The Battle Of Holbeck Moor

 

The day the Fascists came to Leeds

And faced the Yorkshire grit

Of local folk who travelled there

From every mill and pit

To face them down on Holbeck Moor

and still their twisted tongue.

That day a famous battle would be fought

And would be won.

 

The Leylands had been daubed in paint

Swastikas and the like

But in the pubs and factories

there growled the Yorkshire tyke

so thirty thousand residents

stepped out that fateful day

and faced old Mosley’s blackshirt’s

with a will to make them pay

 

The corrupt Lord was raised aloft

Onto the roof of a van

But couldn’t get his words to flow

To hatch his evil plan

As the crowd hurled rocks and cobbles

And many of them sang

The rousing tones of the Red Flag

Many Fascists turned and ran

 

Police protection couldn’t help

The forces of the far Right

When every man and woman there

Was ready for the fight
John Hodgson raised the biggest cheer

As a carefully aimed cobble stone

Hit Mosely flush upon his brow

and raised a Nazi moan.

 

The day the Fascists came to Leeds

The days the Fascists ran

From working class resistance

Was the day we proved we can

Turn back the rich and powerful

No matter how oppressed or poor

We learned a hard fought lesson there

On the fields of Holbeck Moor

 

The white rose threw a hail of stones

And soon the fascists were overthrown

A day of blood and broken bones

At the battle of Holbeck Moor