Lately in the news there have been a lot of pieces about protesters using fireworks against the police and this reminded me of Cambridge in the 1930s when there was a fight between Labour / Communist supporters with people who had gone to see the film Our Navy Fighting (1937). Today most people think of Cambridge has a tory place but in the 30s it was quite a Labour city, with the area of Mill Road called Red Romsey due to amount of Russians who had moved there and labour supporters. The Suffragettes had meetings there during the First World War and there was a strong anti war feeling in the fun up to the Second World War.
UNDERGRADS’ TUSSLE WITH POLICE Fireworks were discharged and stink bombs thrown, police truncheons drawn, and a man was knocked into the River Cam, when 500 undergraduates, with band and banner, marched on Thursday night to a Cambridge cinema, where the film, “Our Fighting Navy,” was being shown. The police had a hard struggle to prevent the marchers entering the cinema. and in the midst of the turmoil a man, who had shouted “This is war propaganda” during ( the showing of the film. was ejected. A procter and his officers, forewarned of the intended demonstration, awaited the marchers in the vestibule of the cinema. One undergraduate, who tried to enter the cinema, was seen by an attendant and knocked from a wall into the river. There was a sharp clash between under- graduates and members of the “No More War Association,” a number of whom were roughly handled.
Friday 10th November 1933