May Day Processions, Sydney

May Day processions in Sydney were important markers on the fund-raising calendar. Participants and many of the onlookers were members of trade unions or left wing political groups sympathetic to the cause of Spanish Relief. In the 1937 procession, a large truck, driven by Phil Thorne, was covered with posters and reminders of the horror and hardships confronting Spanish refugees. By contrast, the 1938 float reflected a more modern public relations approach in which cheerful music and laughter was designed to draw public attention and perhaps trigger greater generosity than would a display of misery. To highlight the urgency to stop the arms embargo against Spain, the 1938 SRC float drove through Sydney with Spanish music blaring at full volume, a band of collectors on foot shaking donation buckets, while a row of ‘dancing dictators’ performed on the flat bed of a truck.  

From left to right, Mussolini gives the fascist salute; Mosley is wearing a top hat; Hitler is always recognizable by the signature toothbrush moustache; Daladier has turned out in a natty three-piece suit; and at the end of the row is the unlikely tall and skinny stand-in for the short and portly Spanish Caudillo. The banner proclaims ‘Demand the Lifting of Arms Embargo. Help Suffering Spain’. There is no indication in the SRC files whether laughing spectators on the day more readily put their hands in their pockets for Spain than had the subdued spectators of the previous year.