Stephen Fullarton (23 August 1919, Glasgow, Scotland - 29 February 2008, Edinburgh, Scotland) was the last survivor of the more than 500 Scottish men and women who volunteered to serve on the republican side in the Spanish Civil War. Early life Fullarton, a native of Elvan Street, Shettleston, Glasgow, left school at 14 and worked to earn money for the upkeep of his family, a task made all the more onerous by the death of his father two years later. His early employment included a role scooping up manure from local streets to sell on, but he eventually worked his way to a mechanical engineering apprenticeship. Through 1937, Fullarton saw footage of events in Spain which were to push him into action. "It was the bombing of civilians that really got on my nerves. I would go to the cinema and see that on the newsreel, see the women running with the bairns in their hands, eyes turned skywards for the planes, to see if they were coming." He began to attend street meetings, listening to and imbibing the words of charismatic soap-box orators such as the returning International Brigader James Maley, a recent prisoner of war. Fullarton became increasingly involved with the cause of republican Spain, collecting money and non-perishable foods, and chalking local roads with announcements of street meetings. For him, the next step, volunteering for action in Spain, was merely a logical progression of actions rather than an ideological decision or the result of any coercion by local political groups. Spanish Civil War & World War 2 In early 1938, with the Communist Party having agreed to his suitability for Spain, Fullarton informed a local friend, Willie Gauntlet, of the news. Gauntlet replied: "Oh. I'll go too." This was hardly atypical of the area – from Fullarton's close and the four surrounding it, he, Gauntlet and two other men, Jimmy Reid and Willie Dougan, were to serve in Spain. In March 1938, aged 18, Fullarton set off by train from Glasgow Central for London Euston alongside five other Scottish volunteers. In London, they purchased weekend train tickets for Paris so as not to arouse the suspicions of the authorities (Britain's non-interventionist government strictly forbade anyone from volunteering to fight in Spain, and invoked the 1870 Foreign Enlistment Act to make it illegal for them to do so). From Paris, volunteers were transferred to the Spanish border for