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Maxine Peake on South Bank for Spanish Civil War commemoration

London SE1 website team

Actress Maxine Peake was among the guests at this year's ceremony in Jubilee Gardens to remember the British and Commonwealth volunteers who fought in the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War.

Maxine Peake on South Bank for Spanish Civil War commemoration
Maxine Peake on South Bank for Spanish Civil War commemoration

Maxine Peake read an English translation of a rap about the Spanish Civil War in La Rioja by David Merino of Perro Lobo.

This year is the 80th anniversary of the start of the Spanish Civil War.

On the first Saturday of July a ceremony of remembrance is held at the International Brigades memorial in Jubilee Gardens on the South Bank.

The memorial – by sculptor Ian Walters – was unveiled in 1985 by former Labour Party leader Michael Foot to honour the 2,500 volunteers from Britain, Ireland and the Commonwealth who travelled to Spain to fight alongside Spanish republicans against the right-wing uprising led by General Francisco Franco.

Only one British veteran of the International Brigades survives: Stan Hilton, aged 98, a former merchant seaman from Newhaven, Sussex, who now lives in a nursing home near Melbourne, Australia.

At this year's ceremony the first wreath was laid by Labour peer Baroness Royall of Blaisdon, former leader of the House of Lords.

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