Calypso in the Abbey

I wonder how many times in its history Westminster Abbey has hosted live calypso?!

As part of this year’s celebrations leading up to Commonwealth Day Alexander D’Great did a session at the Abbey. He sang two really powerful songs: one about remembering our heroes, the troops from the Caribbean, who fought in World War One; and the second which started off as Lord Kitchener’s famous ‘London is the Place For Me’ but segued into Alexander’s own, undeniably less optimistic, song about the Windrush generation and their experiences following their arrival in the ‘Mother Country’.

After his songs he invited the audience to join him in writing a calypso on the spot. It was remarkable how many timid souls got up and left at this point. Those who stayed, mostly families with young children came up with a call and response song with the refrain ‘here we are in Westminster Abbey’. The result was creditable given the very limited time available and it just shows what a versatile medium calypso is.

I would have included a recording of Alex’ performance but unfortunately there was building work going on in another part of the Abbey and the noise of hammering and drilling was a bit intrusive. A pity, but it was obvious that the children (and their grown ups) who participated really enjoyed the experience.

Alex really is tireless in his efforts to promote calypso. You can find examples of his work on YouTube but also in the post just below this one (on the ‘News’ page) where you can see him singing ‘Heroes’.

 

Walter Tull Remembered

Bill Hern of Historycal Roots attended The Walter Tull Memorial service held at the Assemblies of the First Born Church in Lozells, Birmingham on 25 March 2018.

The event commemorated the 100th anniversary of Walter’s death in World War 1. Walter played football for Clapton, Tottenham Hotspur and Northampton and was one of the first black officers in the British Army.

The service was led by Reverend Dr Desmond Jaddoo with a major contribution from the ‘Why Are West Indians In this Country?’ project (WAWI). Cyrille Regis, one of the most recognisable faces of Black football from the 1970s and 80s, who died in January, was represented by his daughter Michelle who made a moving speech about her father and his faith.

The congregation was reminded that Walter Tull had been recommended for the Military Cross. The recommendation arose from his time serving in Italy and was made by his Commanding Officer, Major General Lawford, who wrote this: “I wish to place on record my appreciation of your gallantry and coolness. You were one of the first to cross the river [the Piave in Northern Italy] prior to the raid on 1st & 2nd Jan.1918 and during the raid you took the covering party of the main body across and brought them back without a casualty in spite of heavy fire.”  But, in spite of Lawford’s recommendation and praise, the medal was never awarded.

A letter, signed by over 120 MPs, has been sent to the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Defence asking that this situation be rectified. David Lammy, MP for Tottenham, has led on this and is on record as saying; “His [Walter’s] service on behalf of this country was immense. The records suggest great gallantry, great bravery and a kind of coolness. He saved people’s lives, he fought incredibly hard, died young. I think he should be remembered, and the only reason he’s not remembered is because at that time there was extraordinary prejudice towards even having a black man in our armed forces, and certainly towards that black man being a second lieutenant and leading other men.”

Let’s hope the letter has a positive response and Walter’s family can be awarded the medal he earned by sacrificing his life 100 years ago.

    

Vincent Reid, Windrush pioneer – ‘I was friendless’

As the 70th anniversary of the arrival of the Empire Windrush approaches, the Historycal Roots team have been busying themselves revisiting the ship’s arrival at Tilbury on 21st June 1948 (the passengers actually stepped ashore on 22nd).

There was a really good TV series that aired 20 years ago that still makes for fascinating viewing today. The first two parts are available on YouTube, you can watch Part 1 here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGTm_Gsvyzw

A book was produced based on the series and we were lucky enough to meet one of the authors, Mike Phillips, recently. As he commented when he signed our copy: ‘twenty years and still relevant’.

It’s all too easy to forget what it was actually like for the pioneers who arrived in 1948. One quote in the above programme comes from Vincent Reid, at 13, one of the youngest passengers to disembark:

‘Growing up, I could go for days without seeing another Black person and as for White friends, I couldn’t really say I had White friends because no one ever invited me to their home. Never. So, basically, in a sense, I was friendless.’

 

It’s so hard to imagine what his childhood must have been like.

One of the things we have done at Historycal Roots is construct a searchable database of the information that was recorded by the authorities at the time the ship docked. The raw data is available at Ancestry.co.uk (if you have a paid subscription) or free at the National Archives at Kew. Ancestry have transcribed the data themselves but, as we discovered as we did our own transcription, Ancestry’s data is incomplete and not easily searched.

The HR database suggests that a number of the ‘facts’ that are in circulation about the Windrush passengers are plain wrong and we will be returning to this over the coming weeks and months.

Brothers In Arms

The subject of Black brothers who served together in the First World War is one that particularly interests us at Historycal Roots. Our book about the Walker Brothers documents the only example that has yet come to light of three brothers who served. We are sure there must be other examples but, for now, they remain hidden.

Today we have added a page to the ‘Forgotten History’ section of this site. It is about the Tull brothers: Walter (whose story is quite well documented); William; and Edward. The stories of William and Edward are less well known.

   (William Tull, aged about 10)

William served in the Royal Engineers as a sapper. He died after the war but his final resting place in Folkestone is marked by a Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstone. He and Walter therefore both served. The new page sets out the known facts about William’s life. It is possible to piece together a reasonable picture of his time in the Folkestone area up to the 1911 census but, unfortunately, very little is known about his army service or how he came to die.

Edward did not undertake military service so far as we know and so, although there were three Tull brothers, only two of them enlisted.

There are other examples of two Black brothers: the Manleys (Norman, who lived to become Prime Minister of Jamaica and Roy who was killed in action); the Bemands (George Edward Kingsly and Harold Leslie, who were both killed in action); and the Vignales (Otho Rudolph and Ralph Ernest who have their own page in the ‘Forgotten History’ section of this site).

The Bemands are commemorated on the war memorial at Dulwich College in South London where they were schooled:

   

It is only in recent years that these stories have started to come to light thanks to the research of authors like Stephen Bourne and Ray Costello (whose ‘Black Tommies’ is a book we can highly recommend if you have an interest in this subject).

We don’t doubt that there are many more stories waiting to be uncovered and would love to hear from anyone with a story to tell.

Two Windrush Pioneers – Still Going Strong After 70 Years

It was a real pleasure to see Allan Wilmot at a recent Windush 70 event and to hear him speaking about his experiences. I have heard him speak before but I never tire of  his stories. He drew gasps of admiration from a packed audience in Clapham’s West Indian Army Service Personnel club when he said that he had used the royalties from the Southlanders hit ‘The Mole in a Hole’ (punchline: ‘I am a mole and I live in a hole’) to buy a car. Not just any car, a white jaguar convertible.

Needless to say, the sight of a young Black man driving home from gigs in such a car in the early hours of the morning attracted the attention of the constabulary. Having been followed regularly and stopped a number of times, one night he got out of the car when he got home and, when asked by a policeman what his job was, he calmly said ‘burglar’. A risky strategy and not one I’d recommend, but he followed it up by inviting the police in for a coffee. When they saw all the publicity shots of the Southlanders on his living room walls they ended up asking for his autograph!

There can’t be many survivors of that original Windrush voyage now, Allan Wilmot is 92 ‘but I’m aiming for a hundred,’ he said. Another survivor is Alford Gardner, also 92, who has recently given a number of interviews to journalists from various illustrious papers and magazines, but none more illustrious than Historycal Roots’ very own Bill Hern.

Bill’s interview was part of the Windrush 70 Project which aims to celebrate the contributions of the Windrush generation and debunk myths that have grown up around the ship and those on board.

Bill writes: ‘Imagine if you could listen to someone describe events like the Battle of Hastings or the Great Fire of London, someone who had witnessed the events at first hand. History would feel more real and more accurate.

During the interview, Alford described his childhood in 1930s Jamaica, his time in the RAF during World War 2 and the excitement when he learned of the coming of the Windrush: ”word came that there was a ship coming to Jamaica, to the West Indies, for men who wanted to come to England to work.”

Having scraped together the £28 10 shilling fare (with help from the bank of Mum and Dad!) Alford enjoyed the voyage, in the company of famed calypsonians Lord Kitchener and Lord Beginner (‘if it move they did a calypso about it’), very much.

As soon as the Windrush docked at Tilbury, Alford and three of his friends headed for Leeds where Alford had studied as part of his RAF-sponsored training after the War. They had hardships to overcome but Alford has always seen the positive side of life. He went on to marry, have 8 children and even set up a Caribbean cricket team that played in the Yorkshire Central League.

It was a real privilege to meet Alford and his eldest son Howard. The interview was regularly punctuated by Alford’s infectious laughter as he recalled major events from his long and happy life.

Alford is still fit and healthy and he was a guest of honour at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds on 7 February 2018 when the Phoenix Dance Theatre presented “Windrush: Movement of the People” a major new dance production described as “a lively celebration of the rise of multicultural Britain. Windrush spans the spirit, history and heritage of British Caribbean culture, celebrating the 70th anniversary of the first Caribbean immigrants to the UK.” After Leeds, the show will move to: Keswick (20th February); Cheltenham (27th February); Doncaster (7th March); Leicester (9th-10th March); and London (26th-28th April). The reviews for the Leeds production were excellent – Alford and his son certainly enjoyed it.

Bill asked Alford his secret for leading such a long and happy life. He said “I haven’t allowed anything to bother me. When I worked, I worked hard. I’ve looked after my family, they’ve all grown up nicely. I’m happy they are happy and as long as they are happy I’m happy.” ‘

At the Clapham event, someone asked how things had turned out for the Windrush pioneers, clearly in the cases of Allan and Alford, the answer is very well indeed!

 

The Past Is Now – Birmingham Museum Exhibition

One third of Historycal Roots visited Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery last week to view The Past is Now – Birmingham and the British Empire exhibition.

The exhibition makes links between famous figures from the city’s past and the slave trade. For example, Birmingham-born Francis Galton who coined the term eugenics which involved forced sterilisation, controlled breeding and restricting marriages.

Another is Joseph Chamberlain who as a former Colonial Secretary of Britain was considered by many to be responsible for British brutality in South Africa particularly during the 2nd Boer War in 1899 which was known as “Joe’s War”. Ironically the Museum is situated in Chamberlain Square, named after Joseph.

The exhibition also shows how some of the products of Birmingham’s thriving industry in the 19th century was used to support the slave trade. This included guns and leg irons.

The exhibition doesn’t attempt to impose views on others but encourages visitors to think. There is a white board where people can write down their feelings.

The rest of the Museum and Art Gallery has much of interest in terms of Black History. You can learn about William Davidson who, after being born a slave moved to Scotland where he became a lawyer before moving to Birmingham in the early 1800s where he became a cabinet maker. Or another former slave Peter Stanford. Born in America, he became Birmingham’s first black Christian minister in 1887.

If art is your subject then look out for the painting of Joseph Sturge and a young black girl (below). Sturge was a prominent member of the Birmingham Anti-Slave Society.

The Past is Now runs until 12 March 2018 and is worth a visit. But be warned, there is very little publicity about it in the Museum itself and nor is it well sign-posted so don’t give up if at first you can’t locate it.

You should be able to find out more about the exhibition here:

http://www.birminghammuseums.org.uk/bmag/whats-on/the-past-is-now-birmingham-and-the-british-empire

In Praise of Ivor Cummings

Ivor who? Precisely! Read on to find out more about an unsung hero of the Empire Windrush story.

Ivor Cummings was a Civil Servant working at the Colonial Office in London when news reached the Ministry in May 1948 that the Empire Windrush would soon be leaving Jamaica with several hundred men (and some women) bound for England in search of work.

It’s a widely held misconception that the men were coming at the invitation of the British Government to help rebuild the country’s shattered infrastructure. According to his obituary in The Independent newspaper (he died in 1992) ‘Cummings was one of the first waiting to greet the initial shipload of Jamaicans arriving to help rebuild war-torn Britain at the government’s behest’. As we shall see the last part of that sentence was far from accurate.

The authorities in Jamaica knew how unwelcome the news of the Windrush’s imminent departure for England would be: ‘Very sorry indeed that you and your staff will be put to all the trouble that the arrival of this large number … will involve … it is an appalling thing with which to be saddled wrote H Lindo from the Colonial Secretary’s Office in Jamaica on 29th May. Elsewhere in files held at The National Archives at Kew the imminent arrival of the Windrush is described as ‘a formidable problem’ and ‘a first class problem’.[1]

The Windrush passengers were most definitely not coming at the ‘behest’ of the Government!

Why was their imminent arrival seen as so problematic?

To answer this you need to consider the context of the time. This was a Britain still reeling from the effort involved in winning the war against fascism. Everything was in short supply, the housing stock had been decimated and food was rationed. The arrival of over 400 people from the Caribbean posed very real logistical problems: where were they to be housed; how would they be fed; and what would they do?

Mike and Trevor Phillips in their outstanding book ‘Windrush – The Irresistible Rise Of Multi-Racial Britain’ (still available from Amazon)argue that the British authorities’ reaction was driven by ‘paroxysms of anxiety’ about these questions rather than racism. Close examination of the files at Kew confirms that there was no overtly racist language used in discussing the issues, but there is no doubt that the overall tone is often patronising and many of the civil servants of the time had low expectations of the people the Windrush would bring (Cummings himself is not immune to this criticism). It’s also worth pointing out that the same concerns did not seem to apply to the thousands of White European workers, mostly Poles, who were arriving at this time. An official at the Ministry of Labour, M A Bevan, commented:‘as regards the possible importation of West Indian labour, I suggest we must dismiss the idea from the start.’ Among  the reasons the Ministry cited were that such workers: ‘would be unsuitable for outdoor work in winter owing to their susceptibility to colds’ and, in a nice example of heads we win, tails you lose, those working underground in coal mines would find conditions ‘too hot.’ [2]   Phillips and Phillips were perhaps a little too forgiving in their assessment.

Civil Servants at the Colonial Office, Ivor Cummings prominent among them, fought hard against the apathy and even hostility of other Government departments. At one point Cummings wrote: ‘I consider the Ministry of Labour’s attitude unwarrantable, and a further example of their anti-colonialism.’

The general view at the Colonial Office was that the people rapidly steaming towards Tilbury on the Windrush must be helped: ‘to avoid a political fuss and undue hardship to the men’ and ‘the scandal of having them on the streets without anywhere to sleep.’ Cummings and his colleagues worked tirelessly to ensure satisfactory arrangements were put in place to meet those on board the ship, only achieving success when they pressed the matter at the highest levels of the Government (the Cabinet, with the Prime Minister, Clement Atlee, himself becoming involved)

It was not until 16th June (just 5 days before the Windrush arrived) that the Clapham Deep Shelter gets mentioned for the first time as a possible solution to the problem of where to house the new arrivals. On the 17th, Cummings reports that the War Office had agreed that the Shelter could be used and he visited Clapham himself that same day noting: ‘in all the circumstance, I think we are lucky to get it and we should not grumble. The Manager of the accommodation told us that his canteen only supplies very light refreshments but he thought they might be able to provide tea and buns for breakfast in the mornings and provide sandwiches and liquid refreshment at nights.’[3]

Cummings went to meet the Windrush when it docked at Tilbury and reported that the men: ‘are a mixed bunch, but on the whole rather better than the type we had anticipated.’ 

The file records that initially 180 men were accommodated at the Clapham Shelter, although that number increased when others found that the accommodation they had expected elsewhere in London was not available to them.

Most of the men found the Shelter acceptable, it served it’s purpose. Mike and Trevor Phillips include a  quote from Oswald ‘Columbus’ Dennison, one of the Windrush passengers, which perhaps summed up the views of people who used the Shelter: ‘it wasn’t bad … it was a good arrangement really.’ 

On 30th June the Cabinet Office file closed with a comment from Cummings ‘the general situation with regard to the placing of these men is most favourable.’ Job done!

What makes Cummings particularly interesting was that he himself was Black, indeed, according to ‘The Turning Point in Africa: British Colonial Policy 1938-48’ he was   first Black civil servant at the Colonial Office. His role there gave him special responsibilities for Commonwealth citizens, it was a role he pursued diligently and, before and after his involvement with the Windrush, he made it his lifetime’s work to serve the interests of people of African descent.

He himself was born in West Hartlepool in 1913, his mother was an English nurse, his father a doctor from Sierra Leone. They met at Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary where she was a young junior matron and he, a senior house officer. Discouraged from studying medicine by her father, Joanna Archer had followed women’s traditional route into nursing, but she broke convention when she had a child out of wedlock with Ishmael Cummings. He, the son of a wealthy African merchant, had two siblings who married Taylors, thereby establishing the prominent Freetown family of Taylor-Cummings and making his own child, Ivor, a relative of the black British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.

Ivor Cummings grew up with his mother in Addiscombe, Surrey, where they were befriended by Coleridge- Taylor’s widow, Jessie. Through her, Ivor got to know his cousins Avril and Hiawatha who both followed in their father’s musical footsteps. There is a well known story that Coleridge-Taylor had faced prejudice in Croydon and that some boys had set fire to his hair ‘to see if it would burn.’ Ivor Cummings experienced similar treatment when other boys at Whitgift School in Croydon conducted the same experiment.

With the onset of war, he joined the Colonial Office and rapidly earned the reputation of someone who would help any person of colour, whatever their social standing.

We have focused here on Cummings’ role in connection with the Windrush, but there is a lot more to be said about him. He deserves, and will get, his own page on Historycal Roots.  For now though, we salute Ivor Cummings, an unsung hero of the Empire Windrush story.

[1] The reference for the file at Kew that the quotes in this article are taken from is CO 876/88

[2] These quotes come from: ‘Austerity Britain’ by David Kynaston (page 273)

[3] At one point, a disused airbase in Essex was suggested. Cummings ruled this out when he was told it would take him three hours to drive there.  How different might the history of South London have been if the Windrush arrivals had been directed to Essex instead of Clapham?!

A House Through Time

David Oulsoga, one of our favourite historians, has a four part series starting on BBC2 on Thursday, 4th January. The programmes will trace the history of 62, Falkner Street, Liverpool from the time it was built in 1840 up to the present day: http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/proginfo/2018/01/a-house-through-time. As this is a Liverpool house, built in early Victorian times you can be sure that a ‘trader in slave-produced cotton’ will feature somewhere in the house’s history.

David describes this as ‘a unique television experiment.’ For television, maybe, but there is no doubt this approach has been tried previously in books. There may be many, but one that I have is ‘A House By the Thames and The People Who Lived There’ by Gillian Tindall, which traces the story of a house on the south bank of the Thames opposite St Paul’s Cathedral. There is no Black history connection as far as I recall but it’s still a fascinating read.

Writing in the Observer newspaper, David’s words demonstrate why we like his work so much: ‘History, to me, is all about those shiver-down-the-spine moments … when you hold in your hands an object created hundreds of years before your time and feel the vague presence of the hands that held it in the past.’ In talking about what a historian is, David speaks of ‘early morning trips across overgrown cemeteries’ – we’ve done our share of that (although perhaps not ‘early morning’!), I wonder if that makes us ‘proper’ historians? Apparently ‘Historians also have to be nosy’ – step forward Bill Hern!

David closes his article by saying: ‘the history I was taught at school was largely one of great men and great deeds, a history that took place in palaces and battlefields. It was silent about our shared, inner and domestic history, the stories of the rest of us, the un-great, who live quietly and privately.’

Each and every one of us contributes to history as did each of our ancestors regardless of their class, colour or gender. Long may historians like David strive to bring these forgotten histories to light and, if you ever want to join the Historycal Roots team, David….

Postscript Books

You know what it’s like, Christmas is over for another year and the cold, dark days of January loom ahead like a tunnel with no light at the end. Your credit card is in intensive care and you’ve promised to give it a month-long period of rest and recuperation. Then a book catalogue drops through the letter box. You know you should throw it straight into the box for recycling paper but you can’t / don’t and you find yourself flicking through its pages.

Postscript books specialise in ‘high quality overstocks and out of print books’. I’ve bought books from them before, but not for a while, you have to admire their persistance.

I’m irritated to see that the catalogue includes ‘The World’s War’ by David Olusoga. Irritated because this book shouldn’t be appearing in a pile of ‘remaindered’ titles, every last copy should have been sold, but also because this handsome hardback can now be had for £4.99 and we paid, an already heavily reduced, £10 for our copy two years ago. Resisting the urge to hurl the catalogue into the bin, I identify a dozen or more titles that look really interesting.

But the house isn’t getting any bigger, the walls aren’t magically expanding to accommodate an ever growing trove of books and so I narrow my selection down to just two: ‘Caribbean Volunteers at War’ by David Johnson (£19.99 from Amazon but on offer from Postscript at just £7.99); and ‘Caribbean Roots’ a double CD of poetry, read by the poets themselves, from the British Library archive  (Amazon price: £15.94, Postscript price: £5.99).

I find myself apologising out loud to my credit card but, I explain, even allowing for postage, I am ‘saving’ £20. I know my card understands.

If you would like to join me in my folly, here is a link to Postscript Books eclectic, something for everyone, catalogue: https://www.psbooks.co.uk/?gclid=Cj0KCQiAyZLSBRDpARIsAH66VQKgzN6IVn-59MaEWH9fq9H1D61s2PAYsUNbAQdLnydhWC-r8euwiMMaAln2EALw_wcB

I’m sorry if I am leading you astray!

They came before the Windrush

Most people reading this will be well aware that the Empire Windrush docked at Tilbury on 21st June 1948. A whole generation has been named after the Windrush but less well known is that other ships had arrived earlier. One such ship was the Almanzora which docked at Southampton on 21st December 1947. Among the 200 or so people who disembarked was Allan Charles Wilmot.

Seventy years to the day after disembarking, Allan Wilmot spoke at an event in Brixton: ‘They came before the Windrush’. Born in 1925 in Jamaica, Wilmot is now 92 but is still in very fine form and it was a privilege to hear him speak.

His book: ‘Now You Know’ may be hard to come by (I couldn’t find it on Amazon or ABE books) but, if you can get hold of a copy it is well worth reading and includes a number of lovely photographs. One, showing Wilmot in his Navy uniform in November 1941, shows a very young man who looks little more than a boy (at the event Wilmot said he had lied about his age as he was so keen to enlist).

Wilmot served in the Royal Navy on a minesweeper in the Caribbean. He described this as a ‘suicide mission’. It was alright during the daylight hours when you had a good chance of seeing the mines you were searching for, but at night… Later he joined the RAF and was based at RAF Calshot, near Southampton where he was involved in Air-Sea rescue work.

So, when the Almanzora docked,  Wilmot was returning to a country he had already visited and served during the war. He found the welcome far less hospitable than it had been when he was in uniform. Finding accommodation was difficult (landlords were openly hostile: ‘no Irish, no coloureds, no dogs’) and sometimes he resorted to catching the last tube train at night and sleeping on it until the morning. Employment opportunities were also limited and he did his share of dish washing before securing work in a book shop and subsequently with the Post Office.

Wilmot was also able to carve out a successful career as a musician, principally with a group called The Southlanders. You may think you don’t know any of their songs but, if you are of a certain age, you may recall their novelty hit that featured Wilmot growling ‘I am a mole and I live in a hole’! Allan spoke enthusiastically about the many showbiz personalities he had met during his career, from Bob Hope to Shirley Bassey and Sammy Davis Jnr.

OK, so you couldn’t be at the event, but you can see an interview with Allan  Charles Wilmot here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9-Fbz7Qed8

It’s the next best thing to seeing him in person.