Peter Donkin
Peter Brown Fordyce Donkin was born on 31st January 1913 to Peter Brown Fordyce and Sarah Ann Donkin of 33 Church Street. Peter Sr was rivet holder at the Short Brothers shipbuilding yard in Pallion, Sunderland, he would serve in the Royal Field Artillery during the First World War. Peter Jr was not their first child, Carthrin had been born in April 1910 which instigated Peter and Sarah’s marriage in the Holy Trinity Church on Sunderland dockside in July 1910; sadly, Carthrin died in October 1911. Peter was followed by four more children, one of these, Nathan, died aged just nine months.
In late 1920, Peter aged seven with Robert Walton aged nine robbed a Post office taking ‘£39 in notes from a drawer.’ As a result Peter was sent to the Boys Industrial School, on Prospect Road, Sunderland; a report says it was “In a very low part of the town, and surrounded by a very poor class of houses”, this less than 100 yards from Church Street where Peter’s parents lived. In 1924 the school was taken over by the Sunderland Education Committee for use as a special school for “mentally defective children.”. In 1930 Peter was again in trouble, along with James Watson (22) the seventeen-year-old Peter was arrested after breaking into a farmhouse in Blackwell, just South of Darlington. In 1935 he was again convicted of stealing gas cookers from empty houses and selling them for scrap metal.
Peter arrived in Spain after the Aragon breakthrough which saw Franco’s forces divide Republican Spain in two. Peter was enlisted into the British Battalion on 22nd April 1938 as ID number 1867 under the name William Jones. He lists as his next of kin ‘a friend’ Olive Airey of 26 Beech Terrace, Blaydon. Olive is the sister of Charlie Woods, the North East Coast district organiser for the Communist Party, and also the mother of Maggie Airey who had been Wilf Jobling’s partner, Wilf had been district organiser before he volunteered for Spain and was killed at Jarama in 1937. The Communist Party records Peter’s mother’s address as 5 Haydon Square, Hylton, Sunderland. Peter joined No.1 the Major Attlee company, commanded by George Fletcher.
On 2nd August 1938 whilst the British Battalion attacked Hill 481 Peter was wounded in the foot and evacuated. Peter was still in the Santa Coloma de Farners Military Clinic when the British Battalion was withdrawn on 23rd September 1938. He arrived in Ripoll on 18th October and was repatriated with the British Battalion on 7th of December 1938. A week later Peter was at the commemorative rally for the North East International Brigade volunteers on 15th January at Newcastle City Hall, which was attended by over 2,000 people.
Compiled by Tony Fox
Solidarity Park 