Black and white — immigration, an age of innocence
1950's black immigration as seen by a child
THE EQUALITY OF BEING POOR HELPED MAKE FOR A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD
I hadn’t even started school when the first person who did not share my white skin colour moved into our street in Bristol back in the 1950's, but I remember it clearly and this short recollection will share with you those early years of 1950's black and brown immigration into the UK as seen through the eyes of someone who although only a child at the time experienced it first hand.
SETTING THE SCENE
Before I do this though I just have to set the scene and let you loose in the street in which I began life. It was no palatial Mayfair mansion, but it was home and it belonged to my grandad and parents so they were justly proud of it.
My mother scrubbed the marble step to our little terraced house every other morning, and the brass knocker was cleaned every Friday. She loved her house with a passion. It had two rooms downstairs and two rooms upstairs plus an upstairs ‘cupboard’ grandly called a room that had rotting dodgy floorboards and was perched precariously over a kitchen that protruded on the back of the house into the garden/yard.
The kitchen could only be reached by going outside the house into the weeny garden/yard. Mum would think nothing of carrying our plated dinners from this outside kitchen to our back room indoors even if it was raining. I don’t recall being given ‘wet’ dinners though :-)
The yard also contained an outside toilet with a pull-chain flush mechanism which sounded like an aeroplane taking off when pulled. It’s funny how you remember these things even fifty years later. For some reason my Mum decided to buy a solid mahogany seat for this toilet and she polished it. I’m sure you find this odd, I do . . . the mind boggles!
As I’ve said she was very proud of her house. This house without an indoor toilet, without a bathroom, without running water. A house that 10 years later they called a slum and condemned to make way for a new road. My mother was at first angry and then cried for weeks.
My house was without a lot of things but it was full of one thing — love. I was loved and when I compared myself to my friends I knew even at that tender age just how much I was loved.
But, I am not here to tell you about about my early years with the exception of one thing — my memories of those early years as black or brown faces came to live in our street.
THE FIRST BROWN FACE
The first brown faces I remember was that of a family of Sikhs from the Punjab area of Northwest India. They came because of the chaotic aftermath of the 1947 division of ‘British’ India into the secular but largely Hindu state of India and the Muslim, state of Pakistan . . . not that I knew that reason at the time, something I learned twenty years later. All I knew was that I had a new playmate . . . Chetna.
Chetna moved into a house right next door to a bombsite at the corner of the street, and this was where I first met her. All the local children played on the bombsite with its huge wild buddleia bushes, its dips and craters, it was ideal pretend land. As children we gave no thought to the fact that Hitler’s bombs had killed several families that once lived in houses that had been on the land where we played. Chetna stood on the edge of the site watching us play. I can remember it clearly.
When I asked her her name her English pronunciation was not good and I thought she said Cheetah, so Cheetah became her special name just between the two of us.
To me Cheetah was always exotic with her beautiful silky-looking colourful clothes and ebony black hair. We became firm friends and I don’t remember ever being aware that her skin was a different colour to mine and I have no recollection of any of my friends making any comment about it either — she was just Cheetah, my friend.
Cheetah was one of a large family but the only children I remember were Cheetah and one of her younger siblings Tapa. Unfortunately Cheetah’s mother barked Tapa’s name when she called to her in the street and none of us children were able to work out what her name was for quite a long time.
Lack of clear English pronunciation had a lot to answer for in those early weeks and when Tapa was playing in my house my mother called her Teepot, not out of any malice but because she genuinely thought that was her name. Cheetah’s English soon improved and when she shared with me my mother’s mistake we laughed, unfortunately by then poor Tapa’s nickname had stuck.
Cheetah and I played in the street, played on the bombsite or played in my house but we never played in her house. I don’t know why perhaps with all those brothers and sisters there wasn’t room or maybe she was glad to escape to the quiet house of an only child.
WATCHING 1953 TELEVISION WITH CHETNA
Just before June 1953 my parents were seduced by the newspaper advertising for a television and my mother wanted it to see the coronation of Queen Elizabeth 2nd. So they rented a huge box of a TV with a weeny 12 inch (about 30 cm) screen from Radio Rentals. We were the first people in our entire street to have a TV and my mother was very proud of the fact.
Come Coronation Day I can remember what seemed liked the entire street crammed into our tiny parlour watching this momentous event. Cheetah, Tapa and I were sat crossed legged in the front as happy as larry.
My friendship with Cheetah was coming to an end although I didn’t know this at the time. It was odd that although Cheetah was the same age as me she didn’t start school with me. In fact it was during my first year at school that I came home one-day to find her house empty. The whole family had just up and gone. Nobody seemed to know why or even where they’d gone.
Looking back now I find it odd. Why didn’t she start school? Where did she go? Perhaps they were in the UK illegally? I didn’t know then and I’ll never know now but I do know that my first meeting with someone whose face and culture was different to my own was a sheer delight and I learned much from that early encounter.
I hope Cheetah also learned much from embracing my culture at our tender age. I still remember her with fondness. My first real friend.
VALERIA MY JAMAICAN FRIEND
It was several years until a black family moved into the street. They came from Jamaica, and the eldest daughter Valeria was a year older than me. To me she seemed tall and she had lots of curly black hair that I thought this was fantastic when I compared it to my own fine mousy offering. She seemed so ‘cool’ and worldly wise and I looked up to her as though she was an older sister. This time language was no initial problem and I understood Valeria perfectly despite her accent.
She lived on the same side of the road although quite a few houses away. I remember we got into trouble with neighbours quite often because they said we were noisy. We were only shouting to each other across the low garden walls! We were also accused of throwing rubbish into their poky little back gardens — in fact we were trying to sail paper airplanes across the terraced gardens to each other. After a huge telling off we had to stop, but we never stopped playing and we never stopped enjoying each other’s company.
VALERIA’S VERSION OF SEX
She enlightened me with her version of sex, something children were not supposed to know about in the 1950's. I can picture us now sitting on the pavement by the corner pub and her telling me how babies got in mummy’s stomach. We’d giggle if anyone walked by and hug each other as though we had the state secrets in the palm of our hands. Such delicious untold knowledge we thought we had :-)
I truly believed her version of sexual events as much as she believed them herself. She was totally wrong but I didn’t learn that for quite a few more years. We were ignorant, sheltered and at the time it didn’t matter.
Being a year older she moved on to the senior school before I did and that somehow pushed a wedge into our friendship. She grew up quicker now and I was still the child at junior school.
I never considered the colour of her skin, she was just my friend and we remained friends until the bulldozers knocked down all the houses in the 1960's.
GLORIA, FIRST BLACK FACE AT WORK
My next encounter with a new black face was at work quite some years later, for although black people were migrating to England they were still in the minority and looking back now I think that they were brave (or very desperate) to move to a land and a culture so very far from their own.
I didn’t meet Gloria [whose family were from Jamaica] for some time and she had been working in the typing pool for quite a few months before our paths crossed.
For some inexplicable reason when we did meet I was surprised that she was black. I can’t explain why I was surprised even now. She seemed nice but we worked in separate areas of the building and we didn’t see each other very often so I never got to know her. However Gloria was the first black person that I ever heard negatives remarks about.
NEGATIVE REMARKS
Today I would describe these remarks as covert racism. The remarks would be subtle and underhand and never directly to Gloria herself. For example in the canteen I would overhear one white woman saying to another something like ‘so-and-so’ could have done with that job’. So-and-so being white of course, and never mind that ‘so-and-so’ may not have had the typing and shorthand qualifications of Gloria.
Stupid remarks were made, again never to Gloria personally. Silly things like commenting on what food she brought to eat or the clothes she wore. The comments were never kind.
I never joined in the spiteful gossip but I am not proud to admit that at first I didn’t do anything about it either. Then one-day someone said something unpleasant about Gloria directly to me (I don’t remember what). When I said I didn’t agree I remember the woman who had spoken to me walked away shaking her head.
My comments (the exact words now long forgotten) went around the secretarial section like wildfire. Soon nobody spoke to me unless it was to do with work and I was ‘sent to Coventry’ for weeks and weeks afterwards. I experienced how Gloria must have felt working in such a hostile environment.
Being an only child one can live within one’s head. Does that sound daft? I’m sorry but sometimes only children became resilient within themselves and do not necessarily need others. I’m afraid I fall into that category and I enjoy my own company.
It’s probably why the life of a writer sits so easily with me; working alone with my words is sheer joy for me.
Please don’t think that I don’t like being with people, I do — very much, otherwise I would never have chosen and worked so hard towards qualifying as a teacher. A job I loved, but I’m also equally at home alone, on my own.
Unfortunately I didn’t have enough experience of life back in those days and I regret that I could have done much more to befriend Gloria and help her but I am ashamed to say that at the time I didn’t. I had no idea whether Gloria heard the spiteful comments, I really hope not but I’m doubtful about this.
When things came to a head and nobody was speaking to me I should have approached Gloria and talked to her about many things, but I didn’t. Given the opportunity again with the hindsight and experience of age I would handle the whole thing differently.
It must be difficult for you younger ones to realise just how different life was 50 years ago. We’ve come a long way in the equality stakes, but we’ve a long way to go. I hope you’ll forgive me for being weak and not doing more when I first encountred covert racism, it’s Gloria I would really like to talk to about this now. I hope that she’s done well in her life.
A DIVERSE RACE
Diversity of race and culture I believe has made Great Britain great, we have been lucky —it has nourished, enriched and brought many benefits to the country.
I hope that time will bed-down the challenges of current immigration for we are the sum of our parts and whether our original parts are derived from the Celts, the Romans or the Normans or modern day immigrants together we are strong.
I can continue these recollections if anyone is interested for it wasn’t that long after the events described above that I was accused of being a racist by one of my students and I got into a lot of trouble, but I will wait and see whether anyone has the remotest interest in hearing more. Do let me know if you’d like me to continue.
It was this article that encouraged me to
write this piece — if you’ve time it’s well worth a read
