‘Good Old Dynamite’

Abstract

7 January 1911 started wet. Despite the relentless drizzle that had fallen since the night before, an ever-growing group of spectators had been gathering all day at the Rising Star; every window had been thrown open with gaggles of men and boys peering eagerly out. In the road outside, a crowd of working men, cloth-capped and loung-ing, pressed forward to get a view, drawn by the commotion. Two women, muffled against the cold and tugging skirts up to avoid the muddy doorway in which they huddled, peered anxiously out, somehow finding themselves beyond the armed soldiers lined up across the cobbles.