This article: Before the start of the Second World War, and the establishment of war-based industries, Jarvis's initiatives brought modest relief to Jarrow. By 1939, about 100 men were employed in a small furniture factory and up to a further 500 in various metal-based industries set up on the Palmer's site. Jarvis had acquired the obsolete liners Olympic and Berengaria, to be broken up at the yard. However, after their triumphant homecoming many of the marchers felt that their endeavour had failed. Con Whalen, who at his death in 2003 was the last survivor of those who marched the full distance, said that the march was "a waste of time", but added that he had enjoyed every step. His fellow marcher Guy Waller, on the 40th anniversary of the march in 1976, said that "[t]he march produced no immediate startling upsurge in employment in the town. It took the war to do that". These views are shared by most commentators and historians. The Daily Mirror columnist Kevin Maguire calls the march "a heroic failure", while Matt Dobson, in The Socialist, writes that "out of all the hunger marches its aims were the most diluted and it made the most modest gains". The historians Malcolm Pearce and Geoffrey Stewart provide a positive perspective, arguing that the Jarrow March "helped to shape [post-Second World War] perceptions of the 1930s", and thus paved the way to social reform.Perry observes that "the passage of time has transformed the Jarrow Crusade ... into a potent talisman with which many apparently seek association". Thus the Labour Party, which in 1936 shunned the march, later adopted it as "a badge of credibility". In 1950 the party featured the Jarrow banners on its election posters; the march then disappeared from view in an era of high employment, only to be invoked again when unemployment again became a political issue in the 1980s. In the late 20th century and beyond, Labour leaders—Michael Foot, Neil Kinnock, Tony Blair—have all associated themselves with the march. In October 1986, on the 50th anniversary, a group... contains an answer for the question: What was the full name of the event that the Labour Party would later adopt as a "badge of credibility"?, what is it ?


Jarrow March