JOHN LONDRAGAN was both an ordinary man and a hero, says his granddaughter Nina Kunington.

Today she unveils a plaque in his honour inside the Aberdeen Trade Union Council office, surrounded by her family, fellow anti-fascists, trade unionists and supporters of the International Brigade Memorial Trust (IBMT).

Nina had no idea, until a few years ago that her granddad had been extraordinary. It was only when her father died, and family memorabilia came into her hands out of the blue, that she saw the legacy for herself. John had fought with the International Brigade in Spain.

With help from his friends and comrades in Aberdeen, archivists, historians and the IBMT, Nina painstakingly pieced together John’s story.

Unite the Union regional officer Tommy Campbell says: “I am very privileged to have known and worked with John Londragan on anti-fascist projects in Aberdeen.

“We are very proud of John and the other International Brigaders who fought against fascism while the British government preferred to appease the fascist dictators. The principled and very brave stand taken by John and others fighting alongside the Spanish people is a shining example of authentic international solidarity. They are all true working-class heroes.”

John was born in the East End tenement slums of Aberdeen in 1911. There he witnessed extreme poverty and hardship, which was to affect him deeply and form his outlook on life.

He lived through the depression years of the 1920s, describing his own family as far luckier than most because they were, at least, all in work.

Nina describes how he “learned to share and to develop his sense of community. He came to understand what solidarity among people could achieve.”

The general strike of 1926 started to sharpen his political thinking, though he was only 15. He joined the Independent Labour Party but found it lacked something essential for him.

Nina says her grandfather’s real political turning point was hearing Bob Cooney speak one Sunday evening at the Castlegate. “He was so inspired by his words and ideas that he immediately joined the Communist Party.”

It was that Sunday night, John said later, that made him forever a “political animal.”

Bob was a communist, anti-fascist activist and later commissar of the International Brigade British Battalion in Spain.

Their great friendship was lifelong, with the two men working on political projects right up until Bob’s death in 1984.

While working on the railways, he helped organise the hunger marches setting out from Aberdeen in the 1930s. From 1934 on he was keenly involved in the powerful anti-fascist movement in Aberdeen and the rest of Scotland. Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts tried to gain some hold in the Granite City. They did not succeed.

Another turning point came when the Spanish ship Eolo docked in Aberdeen in July 1936. The republican government back in Spain had said that seamen were to have pay rises. The Eolo crew were unaware of this — until Bob Cooney boarded the ship and told them. In the resulting strike, John befriended the crew and helped raise cash for their cause.

Nina takes up the story: “In 1937 my grandfather set out for Spain to fight fascists on the front line. He believed it was his duty to help the Spanish and at the same time be proactive in defending Britain and other countries, by preventing fascism from spreading any further.”

John, recruited into the newly formed anti-tank battery, was sent out to collect and take charge of No 1 gun, a brand new Russian weapon which first saw action in Jarama in May 1937.

While in a village close to Brunete, John spotted a postcard in a photographer’s shop window. It was of Aberdeen harbour. The card had been posted home there by Juan Atturie, one of the Eolo crew members who John had supported the year before.

In the fierce fighting of the Battle of Brunete in July 1937, John Londragan was badly wounded in the head, arm and hand. He recovered in several hospitals, and thanks to the skill of a US surgeon his right hand was saved. When he recovered, he refused to be sent home.

Given an administrative job at the HQ in Albacete, he was tasked with going out on troubleshooting missions and training new recruits.

Returning home, he travelled around Britain with the International Brigade convoy, campaigning and raising funds for Spain.

When WWII was declared, John signed up to fight again — this time with the Royal Artillery.

After this service, he put his energies into the National Union of Railwaymen and Aberdeen Trade Union Council, working tirelessly for social justice and democracy, better education, welfare, housing and working conditions.

During a 1991 TV interview he declared passionately: “If I die tomorrow, I’ll leave this earth with the sense of knowing that I’ve done something on behalf of my class and on behalf of my kind, and that the little I’ve done will have its effect on the future.”

He died in 1993, as the last of the Aberdeen Brigaders.

After the plaque unveiling today, the contingent is visiting the International Brigade Memorial Library at Aberdeen TUC offices, where they’ll see the original Spanish Republic flag, used as a shroud for Aberdonian International Brigaders Archie Dewar and John Davidson. As part of the weekend’s events, Bob’s nephew Neil Cooney unveils a plaque to his uncle at Bob Cooney Court in the city.

On Sunday there are prayers and the blessing of International Brigade and union flags and banners, as well as secular talks on past and present anti-fascist struggles. Neil, now a local councillor, and Tommy will both speak at the Kirk of St Nicholas, followed by a march to the Castlegate, with trade union flags and banners led by Grampian District Pipes and Drums.