A heroes welcome for the marchers who arrived home to 'the wildest scenes Jarrow has ever witnessed'

There were cheers, tears and people fainting as the people of Jarrow welcomed the 200 crusaders back to South Tyneside.

Riotous jubilation broke out across the town as the marchers arrived home by train in early November 1936..

Our reporter was there to witness it all and filed this report.

“The crowd half pushed, half carried the marchers from the railway station to the Town Hall. The police, short-handed, were swept aside when the throng surged around Jarrow’s MP Miss Ellen Wilkinson and Cllr D.F. Riley, the march marshal.

“The scene in the main streets and at the railway station as the huge throng stirred and pressed, shouting, cheering, weeping, almost baffles description.

“An hour before the special train which was carrying the men from London was due to arrive men and women began to entrance. Miss Wilkinson came near being trampled on as anyone is likely to and still survive.

“Men seized her hands, women smothered her with kisses, children hugged her. Breathless and weary, she beamed happily upon them all, though few knew that she had eaten nothing since breakfast.”

The crowds had become so huge that the 200 men had become separated from Miss Wilkinson - but they were getting the same incredible reception further down the road.

“Men who had marched 300 miles through fair weather and foul, and had suffered weariness and pain without a murmur, gave way to emotion as the grandeur of the occasion seized them.

“There were tears in many of their eyes.”

The whole procession came to a halt amid the huge crowds - until one drummer stepped forward.

“The drummer, half exhausted by his struggles to lead the band through the crowd to the head of the column, seemed to find new strength to set the drumsticks twirling in the half light. The band struck up a march and with laughter and weeping crowds accompanying us, we moved off.”

“It was more like an army trying to force its way into a town.”

The crush was so intense that men and women fainted, and had to be carried into side streets by police officers to recover. Some unconscious people were taken into the Town Hall.

Eventually, the procession ended at the Town Hall where a meeting was held and Ellen Wilkinson addressed the crowds.

She told the packed audience: “This march has definitely put Jarrow on the map. It has made members of Parliament realise, whether the Government does or not, that something has got to be done for Jarrow.

“We have lighted a fire of sympathy in the House of Commons that will not be put out by Ministerial cold water.”