Nadia Cattouse

By Audrey Dewjee (April 2020)

Nadia Evadne Cattouse was born in Belize city, British Honduras [now Belize][1] on November 2, 1924, the daughter of Albert Cattouse, a civil servant who went on to become Deputy Prime Minister of British Honduras, and Kathleen Fairweather Cattouse, a school mistress. Nadia recalls, ‘That man over there on that bicycle was my father but I did not grow up with him. My mother had long ago gone home to live with her mother with two babies, my brother Gerald and me, and expecting a third, my sister Shirley. In that house was my Granny and my mother’s brother, Uncle Henry Fairweather. He was the father figure who kept an eye on his mother and on his sister and her three children. He it was who paid for my education. The Fairweathers were a large extended family – lots of aunts and uncles, dozens of cousins.’

‘Henry Fairweather was a surveyor and a town planner. He was always on the go. He knew the country like the back of his hand – in fact he was responsible for surveying and mapping most of the borders of British Honduras. He carried a dream inside him most of his life, but it wasn’t until after he left the service of the Government and his time became his own that he could really concentrate on his plan to replant all the mahogany trees that over so many years had been traded to Europe and other parts of the world without any thoughts of replacement. Years later, I lived in Britain, and every time I went home on holiday and went to visit him, he would send me off into the bush to collect seeds. I doubt I collected many – I was too busy on the lookout for snakes, especially one that everybody talked about. They called it the Jumpin’ Tommy Goff and they said it was deadly! By the time Uncle Henry died, he was known all around the world as the Mahogany man.’

Nadia was not yet 15 when World War 2 began. At the time she was working as a pupil teacher by day and receiving teacher training in the evening from her headmistress, a Canadian missionary, as there was no teacher training college in British Honduras at that time. In her spare time she led a carefree life in the company of her cousins, friends and other relatives. As the war progressed, an uncle and then some of her male friends and relatives left for England, volunteering to do ‘their bit’ for King and Mother Country.

Her Uncle, Carlton Fairweather, enlisted in the Forestry Unit which was cutting down trees in Scotland. During the war there was a huge demand in Britain for timber which was needed for pit props for the coal mining industry, which in turn fuelled steel production and ammunitions. Timber was also needed to repair bomb damage to railway lines and to rebuild the many buildings which had been bombed. Because of the war, timber imports were drastically reduced and there was a severe shortage of labour as so many men were away fighting. The Secretary of State for the Colonies, Lord Moyne, cabled the Governor of British Honduras to ask for help. Around 900 volunteers from British Honduras came forward to help manage Scotland’s forests: the first 500 arrived in 1941 and a further 400 men followed in 1942.

Carlton Fairweather appeared in a film about West Indians’ participation in World War 2. It is available on this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViGwxJloI70

Other of Nadia’s friends and relatives joined up as munitions workers and members of the RAF. Her friend Leopold Balderamos, known as ‘Poli’, became a wireless operator/air gunner with 196 Squadron. Her cousin Gilbert Walter Fairweather, known as ‘Dick’, flew as a navigator with 83 Squadron, and was awarded the DFC (Distinguished Flying Cross) for his bravery. Dick’s Squadron was part of the Pathfinder Force which went ahead and marked out targets for the main body of bombers which followed. As a navigator, he was the ‘brains’ of the aircraft. It was his responsibility to get the plane to its target and back home again and he had to do this by using complicated scientific aids and performing mathematical calculations while under intense enemy fire. The citation for Dick’s DFC noted that he ‘had saved the lives of his crew with his pencil’.

At the outbreak of war, the British Government insisted that all female recruits from the Caribbean had to be white, but in 1943 the Colonial Office finally managed to persuade the Foreign Office to allow black women in the colonies to volunteer for service in the ATS. As soon as Nadia heard this news, she jumped on her bike and set off for the Drill Hall where recruitment was taking place. She was number 30 in the queue of women who applied and she was one of the first six who were selected for training. Now, almost eighty years later, Nadia still remembers that the other five were Vida Anderson, Phyllis Bradley, Rosita Codd, Grace Jeffrey and Joan Murphy.

Leaving behind her quiet life in British Honduras, Nadia set out on her adventures. The first leg of her journey was to Jamaica where young women from all over the Caribbean were doing their initial training. Nadia says she had a great time in Jamaica and, while there, she had her photograph taken in her tropical uniform by a very popular Jamaican photographer, Wally Allen. The women recruits were held up in Jamaica for several months and Nadia believes this was because the authorities in Britain were too occupied with the forward planning for D-Day. Eventually they were told they were to set off.

Nadia in tropical ATS uniform, while training in Jamaica (Wally Allen)

The journey to Britain was an eye-opener for Nadia, in more ways than one. Her party, consisting of six young Honduran women, had to pass through the United States. Nadia still remembers that journey vividly. Their route took them to Cuba where they flew by Pan American Airways to Miami in Florida, continuing by train through Washington DC to New York. They sailed across the Atlantic to Gourock, a port on the River Clyde in the West of Scotland, before travelling to London by train.

The hotel in Miami, booked for them by the British Army in Jamaica, refused to take them. ‘They kept saying we don’t want Jamaicans, and it was a few minutes before we realised that what they were really saying was that they don’t take black people. We asked the coach driver who picked us up on arrival in Miami to help us find a hotel room where we could stay and he said “yes” and took us to a hotel. Unfortunately, it was a very seedy sort of a place: footsteps coming and going, doors banging all night. Rosita, the most experienced of us exclaimed, “Good God we are in a brothel”.’ The next day an ATS officer arrived from Washington and immediately took them to her own hotel where the manager was a fellow Scot. He agreed to take them, provided they used the lifts and did not use the hotel’s front entrance. Nadia said: ‘We were angry, upset and surprised but by the time we were to board the train, we had become very determined girls indeed.’

At the railway station, there were two queues for the New York train: one for whites; the other for blacks. Nadia and her colleagues, wearing their ATS uniforms, joined the white queue. The African Americans across from them in the ‘Jim Crow’ queue expressed concern for the women’s safety. On the train, they were instructed to move when the ticket collector discovered that the women were sitting in a part of the train reserved for white passengers. With the support of their Scottish ATS Officer, they stood up to the American racial laws. They insisted they would not go to the ‘Jim Crow’ car at the end of the train and would only move if they were given first-class seats. They were eventually given a compartment to themselves, with beds which let down at night. When they entered the dining car they realised they were being led to the segregated area, so they about-turned and marched away and after that they bought their food from platform buffets.

‘I had heard about these things, but I was totally unprepared, coming from British Honduras, for this kind of behaviour. We thought this is not our country, we are only passing through and we are not going to be part of these rules. I remember we got to Washington and we crossed a river and the moment we got to the other side of that river all the barriers on the train came down. All the people moved and mixed and sat together and it was a totally different arrangement because we had crossed the Mason Dixon Line, and were now in the north and segregation was illegal.’[2]

Nadia finally reached Britain in July 1944. The six women crossed the Atlantic on the Queen Mary which was packed with thousands of American soldiers. ‘We had no contact with them. We were lucky! When our train arrived in London an air-raid siren went, and I was surprised that everyone strolled around so calmly. I couldn’t understand this. Then we were directed to an underground shelter. So, my first impression of London was the air-raid siren!’[3]

Almost as soon as they arrived in London, the women were invited to take tea with the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire at a club, ‘round the corner from Piccadilly’. Of course, official photographs were taken. Nadia remembers her group was photographed at the entrance to the club with the Duchess, and that she was hatless and had a black band around her arm at the time but, unfortunately, she has lost her copy of the photo. She and I have searched for it together in the photographic department of the Imperial War Museum and elsewhere but, so far, we have been unable to find the original.

From London the group was sent to ATS Headquarters in Guildford for initial training.

Nadia and her five colleagues in 3 Platoon, B Company at No.7 Training Centre, Guildford

After this Nadia decided she wanted to go to Scotland. She volunteered to join the Royal Signals Corps in Edinburgh where she trained as a signals operator at Craigmillar. Nadia doesn’t really know why she wanted to head for Scotland. ‘I think it was because the colony and settlement of British Honduras was peopled by Scottish British, especially in the early days. Also, the British Honduran Forestry Unit was already in place in Scotland and Uncle Carlton was among them.’ In Edinburgh she worked in shifts sending and receiving messages by Morse key and radio telephones. Before long she was invited to apply for training as an officer, but she asked if she could stay with her friends – so she was sent to Newton Abbot in Devon instead to train as a physical training instructor. She then returned to Edinburgh where her time was split between her signals duties and instructing in PT.

When she left home, Nadia had been looking forward to seeing her friends and relatives again. She met up with Poli who came up to Scotland to visit her when he was on leave but her hopes of seeing her cousin Dick again were shattered, as he was killed in action just before she arrived in Britain.[4] Nadia fondly remembers Dick as a mischievous dare-devil who played jokes on his friends and young relatives.

In her off-duty time, Nadia was able to attend events at the Students Union of Edinburgh University where she made friends with some of the students. She also made close friendships with her fellow ATS members, often spending her weekend leave with their families. She says she never experienced any kind of racism while in the ATS in Scotland. ‘In Edinburgh there was no racial tension. No problem at all. We had camaraderie.’ Nadia also spent some of her leave with friends from back home in British Honduras. Mr. Rupert Arthurs (a veteran of World War 1 who had remained in Britain), his wife Win and their family lived in what was then a very ‘English’ Brixton in South London. On her regular visits with Win to Brixton Market, Nadia comments, ‘in those days there was not a mango in sight!’

Nadia (centre, in uniform) with members of the Thomas Family with whom she lodged in Glasgow while studying at Jordan Hill Teacher Training College

After the war, Nadia attended Jordan Hill College in Glasgow to refresh her teacher training, and then returned home to resume her life in British Honduras. She was appointed Headmistress of Gallon Jug Mission School in a large mahogany camp in the bush. Among other duties she lectured on infant education at conferences and summer courses, as there was yet no teacher training college in British Honduras.

Before long however, life in the Mother Country attracted her back and in 1951 she obtained a place at the London School of Economics to study social anthropology, sociology – and economics, which she says she never understood. In the beginning she paid her way by doing lots of different jobs including acting and singing jobs for the BBC, but a year before her course finished she was head-hunted by the Colonial Office. Leaving the LSE, she worked for a number of years as a Welfare Liaison Officer. Her work took her all over the country and included going to meet ships and assisting newly-arrived female immigrants from the Caribbean as well as sitting on consultative committees. In an interview with Stephen Bourne for his book, Black in the British Frame, Nadia spoke about those days:

‘I met many women who just came, with no experience of life outside the island they had left, and they would just ask somebody for guidance, take a bed wherever. Next day they’d walk along the street and, when they met a black person, they’d ask questions like “Where are you living?” And then they would just walk into a shop or a factory all over the country and ask for a job. That was really amazing and I was very close to a lot of those women at that time when I was helping them. I remember one night there was a party of seventeen women who had arrived at Victoria. I tried to find them a night shelter, without success, so I took all of them to my home and let them bed down on my floor! But they were so indomitable and quietly just got on with finding a secure, safe home for their children.’[5]

Nadia became well-known as an actress and singer and was soon appearing regularly on television alongside actors such as (ex. Flight Lieutenant) Cy Grant and folk singer Ewan McColl. Later on she had roles in series such as Angels and Johnny Jarvis. According to IMDb, her first acting performance on TV was in a play called The Runaway Slave in 1954 and her last in an episode of Johnny Jarvis in 1983.

On Wednesday, 22 July, 1959, along with Edric Connor, Cy Grant and Ewan MacColl, Nadia starred in a 1½ hour radio production written and produced by D. G. Bridson, which was variously billed as a play with music and “A West Indian Ballad Opera.” According to an article in the Radio Times, “My People and Your People tells the story of a brother and sister who emigrate from the West Indies in search of a new life. But the life they find is London is hardly the life for which they had hoped…..” Kathy however finds happiness when she and a young Scot (Ewan MacColl) fall in love, brought together by their love of folk music. (6)

During the play, Ewan MacColl sang The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face to Nadia. He had written the song and given it to Peggy Seeger (later his second wife), who performed it from 1957 onwards. The version of it by Roberta Flack, released in 1972, became a major international hit.

Her singing quickly made her a favourite with fans of folk music which had a strong following in the 1960s. This led to Nadia’s appearance on a number of TV shows such as Hootenanny and Hallelujah which in turn led to a recording career. She was described by Melody Maker as ‘one of the giants of the folk-song revival in Britain.’ Her work is still much admired by fans, who continue to discuss her work and enquire about her online.

Nadia Cattouse performing with Martin Carthy at a folk concert at Parliament Hill Fields, London, early 1960s. (c) topfoto.co.uk

During her career as a singer, Nadia adapted, arranged and recorded several Caribbean folk songs such as Brown Girl in the Ring, Long Time Boy and Nobody’s Business. She also composed and recorded a number of her own songs, such as Please and That’s What I’d Like To Do under the pen name Eva Dayne. Nadia explained how she came to write Red and Green Christmas: ‘In the late 1940s, walking down a country road near Woburn, a crisp sparkling white moonlit night – I was on my way to spend Christmas with the vicar (the Rev. Mr. Garnet Kenyon) and his family in a village called Milton Bryan and as I walked I thought of Christmases back home. The words came to me. La La – the melody came – a simple song. I didn’t call it a carol, others did.’ Years later, the Education Officer at the Commonwealth Institute, built a programme around the song to celebrate the festive season.

Donald Swan sang Red and Green Christmas in the United States and Canada on a tour with Sydney Carter in 1970. It caused quite a stir, as Sydney wrote to Nadia: ‘Everyone wants to know where we got it!’ Nadia was recently very concerned to discover that her song had somehow become listed as a composition by Donald Swan, and she is very anxious to ensure the mistake is corrected.

In June 1958, Nadia married arranger and composer, David Lindup, and in November she wrote to BBC Woman’s Hour on the ‘superstition and fear’ surrounding mixed marriages. At a time when most of the British public disapproved of interracial unions, Nadia’s letter reminded people that Britons had ‘for generations indulged in the custom and still do at home–and abroad, quite often without the benefit of a legal ceremony.’ She further suggested that those involved in interracial unions ‘are perhaps persons blessed with a larger ration of character and commonsense than the average couple, for the obstacles they face–socially constructed ones–can be quite damaging to those of lesser qualities.’[7] Nadia was later interviewed on the subject by Woman’s Hour, and a few years later she became the first black woman to (briefly) present editions of the programme.

The Lindup’s marriage produced two children – Michael (Mike Lindup of Level 42) in 1959 and Pepita in 1961. It ended in divorce, and in 1969 Nadia married for a second time.

Nadia was a passionate anti-racist activist and contributor to community events and celebrations of black culture. She became known for taking part in demonstrations for racial equality and she was often asked to entertain the crowds who gathered in Trafalgar Square to listen to speeches at the end of protest marches. The organisers knew she would be willing to do so and that she would make no charge for her performance.

Nadia (on the left) with Paul Robeson and Claudia Jones. (Courtesy Lambeth Archives, © Donald Hines)

She was a close friend of Claudia Jones, founder and editor of the West Indian Gazette, and assisted her in organising the first West Indian Carnival in London which was held indoors at St. Pancras Town Hall in January 1959. Nadia says ‘Claudia only had to raise her finger and I went running’. In September 1960, when Claudia organised an anniversary concert for the newspaper starring Paul Robeson, then on a visit to London, Nadia was delighted to appear on the same programme.

Poster advertising the concert starring Paul Robeson, September, 1960. (Courtesy Lambeth Archives)

She took part in a march to the American Embassy in London on August 31, 1963, which was timed to show solidarity with the March on Washington three days earlier at which Martin Luther King gave his famous ‘I have a Dream’ speech.

On February 5, 1964, Nadia appeared on ITV in Freedom Road: Songs of Negro Protest, described as an ‘unusual documentary’ and ‘the first show with an all-coloured cast created specially for British television,’ in which its writer-producer, Elkan Allan, matched protest songs with film and photographs. Cleo Laine, Cy Grant, Madeleine Bell, Lucky McKenzie, Pearl Prescod, and George Webb and the Woodpeckers also took part. The songs included Blowin’ in the Wind, Strange Fruit —about a lynching (originally made famous by Billie Holliday) and ‘the Freedom Riders’ hymn,’ We Shall Overcome.[8]

In addition to her television work, Nadia made many personal appearances in folk clubs and at a variety of other venues, often for charitable causes. For example she performed with Ram John Holder at a concert in connection with the Notting Hill Fayre and Carnival in September 1966; sang at a public meeting organised by the Kensington and Chelsea World Poverty Campaign in December 1967, and returned to Glasgow to head a concert given as part of the campaign to help the homeless in Scotland by the organisation, Shelter, in November, 1968.

Nadia served on the Council of the British Commonwealth Ex-services League [BCEL][9] for 14 years – representing Belize. She attended BCEL conferences in South Africa and New Zealand as well as Britain, frequently meeting the Duke of Edinburgh, then the League’s Grand President, and other world leaders. Fondly reminiscing about her trips abroad, Nadia wrote, ‘I never forget the heavy suitcase (it caused a torn cartilage in one knee eventually) with all the changes of blouses and tops – each time there were so many receptions – the hospitality of the host countries was always fabulous. The camaraderie, the tours and visits – so memorable.’

I first met Nadia when she took part in the programme at one of the Mary Seacole commemorative events organised by Brent Library Service at Kensal Rise Library, possibly in 1982. Dressed in costume, Nadia performed extracts from Mary Seacole’s autobiography and brought her story alive for those who attended.

Nadia in costume for her role as Mary Seacole, c.1982

I next remember seeing Nadia in April or early May 1989 when we met in the queue for a performance at the Oval House, Kennington, of Black Nightingale by Michael Bath, in which Joy Elias-Rilwan took the part of Mary Seacole. We sat together during the performance and so our friendship began. At first I was quite in awe of Nadia, but gradually I realised she was a very normal person and a lovely, warm human being. We went searching for her photograph at the Imperial War Museum in 2005 and we have kept in touch ever since by phone and letter and occasional meetings in London.

Nadia maintained contact with her ATS colleagues and a wider group of Caribbean women who had served in the ATS and WAAF during World War 2, regularly attending their get-togethers.

Nadia (centre) pictured at the Imperial War Museum with other ex-servicewomen [including Lilian Bader, ex-WAAF (left)], probably at the book launch of ‘West Indian Women at War’ in 1991

In 2008, the writer Errol Lloyd paid this online tribute to Nadia:

‘I met Nadia Cattouse in the late 1960’s or early 70’s – I can’t be sure which, but at any rate it was after the height of her fame as a singer/entertainer and after she had been away from the limelight for some time. I was quite young at the time and had never seen her on television and only had a vague notion of her antecedents. For that reason, my current impression of her is not based on her past glory days, but on the sort of person she has shown herself to be subsequent to those days…..In a quiet, self effacing way, she has gone about supporting a wide range of grass roots and community groups and organisations and the events they promote and keeping an alert and critical eye on cultural, social and political developments in the modern world. I hesitate to speculate as to how old she is at the moment, but she has always presented a somewhat serene, ageless and dignified image in public that is never showy or ostentatious. What is more she is today very intellectually alert and physically energetic. Whilst not being reclusive (she puts herself out and about when she chooses to), she has obviously put a value on her privacy, which needs to be respected, for this allows her the time she needs to pursue her wide range of interests. She is one of the most vital and wonderful human beings I have the pleasure to know.’[10]

In September 2009, Nadia was awarded the Meritorious Service Award from the Government of Belize ‘in recognition of her advancement of social, cultural, and political awareness among Belizeans and other Caribbean people in the U.K.’ She has kept in touch with her country of birth over the years and takes a great interest in its history, particularly its early history, about which she has collected together an archive of material.

Now in her mid-nineties and still intellectually alert, Nadia is a brilliant example of the Windrush Generation, both for her contribution to this country and its cultural life and as a role model for those who follow.

A number of Nadia’s recordings are available to listen to online. The following are two of my favourites:

Run Joe! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvg4dhD0A7A

Long Time Boy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUBg4nR3Rss

You can hear The Lydians (Trinidad and Tobago) singing Red and Green Christmas on this link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6vG_Id_iYY