siege of Huesca, some 50 miles away. Eric Blair's background, prep school and Eton and his experience in Burma as police officer, are well known. The backgrounds of the other members of the contingent were diverse. Members were recorded as coming from South Africa (Buck Parker), the United States (Harry Milton, Wales, Belfast (Paddy O'Hara), Chorley, Larkhall, Glasgow (Charles Doran), Anglesey, Manchester, Bristol (Tom Coles), Dartford, Bingley, Twickenham and Golders Green. Four had fought in the First World War: Martin, who had gone to Spain driving the ambulance with Edwards and who, because of his experience in artillery, had stayed on; Doran; Harry Thomas of London and Arthur Chambers, who died in 1938 after transferring to a CNT unit. Few others, apart from Harry Webb, the stretcher-bearer and O'Hara, who had some training in first aid, had either military or medical experience. War experiences Arriving at the Lenin Barracks in Barcelona, where they were initially stationed, on 10 January, a discussion circle was formed. Whilst the discussion group centred on political issues the group was not solely concerned with such topics. A social secretary was also appointed to 'arrange concerts and entertainments' and a sports secretary was elected with a hasty football match organised between the ILPers and a team of Spanish militia-men. The training received at the Barracks was notoriously short and at the end of January the ILP contingent, as the British section of the POUM militia, began their journey, stopping off at Lerida, where they were visited by the ILP's representative in Spain, John McNair, before leaving for the area surrounding Huesca on the Aragon Front on 2 February. At the front, the contingent took over three advanced posts, about 100 yards distant from the others, joined by communication trenches. The outposts, on the slope of the hills looking west, were about two hundred yards from the nearest Nationalist lines on the opposite slopes looking east. Bob Edwards, reporting in the New Leader, the ILP's weekly paper, was keen to stress the most 'exciting' aspects of the unit's work. He wrote about scouting within hearing distance along the Nationalist lines with Blair, of holding their position and dealing with the desertion of Nationalists. The main descriptions of fighting against the Nationalists which appears both in Homage to Catalonia and in the New Leader, concerned a night attack in which some of the contingent took part resulting in