Windrush Generation

The voyage of the Empire Windrush – A different perspective

By Dr Jo Stanley

Nancy Cunard (on the left) and Freya Stark

The original passenger list for the journey of the Empire Windrush from the Caribbean to Tilbury is held in the National Archives at Kew. Of the 1,027 passengers listed as being on board, two were stowaways. In spite of the existence of this raw data, myths and misconceptions about who was on board have proliferated. At various times it has been said that the passengers were all male, all Jamaican and all black. None of these statements is correct, even the number of passengers has been widely misquoted (the number 492 is constantly repeated, even by reputable historians).

The following article by Dr Jo Stanley gives a fascinating and unique account of the journey as experienced by two white women with very different temperaments and outlooks on life. The story is told through the eyes of Nancy Cunard, scion of the Cunard shipping dynasty, and Freya Stark, renowned travel writer. Other passengers in First Class with them included the singer Mona Baptiste, Ellis Clarke who 14 years later would become the first President of the newly independent Trinidad and Tobago and McDonald Bailey on his way to the London Olympics to watch his son run for Great Britain. Nancy and Freya describe what life was like on board; the musicians, the discovery of the female stowaway Evelyn Wauchope, racism in Bermuda and an eight-day diversion to pick up 66 Polish passengers in Tampico, Mexico. They evidently didn’t much enjoy the journey, commenting on the rigours of the trip from the vantage point of white privilege.

The story of the voyage is complex and multi-layered, Dr Stanley’s beautifully written article approaches it from an unfamiliar angle and casts fresh light on what it was like on board.

The article is reproduced by kind permission of Dr Jo Stanley and Marine Quarterly where it first appeared in 2018.

MARINE QUARTERLY

A JOURNAL OF THE SEA
AUTUMN 2018

Homeward Bound

Jo Stanley

Voyage stories can be told from many vantage points. So let me offer you this unusual version.

Two footloose white women are the focus. Their voyages began separately, in Barbados, in late April three years after the end of the Second World War. On an island nicknamed `Bimshire’ and `Little England’ ennui was inevitable for these new sojourners, whose lives usually involved voracious discovering. After three months Freya Stark, the famous travel writer, had exhausted her capacity to play the diplomat’s wife, and wanted to escape to her home in Asolo [46 miles north west of Venice]. Her cabinmate, the scandalous writer-publisher and black rights activist Nancy Cunard, was similarly bored with the bridge-playing world at her cousin Edward’s beachside house in Glitter Bay. She had been recovering there for two months after a horrible holiday in Mexico, where a cactus had pierced her cornea and her latest lover had careered away.

Around Easter 1948 Caribbean newspapers offered a batch of one-way cheap passages to Britain, the shipping company wanting to avoid loss by filling up berths. The women each booked a ticket that cost as much as five cows, or forty weeks’ wages for a banana loader — £43, because females were all by definition ladies, and must therefore travel A class, in cabins. By contrast, men prepared to rough it in the C class dormitories paid only £28.1os.

In May Freya told Jock Murray, her London publisher, that she was leaving, and that all the frangipani were in flower and the Caribbean Sea was ’emerald green because of the Orinoco waters’. As she started the 251 nautical miles crossing to Trinidad, the embarkation port, it was strange to see Bimshire ‘vanishing back into the waves and clouds from which I saw it emerge so few months ago’.

According to Nancy’s biographer, Daphne Fielding, Nancy waited for ‘three suffocating days . . . in evil-smelling Port-of-Spain, after which she felt she really knew what it was like to be a poor Negro living in one of those wretched wooden shacks in Cock-Crow Alley or Barking-Dog Lane.’ The passengers were joining the ship for the last two legs of its outward voyage from Southampton: Jamaica, then Bermuda, before the ship headed northeast, home to the UK.

Just after 20 May, Captain John Almond’s less-than-full ship bore them away from Trinidad. To coop up two grand and headstrong public figures, one radical, one conservative, in the same cabin, might have been a recipe for ructions. Impeccable manners and busyness helped prevent them. Nancy was writing about Mexico. Freya was writing her autobiographical Traveller’s Prelude. Maybe they shared personal stories, as both were struggling with failing relationships with younger bisexual partners. Nancy, then 52, had been ditched by the wealthy wanderer William Le Page Finley. Freya, three years older, had recently married the Hon Stewart Perowne, Colonial Secretary to Barbados, who had metamorphosed into ‘the perfect civil servant’.

When they got to the Royal Mail Lines pier at Kingston they found that, like hungry newspapers in any small port, the Gleaner detailed all arrivals and departures. Miss Cunard, ‘whose affinity for the cause of the coloured peoples of the world caused such a furore in the middle 193os’ was mentioned as one of the celebrity arrivals: ‘During her [two-and-a-half-day] stay, short though it is, she hopes to see as much of the island as possible. She is particularly keen to observe at close hand the mental and political changes which have taken place in Jamaica [since her 1932 visit]’.

Nancy noted the quotidian, thinking about what could happen, including West Indies federation, and Mrs Perowne gazed upon evidence of old colonial glories. A brigadier whisked her off to use the official residence of the Governor, Sir John Huggins. She visited Port Royal — no longer swashbuckling, but near derelict — with a Nelson-revering naval guide. Determined to make the most of every opportunity, Freya obtained passes for a jaunt on an ordnance boat. Out in the waters round the Palisadoes it was bliss, admiring the accompanying pelicans and dreaming of walks and wayside inns in those distant Blue Mountains.

Then, bump, it was back to the ship’s ‘desolating efficiency’.

By the evening of 24 or 26 May 1948 (the accounts vary) tentative newcomers were finding their feet with the established communities in cabin and deck class. The ship was now full, and the atmosphere was more militarised. The public address system `blares’, Freya haughtily complained. ‘One’s time and thought taken up forcibly in listening to things one doesn’t want to hear.’ Soon gossip revealed that one of the six stowaways at Kingston was — gasp — a female! She was dressmaker Evelyn Wauchope, aged 27. Enter gallant rescuers who collectively paid the fare for what the Gleaner calls ‘this adventurous woman [who would otherwise] be imprisoned on arrival in England’. Jamaican musicians, including Delroy Stephens, gave a benefit concert for her. ‘From then on nothing very exciting happened.’

Detouring to Tampico to pick up Poles made Freya chafe: ‘It seems wildly extravagant to send a huge ship, 2,000 on board, eight days out of its way for sixty passengers who could have been flown or taken by schooner to Bermuda.’ Throughout the war she had coped at long range with distant Whitehall bureaucracy. Now she believed ‘it is just that someone in London was unable to realise the difference made by looking at a small-scale map, and thought this was all on our way.’

For four days and nearly fifteen hundred nautical miles there was confinement, ‘chugging through the Mexique Bay, cutting its dark flat waters in swelter of heat and noise’. She told her husband `I hope I may never have to travel in a troopship again; regimented from morning to night … It really is sordid.’

Privation intensified upper-crust solidarity. ‘It is a godsend to have Nancy Cunard. We omit breakfast and lie with very little on in our cabin till lunch, and then sit in hot shade with typewriter or Russian. Heat really exhausting.’ At night the ship was ‘as bad as Delhi’ (where she had enjoyed Viceroy’s House’s elaborate hospitality). With not so much as a punkah now she found ‘the sheets scorching; and poor miserable people are down below in decks that descend to E without a breath of outside air’.

In Tampico, the ‘New Orleans of Mexico’, they were dismayed at not being allowed ashore. The sixty Poles joined the ship by boat. Fresh water supplies were low. The ship’s desalination system was not adequate, and currency problems meant that none could be bought in Mexico. So over the next few days they headed east, past the tip of the Yucatan peninsula, then across to Havana on 3 June. Four years before the revolution, the city gave a glimpse of opulence: ‘wide, straight streets; porticoes and shops; shiny rich cars: the waterfront finished off with a low parapet of stone and backed with gardens … one has a feeling of a metropolis standing on its own feet.’ But they were not allowed ashore in this city either: ‘just frying like the Ancient Mariner on a painted ocean … how maddening not to be able to land,’ Freya told her husband.

Water obtained, they could start heading northeast. Bermuda was a scheduled stop. Here they had to wait two days because of engine failure, which was handled at the dockyard and again in Hamilton. The Royal Gazette reported that ‘Bermudians went all out to show hospitality to passengers and crew. . . A major social event, with plenty to eat and drink, was a dance on the old Unity Patio in Happy Valley.’ The ship’s calypsonians provide extra music. Passengers were, however, shocked at the apartheid here, especially in education.

As in Jamaica, Freya managed a brief respite ashore thanks to her connections. Vice-Admiral William Tennant, briefly Commander-in-Chief of the America and West Indies Station, hosted her overnight. She enjoyed ‘a bathe before breakfast . . . slipping down barefoot over the wet grass and finding the little cove all pure and quiet from the night and swimming out among the white birds in an almost waveless sea.’

On 11th June she calculated: ‘This depressing boat, eleven more days to go.’

Two days out from Bermuda they had rough weather for the first time. On 21 June, after a thirty-two-day trip, the two women arrived at Gravesend [Tilbury], and discovered that their ship was a floating political problem called the Empire Windrush, filled with people who, like them, were recognised then and now as bona fide British subjects.

Ronald Fitzherbert Hall – February 1915 to 15th July 2009

Today, on the anniversary of his passing, we celebrate the life of Ronald Fitzherbert Hall. Ron’s name will not be widely known beyond the circle of his friends and family but he contributed greatly both during and after World War 2. Our story, which you can find here http://historycalroots.com/ronald-fitzherbert-hall-navigator-here focuses mainly on his time in the RAF during the War.

Ron is just one of the many unsung black heroes who deserve a place in our collective history. We hope you enjoy reading about him.

Armed Forces Day – Remembering The Black Presence

On this Armed Forces Day we remember the black service men and women who have served Britain in armed conflicts since the 19th Century and before.

Clarence Gittens, buried on Barbados (World War One)

Alford Gardner (right) and Dennis Reid (World War Two)

Allan Wilmott and Neil Flanagan (World War Two)

Their contribution must not be forgotten.

Football’s Windrush Generation

Football doesn’t often feature on the pages of Historycal Roots but members of the Windrush Generation, who have contributed so much to so many aspects of British Society, have had a very visible impact on football pitches up and down the country. On this Windrush Day it seems appropriate to celebrate their contribution.

There have been black players in British football from the start of the game as an organised professional sport. A mixed heritage player called Arthur Wharton made his First Division debut in goal for Sheffield United in the League on 23^rd February 1895, just seven years after the competition started in 1888.

There were 92 Football League clubs at the start of the 2019/20 season, 18 of them had fielded a black player before the outbreak of World War Two but, for a further 29, their first black player was a member of the Windrush Generation.

There were boxers on the Empire Windrush when it docked at Tilbury on 22^nd June 1948 but no professional footballers. However, some came later having been born in the Caribbean. One of them was Brendon Batson. Born in Grenada in 1953, he came to England with his parents as a nine year old and went on to become the first black player in Arsenal’s 1^st team in 1972. Roland Butcher, born in Barbados, was the first black footballer to play for Stevenage but is better known as England’s first black international cricketer.

More were born in the UK, the sons of parents who made the journey from the Caribbean in the 1950s or 1960s. Some achieved notable successes in their football career.

London born Laurie Cunningham first played for Leyton Orient before transferring to West Bromwich Albion where, in 1977, he was the first black player to make it into Albion’s 1^st eleven. Laurie subsequently moved to Spain where he won a European Cup winner’s medal with the mighty Real Madrid.

Others had long and successful careers for clubs in lower divisions. Tony Ford, Grimsby Town’s first black player, made 1081 League and Cup appearances over a career that spanned 27 seasons from 1975 to 2001. This remains the highest number of appearances for any outfield player (only goalkeeper, Peter Shilton, played more). Tony’s father was from Barbados, in the UK he met Bradford-born, Jean Ford and Tony was born in 1959.

Not all were as successful. Lloyd Maitland’s father arrived from Jamaica in 1951 and Lloyd was born on 21^st March 1957. Lloyd only made only 39 appearances in the League for Huddersfield and a further 71 for Darlington before his career was brought to a premature end when he was run over by a car driven by one of his own team mates.

One thing they had in common was that they faced racist abuse of varying degrees of vitriol. Peter Foley, Scunthorpe’s first black player, once feigned injury to avoid playing at Millwall’s notorious ground. This was a seminal moment in Peter’s life as he vowed he would never again hide from racism but would fight it with all his might – he was later awarded the MBE for his work to combat racism.

But none of the Windrush Generation of football pioneers achieved more than Viv Anderson.

Viv’s father, Audley Anderson, sailed from Jamaica on board the SS Auriga. He left behind his young bride, Myrtle. Like so many men of the time he recognised the need to make sacrifices to achieve a better future for himself and his family. Audley arrived at Plymouth on 12^th October 1954. Five months later, Myrtle followed him, also travelling on the Auriga to Plymouth.

Myrtle was a qualified teacher but, as so many in her position found, her qualifications didn’t satisfy the UK authorities. She found a job as a school dinner lady but later qualified as a nurse, becoming one of the many thousands of nurses from the Caribbean who helped make the Health Service such a success.

The Andersons had set up home in Nottingham and that is where Vivian Alexander Anderson was born on 29^th July 1956. Viv went on to be a key part of the team that won the First Division title (what would now be the Premiership) and the European Cup (forerunner of the Champions League) twice with Nottingham Forest. He was Forest’s first black player and, in 1978, also the first to win a full England cap.

All these players and many more are included in a book, Football’s Black Pioneers, by Bill Hern and David Gleave, that will be published in August 2020. It will include the stories of the first black player at each of the 92 EFL (English Football League) and Premier League clubs. The book is available for pre-order here: https://www.conkereditions.co.uk/shop/

[This story has also been posted on The Voice website and on our sister site, Football’s Black Pioneers]

A Wonderful Life

We have been aware of the story of Barclay and Trudy Patoir for some time but a recent BBC radio programme, featuring interviews with the couple and their children, is very moving. Barclay Patoir came to England in 1941 to work as an engineer. His story demonstrates that people from the colonies helped the War effort in many ways, not just by serving in the Forces. But above all this is story of love in the face of racial prejudice, a love that endured for over seventy years.

Not sure how long the programme will be available but, hopefully, you will be able to listen to it here:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000j94c

If you can’t access the radio programme you should be able to read the story here:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-39003902

Sad to hear that the couple both died shortly after the programme was made but, as one of the contributors comments, they had ‘a wonderful life.’

Our thanks to Audrey Dewjee for bringing the programme to our attention.

Celebrating Black Nurses

12th May is International Nurses Day. This is something we should celebrate every year but this year, with the corona virus making its malign presence felt across the globe, it feels especially significant. The current pandemic has shown that a disease like covid-19 respects no borders and impacts all ethnicities (although there is emerging evidence that it impacts some more than others, black men, for instance, are far more likely to die of covid-19 than their white counterparts). The shocking death toll among our nurses, doctors and carers illustrates in stark fashion that NHS workers literally put their own lives on the line to care for their patients. We owe them all a debt of gratitude.

What the roll call of NHS staff who have lost their lives has shown is the extent to which the NHS still owes its very existence to staff who were born or whose origins were outside the UK. Currently 21% of staff in front line roles in the NHS are from ethnic minorities although they represent only 14% of the overall population.

We have featured a number of black nurses on this site and will continue to do so in the future. Without people like Edna Chavannes (pictured on the left, below) http://historycalroots.com/edna-chavannes-a-black-nurse-in-the-nhs-1951-to-1996 and Daphne Steele http://historycalroots.com/archives/1229 the NHS we know today simply would not exist.

While we were at the unveiling of the plaque honouring Daphne we were introduced to the story of Stella Benjamin and her friend Joyce Pollydore who came to England in 1946 as trainee nurses.

Stella’s story is here http://www.britishfuture.org/articles/mothers-nhs-story-1946-now/?fbclid=IwAR2LHquCo3Wf_aqKTCNDfP9cM327RbMMNfeMpHf8hBuk_VSY1Os0QCxaCu8

Of course there were many more black nurses in the UK before the NHS existed. Mary Seacole is the best known but there were others and the historian, Stephen Bourne has done work identifying some of them, people like Annie Brewster who worked at the London Hospital in Whitechapel from 1881 until her death in 1902.

In 2019 Stephen identified her final resting place in the City of London cemetery in Newham https://londonnewsonline.co.uk/south-london-memories-caribbean-nurse-annie-brewster/.

So, on this International Nurses Day, we bring you the story of four more nurses who came from the Caribbean and devoted years of service to the NHS.

All of these nurses were born in the colony of British Guiana (now the proudly independent nation of Guyana), it would be equally possible to write about nurses from Barbados, Jamaica, Nigeria or many other countries in the world. The reason we focus on Guyana is simply that we have contacts in the Association of Guyanese Nurses and Allied Professions (AGNAP) and when they got wind of our intention to write this article people came forward, eager to share their experiences. Throughout its existence the NHS has relied on nurses from across the globe and these few stories must stand as a proxy for all the other equally deserving but as yet untold histories.

Alift Allman was born in 1934. She went to the top girls’ school in Georgetown but, when the time came to leave, she realised that there were only two career options open to her, nursing or teaching. She had several cousins who were nurses and decided to follow that path. She trained in Guiana for three years and then did an additional year in midwifery. She then worked in the Georgetown Public Hospital and the separate TB clinic before the UK Government came calling with what Alift described as “an aggressive recruitment campaign, handing out literature and employing agents to scour the country for recruits.”

After nine years in the profession she left for England where, in spite of being an experienced nurse and midwife, she was obliged to retrain for a year in nursing at Harold Wood hospital in Essex and then a year in midwifery in Manchester. The Manchester area is where she chose to settle.

Alift worked in nursing for a total of an astonishing 59 years, only ‘retiring’ in 2016. In addition to many years in NHS hospitals she worked in private hospitals, in company environments in the field of occupational health (for companies such as ICI, Rank Hovis McDougall and Gallaghers) and in nursing homes. She also went to prison … working as a midwife at HMP Styal!

She made her home in Macclesfield and says they were the first black family to move there. She experienced many examples of racism and bigotry both in the community and in the working environment. As just one, early, example, she was first in her nursing exams in Essex but was asked not to accept the award as she “was not the preferred person.” She agreed to step aside. Inevitably the “preferred person” was white. Alift has come to realise that the term ‘equal opportunities’ is a hollow one, “there is always a reason not to give a job to a black person.”

Alift has contributed to her community in so many ways, as a voluntary worker, as a school governor (for 25 years), and as an elected councillor (she was first elected in 2001 and has been Mayor of Macclesfield twice). She is still on the council at the age of 86 and, perhaps inevitably, is currently the only non-white member.

Alift was awarded the MBE in 2016 for services to the community In Macclesfield.

Joycelyn (Joy) Abrams was born in the Kingston area of Georgetown. From the local primary school she transferred at twelve to the Tutorial High School. Her family always encouraged her to be caring and compassionate and so, although her father would have liked her to be a doctor, she chose nursing as a career. The uniform looked smart too!

She trained for two and a half years at Georgetown hospital. Unfortunately a crisis in her personal life meant that she didn’t complete the course. The British Government offered a way out as they were recruiting nurses for the NHS at the time and so Joy jumped at the chance to work in England, arriving in February 1965.

She started her training in June at Stepping Hill hospital in Stockport and was faced with having to do the full three year course as she hadn’t completed the course in Guiana. Joy felt that “Stockport wasn’t ready for black people” and she recalls patients telling her to “get your dirty black hands off me.”

It wasn’t just the patients who were prejudiced. Her tutor couldn’t believe how well Joy was doing in her exams and asked the two (white) girls she shared a room with to spy on her. Aware of what was going on, Joy waited until the other girls were asleep and went to study in the toilet. The tutor was even more puzzled by reports from her spies that no, Joy didn’t spend any time studying! In spite of 2 a.m. study sessions in the toilets (or maybe because of them) Joy won two first prizes (one jointly with a white nurse) at the end of the course. At the presentations event the hospital refused to call her up twice “because the Mayor would be there” and so she was only called up to receive the joint prize. She was so incensed that she never cashed in the prize, a book token, and still has it to this day.

While many nurses I have spoken to chose to go into midwifery, Joy instead did a post-graduate course in casualty (what we would now call A&E). This must be one of the most challenging roles a nurse can do and, starting out as a Junior Staff Nurse, she soon became a Senior Staff Nurse and then Sister.

Like many Guyanese nurses, Joy returned to support the, now independent, country of her birth, working in the A&E department of Georgetown hospital for two years.

Back in the UK, Joy moved south and worked in Sutton for many years both within the NHS and in the private sector. She worked for a time for the local authority and also in private nursing homes as a Sister. She worked in industry and was a nursing Sister for a company called Bailey Meters (among others) in Croydon. She also did a course in psychiatric nursing at the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Welwyn Garden City, putting her qualification to good use on the psychiatric ward of St Helier hospital in Sutton – another very challenging role!

Since she retired in 2003, Joy has continued to work in her community, particularly with the elderly, something that reflects the values instilled in her by her parents back home. Joy’s husband, who was listening to our call in the background, volunteered that Joy is “a very caring person, always thinking of others.”

Although she experienced much prejudice, Joy was keen to stress when we spoke that she met many wonderful people. “I enjoyed my nursing a lot, if I had my life over again I would do the same.”

Maria Walker was born in Georgetown, British Guiana in 1944. She first came to the UK in 1960. She remembers her departure vividly “six of my classmates rode their bicycles twenty five miles to the airport to bid me farewell. My dear father, aunts and other friends were among the airport party.”

Maria completed her education at the Mary Datchelor Girls’ Grammar School in Camberwell, London, and, when she left, decided on a career in nursing. Maria started at Lambeth hospital which has since amalgamated with St Thomas’ but she wanted to move away from London and selected Stobhill Hospital in Glasgow for her midwifery training. In spite of the unfamiliar accent Maria enjoyed her time in Scotland, soon learning phrases such as ‘wee hen’(meaning ‘a small woman’).

“Delivering babies in the Gorbals was a life experience as home deliveries were the norm then. After delivery, dad would spend his last shilling to buy a packet of biscuits in appreciation of the hours spent in the safe delivery of his child. I appreciated the effort of the Glasgow City Council for the management of the safety for all staff during the night duty calls to deliver babies.”

Later on, Maria made a visit to Aberdeen arranged by the British Council. She fell in love with the area despite it having a very chilly climate and decided to return to pursue the Health Visitor’s course there. She was placed at Bucksburn, a charming place on the outskirts of the city.

After this Maria continued her tour of the Scottish Highlands by going to Braemar to understudy a Health Visitor and gain experience of the triple duties the role involved. In remote areas such as this the Health Visitor had to combine the role of nurse (including school nurse), midwife and health visitor.

In 1972 Maria returned to the newly independent country of Guyana in response to a Government request: “I felt that I had by now given service to the UK and should repay a debt to the country of my birth by working in the delivery of health services there. However within seven months, wedding bells rang.”

Maria returned to the UK in 1976. to pursue further studies and once again worked for the NHS. Her husband and sons followed later.

Maria next worked for Hackney, then Greenwich Health Authority and for Bromley as a community practice teacher in Health Visiting until she retired in 2004.

Since retirement Maria has continued to work actively in organisations such as AGNAP and The Pineapple Club which is aimed primarily but not exclusively at the retired African Caribbean community. Maria is one of the original founders of this South London club. This long running club is highly regarded, providing a relaxed fun environment for those who use it, reducing isolation and loneliness and enabling the formation of new friendships. The club organises travel abroad for the less abled.

More recently, Maria has co-authored a book about her late father and his two brothers who served as solders in World War One. It is entitled “The Walker Brothers and Their Legacy ” (you can buy a copy through this site or on Amazon). She comments that “one of the things I have learnt from English culture is the preservation of items handed down. My father’s and uncles’ medals and commendations from King George V were carefully preserved by the elders of my family and these were of immense help in writing my book.”

Lynette Richards was born in Georgetown in 1938. She excelled at school and as she was preparing to leave the Tutorial High School her head teacher suggested three career options to her, nursing, teaching or the civil service. Lynette said that she wanted to do nursing in Guyana but the waiting list was long and so she decided to work as a civil servant and obtained a post with the Ministry of Health at the Georgetown Hospital as a secretary to the Radiographer.

But her ambition to go into nursing remained strong and an opportunity soon came up. The British Government advertised in the Caribbean for nurses to train and work in the fledgling National Health Service. Recruits would be paid during their training but would have to pay their own fare to ‘the Mother Country’, £100, over £2,000 at today’s prices. Lynette saved hard and in 1959 she and her half-sister boarded a ship bound for Plymouth, England.

Lynette didn’t intend to stay in England permanently, “my main aim was to become a midwife, my father’s dream. I wanted to qualify as a nurse-midwife and return home after five years.”

Lynette (on the left) on her graduation day

Lynette completed her initial training in Taunton in 1962 (she was awarded the prize for the best practical nurse of the year) and then went to Cheltenham and to Birmingham to train as a midwife in the hospital and the community. “On successfully completing my formal training I returned home to Guyana to see my parents and if possible to work there. There were some political problems at the time and my father advised me to return to the UK and come back later.”

But the best laid plans don’t always come to fruition and “on my return, I got married and my daughter was born the following year.” Lynette remained in England and enjoyed a successful career in the NHS.

She progressed quickly, working as a district midwife; training as a clinical teacher to student midwives in the community, and as a Nursing Officer responsible for all antenatal and gynaecology services and staff at the Greenwich District Hospital. She went on to work as the Senior Nursing Officer, in charge of three hospitals, the Weir, the South London Hospital for Women, and the St George’s maternity unit.

Not long after this she was asked to apply for the post of Divisional Nursing officer, the top Midwifery post in the Wandsworth Health Authority. She got the job. She then became the adviser on midwifery services to the health authority and supervisor of all midwives working in Wandsworth in 1979.

Later Lynette was also appointed as a director for Maternity Alliance, UK, an organisation which advised the UK government’s select committee on midwifery services and care. In 1989 she became chairman for the association of supervisors of midwives for the south-east region of the UK. She was also the first nurse-midwife to be appointed to the role of general manager responsible for medical, nursing, clerical and technical staff. In so doing, she was able to introduce effective care for all general, midwifery and all children services.

After a successful career, Lynette took early retirement in 1992 but has continued to serve the community in many different ways. She was one of the founder members and chairman of the Association of Guyanese Nurses and Allied Professionals (AGNAP) that was formed in the UK in 1989. For over thirty years the Association has done much to improve the provision of healthcare services in Guyana.

In 1999 the Department of Health appointed her to represent the UK as a member of a committee of experts on adoption and healthcare services in Strasburg. Almost simultaneously she was appointed as Director for the Commonwealth Society for the Deaf (now Soundseekers).

Lynette is still very active in a wide range of initiatives and, even in her eighties, continues to provide inspirational leadership to her community in the UK and Guyana.

The contribution these ladies have made is quite literally incalculable. Speaking to them has been a humbling experience. And, the thing is, their stories are not even the tip of the iceberg, they are not even the tip of the tip, there are thousands more waiting to be told.

Finally, we know we aren’t the only people interested in this subject. If you have the time do please take a look at the work of the Young Historians Project https://www.younghistoriansproject.org/african-women-and-the-health-servic.

Continue reading “Celebrating Black Nurses”

Victory in Europe Day 2020

We make our own contribution to the VE (Victory in Europe) anniversary celebrations by adding a new page to the Windrush Generation section of this site.

Alford Gardner was on the Empire Windrush when she docked at Tilbury in June 1948 but he had also served in the Royal Air Force during World War Two.

Alford (right) with his friend Dennis Reid

The page has been written by Audrey Dewjee and is a revised version of an article she first wrote over two years ago. Audrey has updated it following recent conversations she has had with Alford who is still enjoying life to the full at the age of 94.

This link will take you straight to Audrey’s article: http://historycalroots.com/alford-dalrymple-gardner-raf-recruit-and-windrush-pioneer.

We can also report that plans are now taking shape, long overdue, for a permanent memorial at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire to commemorate the contribution of Caribbean servicemen and women during the War:https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-birmingham-52543809/ve-day-the-experience-of-a-caribbean-ww2-raf-veteran. Of course there is still the little matter of funds to pay for the memorial, you can find information about the appeal here: https://thenationalcaribbeanmonument.org/index.php.

Charles Austin Dawkins – A Life Well Lived

When does an ‘ordinary’ life become ‘extraordinary’?

Travelling over 4,500 miles from a Caribbean island to serve your king and “Mother Country” in the Second World War is not bad for starters.

Overcoming racism to make a new life for yourself in a land distant from your birth is a good way of continuing the story.

Marrying and bringing up a family of four children, holding down a job, paying your taxes for 38 years sounds good too.

Charlie Dawkins’ life was all these things and much more.

Although his story is not unique, it is well worth remembering. It also shines a light on the little-known story of the 4,000 West Indian recruits who trained at RAF Hunmanby Moor, Filey, in 1944.

Charlie lived a relatively quiet but very worthwhile life. He was much loved by his wife and children. He passed good old fashioned values on to the next generation. He instilled in them good Christian principles, such as honesty, integrity and self-discipline. He was kind and thoughtful, well-informed and wise beyond his years and the limited educational opportunities that were open to him.

Charlie Dawkins was indeed a very special person. You can read an article about him by Audrey Dewjee on a new page in the ‘Windrush Generation’ section of this site: http://historycalroots.com/charles-austin-dawkins

Nadia Cattouse: Activist and so much more

We are thrilled to have added a new page to the ‘Windrush Generation’ section of this site and you can find it here: http://historycalroots.com/nadia-cattouse

Nadia Cattouse

We are so lucky that our friend, Audrey Dewjee, a historian based in Yorkshire, has known Nadia Cattouse for many years and has persuaded Nadia to allow an article to be published about her. Nadia’s story is a fascinating one but, in truth, the article we have published cannot fully do justice to someone who has contributed so much in so many ways. Nadia deserves a full account of her life and perhaps one day someone will write the book she so obviously merits!

Please follow the link and read the story of a truly impressive woman.

A Seamless Thread

There aren’t many positives to take from the current coronavirus pandemic but, possibly, clutching at straws, our time indoors gives us more time to catch up on our reading. With that in mind I have just finished ‘Telling the Truth: the British Honduran Forestry Unit in Scotland (1941-44)’ by Amos Ford. Our friend, the Yorkshire historian, Audrey Dewjee, recommended this book to me some time ago. It’s a slim volume but no less interesting for that.

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The book covers one of the little known byways of black British history, just the sort of thing that intrigues us at Historycal Roots.

Amos worked as a civil servant (in the same Department as me as it happens; our careers overlapped by 10 years but we never met) until he retired in 1980. He clearly then spent many productive hours at the National Archives at Kew researching the official records covering the story of the British Honduran Forestry Unit in which he himself had served. Evidently he was shocked by the racism of the British authorities that he found documented in the files. The reports, he says, ‘made disturbing reading.’

In 1941 Britain was crying out for timber, the chair of the Forestry Commission estimated that at least 5.7 million tons would be needed in that year alone. This may seem strange today but the British economy was heavily reliant on coal and coal mines needed substantial quantities of timber to prop up the walls and roofs of the tunnels as the coal was dug out. Before the war much timber (4 million tons in 1936) had been imported from continental Europe, 2 million tons had come from Finland alone. With German forces now in control of most of the pre-War sources of timber Britain needed to look elsewhere. She didn’t need to look far, the hillsides of Scotland, England and Wales were covered with the stuff. There was no actual shortage of the raw material, what was lacking was the men to cut it.

This was where the colonies could help and foresters from Canada, Australia and New Zealand were recruited. British Honduras (now Belize) was identified as another source of recruits. The men from British Honduras had just the skills that were needed, indeed they were used to felling hardwood trees like mahogany and so the softwood trees of Britain would have been ‘no more than broom-sticks’ in comparison.

There was no shortage of willing volunteers and 500 recruits quickly came forward, in Amos’ words they signed up ‘with alacrity, charged with all the love and patriotism of England.’ Getting the volunteers to Britain posed logistical problems at a time when German submarines were wreaking havoc on shipping in the Atlantic. Making the arrangements took precious time and in the end the volunteers had to split between several different ships. The SS Strathaird and SS Orbita[1] left Trinidad where the men had mustered, in August and got 381 volunteers safely to Glasgow and Liverpool respectively without major incident. Amos was on the third ship to leave Trinidad, the SS Winnipeg, which left Port-of-Spain on 11th September. The Winnipeg was not so lucky, being battered by a force 10 storm, a hurricane and was torpedoed by a German U Boat. The ship limped to Iceland where Amos and his colleagues transferred to the SS Bergensfjoird for the last leg of the journey to Scotland.

Given that planning for the establishment of the unit had started in May it was a surprise to the first men to arrive that their camp was ‘in a sorry state of unreadiness and disarray.’ and they had to sleep in ‘tents in the cold night air of Scotland in late Autumn.’ The dining hall and toilets were unfinished ‘and the men had to plough through ankle deep mud to reach their temporary mess facilities.’ Reading the official reports at Kew it became evident to Amos that forestry units from other parts of the Empire had been catered for significantly better. At the camps occupied by the Newfoundland unit, for instance, ‘the canteens were clean and well kept’ and ‘education huts were attached to each canteen’ where ‘the Newfoundlanders made considerable use of the opportunities for study.’ Amos notes the ‘significant contrast’ with the situation at the camps provided for the men of British Honduras.

The men from British Honduras experienced an entirely unfamiliar climate: ‘it was a cold task because one was working in the open, high up on a Scottish hillside where the timber was located in most cases. Travelling in uncovered trucks in the icy winter mornings was, itself, a daunting experience! With the vehicle moving fast over the road, ensuring that it did not become a German raider’s target, the very cold winds were more than our tropical bodies could stand at times.’ The accommodation didn’t help, the huts ‘had huge holes in parts of the floor-boards and walls and openings in the ceilings,’ which ‘let in the biting winter night air.’ The single wood-burning stove in the centre of the hut (each hut accommodated about twenty men) simply wasn’t up to the task of keeping the men warm. The Duke of Buccleuch, whose estate many of the men were working on, wrote to Harold McMillan (then a junior Minister at the Colonial Office) describing the men as ‘lazy at work and requiring a good deal of waking up to get anything out of them.’ McMillan’s reply observed that in his view the men were ‘not lazy but intolerably cold.’

The Duke of Buccleuch had another cause for complaint: ‘the local women and girls had interpreted too widely the request to be kind with the foresters,’ in his words some local females had been ‘over zealous’ in their welcome of the black foresters. The Duke’s real concern was to prevent miscegenation, something that anyone who was read ‘Mixing It’ by Wendy Webster will know was a major source of concern to the British authorities at the time, a concern that bordered on obsession. Amos comments that it was a clear policy objective of the officials dealing with the black forestry units to keep the races separate.

It was also important that the black men should ‘know their place’ and that place was subordinate to white men. Amos quotes a memorandum from an official at the Ministry of Supply: ‘My own view is that the foreman or whatever name is given to the man in charge of each camp, should be a white man … I should suggest that we might try to recruit the chief man in charge of each camp from ex-Indian officers or ex-tea planters or rubber planters – men who have been accustomed to handling coloured labour. It may however be possible to recruit such white men in British Honduras and, of course, this would be preferable as presumably such white men would be able to speak the language.’ Amos says he was confused and astonished by the level of ignorance and racism displayed here.

Various other indignities were heaped up the black foresters before the unit was disbanded in 1944 and (most of) the men shipped back to British Honduras. Not all returned, some chose to stay in Britain and make new lives for themselves here. Amos Ford himself married Hilda Wilson in Newcastle in the early months of 1945 and they went on to have a large family together.

Perhaps what is most surprising about Amos Ford’s account is that he seems to have been surprised by the racism he encountered on open display in the files at Kew. You really don’t have to look very hard to find shocking examples of how the British authorities regarded black people in the colonies. While researching at Kew for the book ‘The Walker Brothers And Their Legacy: Three Black Soldiers In World War One’ I came across the story of Merwyn Deniston Crichton {file reference CO 295/460/58].

In 1910 Merwyn was a civil servant working as a book keeper in Trinidad. On 28th October he applied for an advertised post as a storekeeper in Sierra Leone. He was young and keen to get on in life and for him this would be a promotion. The Acting Governor of the island, S W Knaggs, endorsed the application, reporting that Mr Crichton ‘is intelligent and hard working and has some experience as a storekeeper … he has shown a satisfactory grasp of these duties and would in his opinion [the reported opinion of the Director of Public Works] competently fill the post for which he applies. I have the honour to be, My Lord, Your Lordship’s most obedient, humble servant.’

But Mervyn’s application troubled those considering it. It wasn’t Crichton’s capability that was in question, it was his colour. There is a query on the file: ‘do you know whether Mr Crichton is of more or less unmixed European origin?’ The reply ‘I cannot say, but the number of pure white families in St Vincent (where he was born) is distinctly limited,’ only served to fuel concerns. The correspondence on the file goes on to suggest that Acting Governor Knaggs should be reminded that the authorities in Trinidad ‘had been told always to let us know whether applicants for transfer were coloured or European.’ The added comment ‘I have little doubt he is coloured’ draws the discussion of Crichton’s colour to a close.

The sorry saga concludes with the suggestion that the application should be acknowledged and Mr Crichton told that ‘other arrangements have been made for filling the post of storekeeper’ with a final reminder ‘I have the honour to request that in cases of application for promotion such as that of Mr Crichton I may be confidentially informed whether the candidate is or is not of pure European descent,’ with the added comment that ‘we must discourage the idea that every tin pot clerk who cares to apply has the chance of getting one [a promotion].’ The flowery language makes no attempt to disguise the message that black men needed to know their place.

Merwyn’s story scarcely merits a footnote in the history of Britain’s relationship with her colonial subjects but it does illustrate in microcosm the way that insidious institutional racism can cast a blight over people’s lives.

You might hope that examples like Merwyn’s and the Forestry Unit are just ‘history’ and that the British authorities have moved on. Sadly such hope is misplaced as Wendy William’s recent report into the root causes of the Windrush scandal demonstrates all too clearly. The report’s author concluded that ‘The factors that I identified demonstrate an institutional ignorance and thoughtlessness towards the issue of race and the history of the Windrush generation’ and that ‘some senior civil servants and former ministers showed ignorance, lack of understanding and acceptance of the full extent of the injustice.’ Williams is shy of accusing the Home Office of being ‘institutionally racist’ but reading the report I cannot share her coyness. The report contains many case studies some of which will be familiar to anyone who followed the scandal, they have lost none of their ability to shock and appall.

Wendy Williams full report can be found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/874022/6.5577_HO_Windrush_Lessons_Learned_Review_WEB_v2.pdf

These stories (sadly there are many others that could equally well have been quoted) illustrate a seamless thread running through Britain’s relationship with the people of its colonies and former colonies and that thread goes by the name ‘institutional racism’.

Wendy Williams’ report contains 30 recommendations. Williams acknowledges that the Home Office has apologised but in her words ‘The sincerity of this apology will be determined by how far the Home Office
demonstrates a commitment to learn from its mistakes by making fundamental changes to its culture and way of working.’ Historians of a future generation will be able to judge just how ‘heartfelt’ the various Ministerial apologies for the scandal really were by seeing what, if anything, changes and whether the ‘seamless thread’ truly can be broken.

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[1] The SS Orbita was the ship the brought James Berry from Jamaica to Liverpool in September 1948. Berry, one of the early pioneers of the Windrush generation, went on to make a name for himself as a poet and was awarded the OBE in 1990