From the outside, The De Winton Hotel in the Welsh town of Tonypandy looks like any other village pub. Ownership has recently changed hands and the interior is brightly lit, with leafy green wallpaper and dozens of empty chairs. A small group of local drinkers eyes us warily as we enter and order three drinks and bags of crisps from the friendly woman behind the bar.
We’re here to find out what remains of the pub that was linked to an anti-fascist confrontation in the village nearly a century ago. On 11 June 1936, Tommy Moran, a former miner and propagandist with the British Union of Fascists (BUF) was sent by party leader Oswald Mosley to the Welsh Valleys to hold a rally in the nearby De Winton Field. But the gang had vastly underestimated the resistance in the local mining communities, where industrialization and trade unionism had already politicized generations of people.
