Thanks to everyone who’s contacted me and sent photos. I’ve put the best ones up on the album page, but I’ll set up a kind of archive soon so I can post all the pics – so fear not if you have already sent me a graffiti photo!
Things are definitely getting interesting now. Although so many of you have seen the name about, I’m having trouble finding anything concrete in books or other places (so if you see anything, no matter how small, please email me!). But the anecdotes people sent from older relatives seem to suggest Donovan Slacks maybe led a strike around the 1910s or 1920s.

Special thanks to Tim for not only sending a photo, but putting me in touch with his next-door neighbour. Joan Brewer is in her sixties but still remembers her dad and uncle talking about this Donovan Slacks when she was young. I’ve got a Dictaphone tape of the interview which I’ll post (as soon as I’ve worked out how to transfer the audio), but here’s a transcript of what she said (minus the ums and ahs!). There’s a lot to follow up and I need to talk to her again, but here is is:

“Yes, my father used to talk about it every Christmas. Well, whenever my Uncle George came. Murder this and murder that. He used to drink, you see, and was in a bad way. And Uncle George used to work in the police and they had dealt terribly with this man, Donovan Slacks. But not then. A long time gone – before I was born even. My father would go on and on about how Donovan Slacks had stood up for the ordinary man and the police had murdered him in cold blood. And that would get Uncle George into a state and he would say he’d had nothing to do with it, but he wished he had done. My father never talked about it otherwise – only at Christmas and when he had too much whisky – he loved whisky.
I could never find out exactly what had happened. Except Donovan Slacks had led some kind of strike or rebellion and, well, died or been murdered, depending on who you spoke to. And my dad, all through his life, could never forget that. As if part of him had been destroyed.”