We don’t often do book reviews on here, there are simply too many good books and the ones we like may not appeal to anyone else! We’ll make an exception for ‘Mixing It’ by Wendy Webster. The subtitle ‘Diversity In World War Two Britain’ probably gives a clue as to why we were initially attracted to it.
We saw Wendy do a presentation at a ‘What’s Happening In Black British History’ event and some of the things she said were a little startling and certainly caught our attention. She made the point that, even while the war was going on, while black servicemen were fighting for and in some cases dying in the service of Britain, the government was exploring ways of getting rid of them when the war ended. She backed this up with quotes from official documents held in the National Archives at Kew. This quote comes from a 1942 Cabinet paper: ‘service departments should do all they possibly can by administrative action to reduce to a minimum the opportunities these men [black servicemen] might have of being demobilised in this country.’ The ‘problem’ of course was that people from the colonies whether black or white all enjoyed the same rights of citizenship as those born in the UK. The whole chapter ‘The Empire Comes To Britain’ contains many examples of how the British authorities struggled with this issue.
However ‘Mixing It’ goes far wider in its consideration of diversity. Wendy makes the point that Britain had never seen such diversity with people coming from all parts of the globe to help in the fight against fascism. How, for instance, should Britain treat German Jews fleeing persecution, even those eager to take up arms against Germany? Why, incarcerate them of course! Similar issues were raised by people coming to the UK, from Poland, Czechoslovakia, etc. Wendy’s book is generally very readable but even she struggles to make a coherent narrative of the tortuous twists and turns in government policy which seemed to change, sometimes literally, on a daily basis.
What is interesting, and depressing, about Wendy’s book is that it reveals that many British people have long felt a deep distrust and dislike for any ‘foreigners’ and that seems to have changed less than some of us would like. The way some Polish people were treated following the EU referendum made our blood boil and demonstrated an appalling level of ignorance of our own history. The sacrifices of Polish airmen during the war are well documented by Wendy – Polish airmen were the second largest nationality among ‘the few’ who defended British skies. Unable to return to their native country which was now part of the Soviet block when the war ended, many had little choice but to remain in Britain and put down roots. The Polish Resettlement Act of 1948 recognised the debt they were owed and people often overlook that there were 65 Polish refugees, mostly women and children, on board the Empire Windrush when it docked at Tilbury in 1948. Their descendents deserve better.
We get particularly exercised about the failure to commemorate the service to Britain of black people in all walks of life but Wendy’s book paints a broader picture of collective memory failure and lack of respect for the many ‘foreigners’ who have made this country what it is. We sometimes hear people demanding a return to ‘Anglo-Saxon values’ – let’s not forget that the original Angles and Saxons were in fact invading Germanic tribes!
Wendy’s book is an academic work (there are 50 pages of footnotes!) but it is generally very readable and raises important issues that are still relevant today.