The Red Brigade ============ DAVID TORRANCE THEY were radical Sunday schools set up to ensure that the next generation created a truly socialist society. Now a new book has brought memories flooding back for former "little comrades" who attended Socialist Sunday schools in 1920s Edinburgh. Three elderly city residents, one of whom became a Labour town councillor, today recalled Sunday afternoons spent singing the Red Flag and learning about the utopian society socialism would bring. The book - A Band of Little Comrades - by Edinburgh author David Fisher, covers the years 1905-1945. Nellie Rogers, who attended the Leith branch of the school, said although there was no religious content they were told that if such a person as Jesus Christ existed, he was "almost certainly a socialist". Devil The special Sunday schools began in Glasgow in 1896 as an alternative to Church of Scotland schools, which socialists believed ensured the survival of capitalism. The schools soon sprang up in Edinburgh and provoked such strong feelings that in 1925 the Evening News ran an article headlined "Socialist Sunday Schools: Stirred Up By The Devil." There were about eight in Edinburgh when the movement was at its height, with another three in the rest of the Lothians. Former town councillor Betty McKenzie also went to the Leith school and still remembers the Sunday school song, from which the new book takes its name. She said: "There was no religion mentioned and the movement was not sectarian - I even remember some Catholic children coming along after mass at St Mary's." Pat Rogan attended the West Richmond Street Sunday School in the late 1920s. He said: "The good thing about the socialist Sunday school was that there was no Bible thumping. "They gave us all the background to socialism but it wasn't hammered into us - it was treated in a very simple fashion and if you didn't want to go to the school then you didn't go." The book's author, blood transfusion service information officer David Fisher, today said it was "gratifying" to finally see the book, which he began researching in 1987, make it into print. He said: "I was working on an oral history at the time and I spoke to Pat Rogan, who mentioned the schools, and my ears immediately pricked up." He added: "Socialist parents sent their children to the schools to ensure they were politically-aware and they were probably very motivated people." A Band of Little Comrades is published by the council's recreation department and is available in bookshops, as well as from the People's Story Museum and Huntly House Museum, for £6.95. Wednesday, 28th February 2001 ............................................................................
