill from their first meeting in 1906 until her death in 1954. Churchill was captivated by this striking woman with bright red hair and, at first glance, he was not sure if she was a young man or woman. She claimed to be descendent of the Scottish hero Rob Roy “who would never steal from the poor.” The friendship between this communist and the British Prime Minister was a well-kept secret until it was revealed in my book The Last Queen of Scotland.

Kath married fellow teacher and political activist Sandy Duncan in 1923 and moved from Kirkcaldy to Hackney in London where she became a key feminist and anti-fascist campaigner as part of the leftist activist group around Sylvia Pankhurst, which had established the Communist Party in Great Britain in 1920. Her marriage to Duncan was certainly not the usual kind of marriage as they were both of non-binary sexuality. The General Strike of 1926 and the Invergordon Mutiny of 1931, amongst the leaders of which was her close friend Fred Copeman, would make Duncan a key and committed member of the UK Communist Party; she became a member of its Central Committee in 1929 and, in 1931, she was one of the first working-class women to stand as a parliamentary candidate, for the constituency of Greenwich in South-East London.

In 1930, Duncan, who had been teaching primary-school children in Battersea in South London since 1924, moved to Deptford in South-East London and very soon became a key member of The National Unemployed Workers’ Movement. She was the energetic organiser and prime mover behind the hunger marches that were such a prominent feature of the 1930s, and energetically opposed fascism. Wherever she went, crowds would gather in their hundreds and often thousands to listen to this brilliant orator and lover of amateur dramatics, who, despite her 5ft 2in height, had no trouble attracting rapt attention from her soapbox.

Duncan took the lead in an amazing number of protests and actions, always with her catchphrase, “I will fight to the last ditch!” Organising the unemployed and the poor, she mobilised her entire community to take on slum landlords and to defend market traders who faced being moved away as part of the local council’s gentrification plans; she organised protests by children against welfare reforms with banners stating, “Daddy’s on the Dole;” she was one of the central participants in the famous Battle of Cable Street; she led the march on the gas board against fuel-poverty; and she organised and led protests at the docks against the arms trade, specifically targeting the armaments being loaded to supply the combatants in the Second Sino-Japanese War, which led to many successes as dockers refused to load the munitions. In June 1932, after one such protest, a large group that was returning from the docks to Deptford Broadway were instructed to stop singing the ‘Red Flag’ by the police. When they refused, they were attacked by mounted police in a conflict that became known as the Battle of Deptford Broadway. In the tense aftermath of this battle, Duncan was eventually arrested and charged under laws originally used against the leaders of the 14th-century peasants’ revolt (also linked to Deptford) on a charge of being “a disturber of the peace of our lord the King.” Her case would be the first-ever fought by the Council of Civil Liberties (LIBERTY), which, because of its significance and the high profile of Kath Duncan, led them to rename the organisation, the NATIONAL Council of Civil Liberties. Duncan vs Jones 1936 was a legal and civil-rights sensation at the time. Although she lost the case and served time in Holloway Prison, where she caught the TB that would kill her, the precedent that was set by this trial was still being used to thwart anti-nuclear-weapons protestors at Greenham Common.  Duncan’s case would ultimately lead to a change in the law that would allow all workers the right to protest. No activist in the last century did so much and was involved at such a high level in so many campaigns, while Duncan’s frequent arrests also led to attempts being made in Parliament to prevent her from teaching.

She shared her home with many of the key activists of the time and her house was also a recruiting and vetting centre for volunteers going to the Spanish Civil War, while Kath herself would go tirelessly from door to door to collect money to send ambulances to the fight against fascism. Her friend, Felicia Browne, was the only non-Spanish woman to be killed on the frontline in that war. She had passed herself off as a man in order to be able to fight, and it was only discovered that she was a woman after she had been shot and killed while carrying a wounded comrade from the battlefield. 

On 14th August 1954, back home in Scotland, she died of the TB that she had contracted in prison. In South London, thousands lined the streets to celebrate her life. When a speaker asked the crowd how she should be toasted, a voice piped up: “To the last Queen of Scotland!” Since then, she has largely been forgotten. My book, The Last Queen of Scotland, seeks to put an end to this injustice and restore Kath Duncan to her rightful place as one of the most important civil-rights activists of the previous century. Her story is fascinating in its own right and casts an interesting light on several key moments in 20th-Century British history, while her struggles and campaigns resonate with many of the social and political issues we face today. Kirkcaldy in Scotland is rightly famous as the home of Adam Smith; it is high time that it should also be celebrated as the place that shaped the outlook and radical politics of the extraordinary Kath Duncan. 

Example of play review https://www.thecanary.co/feature/2019/01/12/the-most-groundbreaking-play-of-2019-is-about-to-open-in-london/

Fly the Flag the Original song from the new LGBTQ Civil rights Stage Play Liberty also on sale as a book and ebook, although original song scores NOT in the book contact me directly for the original music score this track perform by singer Julez Hamilton

The Last Queen of Scotland -is the must-buy book ebook biography of this extraordinary woman putting the case why she is the most important UK Civil Rights leader past 100 years, and by rights should be a household name: https://lnkd.in/dCBV_tg

Our website for our Equality and Civil rights work that carries on in her name and the link to our ethical shop selling slogan driven ethical T-Shirts, Bags etc. that make fab gifts as well as fund our cutting edge work

www.kathduncan-equality-civilrights-network.co.uk,

on Twitter @EcrnKath

You can also buy on Amazon Book and Ebook, the stage play and book LIBERTY about Kath Duncan role in establishing the National Council Civil Liberties although the original songs that go with the play you need to contact me directly as NOT in the books in the same way you can buy books directly from me without using amazon.

This is the YouTube clip to the Song I wrote Forbidden Love one of the Songs in my stage play Liberty, although NOT a musical it does have several original songs, this with a clip from our stage play staged as part Deptford Heritage Festival and LGBT History month 2019 https://youtu.be/YO73nkU3wEk