Guest post by local historian Philip Grant to mark Windrush Day. Written in a personal capacity
1.West Indian immigrant workers search a newspaper for jobs on arrival
in 1948. (Image from the internet)
Today, 22 June, is Windrush Day, the anniversary of the arrival of the
“Empire Windrush” at Tilbury Docks in 1948. The ship brought hundreds of men
from the Caribbean, looking for jobs, after the British Nationality Act of 1948
allowed citizens of Commonwealth countries to settle in the UK, to help rebuild
the country after the Second World War.
There had been people from the West Indies in Wembley twenty-four years
earlier, representing their island nations at the British Empire Exhibition.
This is one of the photographs, taken at the time by a Harlesden photographer,
which I will be using in a talk I hope to give in October this year at
Harlesden Library, as part of the “Becoming Brent” project for the BEE’s
centenary:
2.Representatives of Trinidad and Tobago in their section of the West
Indies Pavilion, 1924.
(Source: Brent Archives – Wembley History Society
Collection)
I don’t know whether any of the original Windrush passengers came to
live in Wembley, but there were certainly other West Indians here that year. Just
over three weeks before the “Empire Windrush” docked, the entire West Indies test
cricket team came to Vale Farm, at the invitation of Wembley Cricket Club, to
play in a benefit match for Learie Constantine (after whom a cultural centre in
Willesden is now named). You can read about the match in an article that I will
ask Martin to attach below.
3.Learie Constantine, at the height of his cricketing popularity. (Image from the internet)
Learie Constantine was a
remarkable man, braving colour prejudice in the late 1920s and 1930s to become the
club professional for the Lancashire Cricket League side, Nelson, where he
became very popular. During the Second World War he worked for the Ministry of
Labour, looking after the welfare of West Indian men who had come to Britain to
work in wartime factories. He went on to become a lawyer, fighting racial
discrimination, and played an important part in bringing about Britain’s 1965
Race Relations Act.
In July and August 1948, Wembley County School in
Stanley Avenue played host to the mens’ Olympic Games teams from seven
Commonwealth countries, including Bermuda, British Guiana (now Guyana), Jamaica
and Trinidad. The school also arranged accommodation, with the families of
pupils, for the female members of two teams. Three Jamaican women athletes
stayed with the Welson family, shared coconuts and pineapples with them (a rare
treat in food-rationed Britain) and cooked them a meal of boiled rice with
grated coconut and red beans.
4.The Jamaican Olympics team at Wembley
County School, July 1948. (Courtesy of the Old
Alpertonians)
Most of the Jamaican team, paid for by public
subscription to represent their island at the Olympic Games for the first time,
had spent twenty-four days on a banana boat to reach England. Their captain, Arthur
Wint, was already in London, as he had just finished his first year as a
medical student at Barts Hospital. He would win Jamaica’s first Olympic gold
medal, but he already had wartime medals. Along with his brothers, Lloyd and
Douglas, he had volunteered to join the RAF in Jamaica, been sent to train in
Canada, and finished the war as a Spitfire pilot (one of around 500 World War
Two “Pilots of the Caribbean”!). Arthur Wint was another remarkable West Indian to have graced
Wembley in 1948, the “Windrush” year. You can read my article about his life here.
But it wasn’t all sunshine for people of the
Windrush generation who came from the Caribbean to work in Britain. The work
available was mainly in public services, like London Transport, the Post Office
or nursing. Several people I collected memories from for a Kingsbury local
history project in 2009, had come to this country from the West Indies in the
1950s and 1960s. One told me of the
hostility that many English people showed them when they arrived, just because
of the colour of their skin. Many landlords would not accept coloured tenants,
and even going to church was not pleasant, as they were made to feel unwelcome
at first.
Another incident recounted to me was about one of
the first West Indian families to rent a flat in an old Stonebridge tenement row
called Shakespeare Avenue. A live snake was put through their letterbox!
Luckily neighbours called a local Englishman, nicknamed “Noah”, who was good
with animals. He recognised it was non-poisonous, and soon picked it up and
took it away.
5.Christmas Day in the Children’s Ward,
Wembley Hospital (Chaplin Road), 1950s.
(From a nurses recruitment brochure in the Wembley
History Society Collection at Brent Archives)
One job where accommodation for West Indians was not a problem was as a nurse,
or nursing student, at Wembley Hospital. The hospital’s matron welcomed a
number of young women from the West Indies in the 1950s, for a two-year training
course to become a nurse. You would be paid a £300 a year training allowance,
out of which £128 a year was deducted to cover the cost of your board and
lodging in the Nurses’ Home. Once you qualified as a State Enrolled Nurse, your
annual salary would be £452. I have used the photograph above, of one of these
nurses, several times, but I have never discovered the name of the nurse. If
you recognise her, please let me know her name in a comment below!
Barbara came to London from Barbados in 1964, to
work as a nurse. By 1970, she and her husband lived in a privately-rented one
bedroom flat in Harlesden, costing £3 10s a week. Brent Council had built its Chalkhill Estate, but was finding it hard to let hundreds of homes there, because
the rent was so much higher than the “controlled rent” (as low as £1 a week) families
in run-down properties were paying. That is when Barbara and her husband, and
other hard-working West Indian families, got the chance to become Chalkhill
tenants. They had to show their passports, provide references to prove that
they were of good character and that they had sufficient income to pay the rent
(which was £10 10s for their new two-bedroom flat).
6.The Chalkhill Estate with Brent Town Hall
beyond, 1980s. (Internet image, courtesy of
Winston Vaughan)
Brent Town Hall is a Wembley connection of the last
West Indian in my article. Dorman Long was born in St Lucia, and as a young man
was a teacher there, before he came to London in 1960. As his teaching qualifications
were not recognised, his first job here was as a postman, later going on to
work for a housing association, then as a race relations adviser. He soon
became involved in local politics, and was a Brent Labour councillor for 33
years.
7.Dorman Long (right) greeting Nelson Mandela
at Wembley Stadium, April 1990.
(Source: Brent Archives – “Wembley Observer”
newspaper cutting)
Cllr. Dorman Long was Leader of Brent Council from
1987 to 1990, following a turbulent period when the borough was frequently
labelled in the press a “Barmy Brent”. One of his finest hours was welcoming the recently-freed Nelson Mandela
to Wembley, and trying to make him a
Freeman of Brent. I did not know him personally, but I have read that Dorman
Long was a kind person, and a man of principle – excellent qualities for a
leader.
Windrush Day was established to honour the
contribution that migrants, particularly those from the West Indies, have made to
this country. I hope this article has shown, through just a few examples of
both ordinary and extraordinary people, how much our community has benefitted from
the diversity and experience they have brought and shared with us.
Philip Grant.
