However, Hubert Tunney also seems to have been caught up in the many-layered machinations of Thornley schoolteacher and Labour Party activist E F Peart, who seemed to be doing all in his power to undermine both Tunney’s political career and his brand of moderate socialism.

The Seaham Division Labour Party in the early 1930s then was a hotbed of intrigue, hostility, suspicion in-fighting and, not least, ambition. The sitting MP, the Prime Minister no less, was no longer a Member of the Labour Party, yet he still enjoyed a great measure of public support in the constituency. Every one had a position on the National Government, the economy and the future direction of the Labour Party.

For middle class left wingers like Coxon and Peart, with well paid and very secure jobs funded from the public purse, grandiose Socialist dreams were easy to talk up and MacDonald was an easy target.

For a Miners’ Lodge leader like Tunney, locked in all manner of delicate negotiations with both management and workers, they were a much more complex proposition. Tunney was at the literal coal face of the British economy. Peart, by contrast had the luxury of a clean white collar and secure employment. Socialist slogans might sound good in a rabble-rousing speech, but they were no use when trying to hammer out a complex agreement on piece work and pennies-per-ton with an obstinate Colliery manager.

But back to Dr Grant. By the time of the November 1935 General Election, Grant was acting as MacDonald’s Constituency Agent in Seaham and actually telephoned him with the news of his disastrous defeat by Shinwell. Shinwell achieved 38,380 and MacDonald only 17,881. As MacDonald, quoted by David Marquand, noted in his diary:

'Dr Grant telephoned in a broken voice: 'I am heartbroken and have had to escape from the counting You must be prepared for a defeat of at least 15,000.'

This then was some of the background to these two surviving notes by Dr W Grant to Hubert Tunney.

The newspaper item at right top is from the Durham County Advertiser in 11/33. The item below, from another, so far unidentified, local newspaper reports on the same speech. The speech suggests that Hubert Tunney’s opposition to the National Government was based on calm reason rather than blind prejudice:

‘......if the National Government cannot do this, their claim to be a National Government is a mere pretence, humbug and sham.....’

NEXT: ‘Peter Lee retires next year’. A 1933 letter from Durham County Councillor D Plews, of Washington.

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