22
CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
tiny, scmidark, in undcscribable disorder. One child, nude except for a shirt, was crawling on the floor. The other was in a
crib composed of boards against the wall, with more boards
above the first, giving the appearance of twin coffins. Both
children now broke into a howl, disturbing the fuehrer who
was entertaining a guest from the USA.
"Olive!" Burgess shouted again. "Will you get them something to cat!"
After this he turned to me. He was very busy now, he said,
coordinating the resurgent activity of members of former
BUF units who had joined organizations such as the Sons of
St. George in Manchester, British Workers' Party for National
Unity in Bristol, and Imperial Defence League in Derby.
"My own outfit is the Union of British Freedom," he said.
"I kept the initials of the old BUF." He published a hate
sheet, Unify, for "Britain, King and People." It was a counterpart of Gerald L. K. Smith's publication, The Cross and the
Flag, in the States.
"One of the boys has an outdoor meeting today. Want to
come?"
"I'd be delighted," I said. "I'd like to see you fellows at
work."
We walked to a side street near Victoria Park to hear one
of London's leading rabble-rousers, Jeffrey Hamm. An ex-BUF
member, now head of the British League of Fx-Service Men
and Women, Hamm was haranguing a crowd of nearly a thousand persons. They were not a pretty sight. As Burgess stepped
away for a moment to talk to a friend, I climbed on a doorstep and focused my camera to take an over-all picture of the
crowd and the speaker. But a dozen or more listeners began to
glare at me. I promptly closed my camera—began frantically
applauding and cheering Hamm. It was too late.
In twos and threes men began to move toward me. Their
plan, as I knew from experience, was undoubtedly to bottle
me up in the doorway, then push me back into the hallway for
a beating. I caught them off guard by walking directly through