Memories of hardship and prejuduce (From Stroud News and Journal)

Memories of hardship and prejuduce

In the 1950s the government recruited labour from the West Indies. Dressed in summer clothes and unequipped for the English winter people often faced problems finding work and somewhere to live. Now a team from Stroud has put together a book telling the stories of the county's Afro-Caribbean immigrants, combined with some remarkable history of Gloucestershire's black population through the centuries. Reporter Sam Bond looks at their untold stories.

STROUD may not be a multi-cultural metropolis but the district does have a long history of being home to people from different ethnic backgrounds. As far back as 1603 records show an Afro-Caribbean, John Davies ye black, buried in Bisley.

References to black people in the Five Valleys are rare until the mid 18th century amongst the documents held by the Gloucestershire Records Office but researchers believe there may have been many more living in the county than the records show.

Now Hardwicke teacher Gail Johnson has written a book on black history in the county, focusing on the memories of immigrants who arrived in Britain in the 1950s to help rebuild the battered country after the Second World War.

Along with photographer Simon Pizzey from Whiteshill and Stroud's Andy Read who compiled the book she was commissioned by Gloucestershire County Council to put together Our Untold Stories.

Most people in Stroud will be aware of the town's links with the anti-slavery movement in the early 19th century which sought to ban the slave trade throughout the British Empire - a memorial arch still stands in Paganhill celebrating the campaign's victory.

But few know of another link between the district and the earlier battle to stamp out slavery in England itself which took place almost a century before the trade in people was scrapped in the colonies.

The entire archive of Granville Sharpe, who fought a court case in 1772 which led to slavery being scrapped, is stored in Gloucestershire County Council's Records Office.

The archive is a historic record of international importance and came to the county after Sharpe's niece, Mary, inherited the papers and moved to Hardwicke when she married the parish's Thomas Lloyd-Baker.

Other interesting archive material includes a letter of reference written by one Richard Raikes in 1815 on behalf of John Hart who had applied for a job as a teacher at Bisley Blue Coat School.

'I have know him for some years and believe him to be a person of great integrity and sobriety," it reads.

"He possesses superior sense, has been well educated and writes a very good hand.

"I consider him also as a very good-tempered man and well qualified to be a teacher."

Despite being admirably qualified for the job, Mr Raikes found it necessary to mention Mr Hart's ethnic background.

"Unfortunately he is a Mulatto," he wrote.

"A native of the West Indies which circumstance, added to a family of nine children has kept him soon poor in the world.

"Where so dark a complexion is not objected to he would make a very valuable schoolmaster."

The bulk of the book is made up of interviews with the older generation of Afro-Caribbeans living in the county, carried out by Gail.

"I listened intently to my father as he told stories of his childhood in Jamaica and to conversations between him and is friends of the 'old days' when they first arrived in Gloucester.

"They were few in number and looked after each other facing at times a very hostile reception.

"I was fascinated by their stories and wondered why they had left their idyllic paradise and why they had not returned considering the difficulties and hardships they had faced.

"I was full of admiration for their resilience and acutely aware of the expectations they had, not necessarily for themselves but most definitely for their children."

Gail's father, Byron Lloyd Loreston Thompson, came to England in 1955 and had wanted to study law but could not take the exams he needed as he was doing shift work to pay the bills.

"By the time I had sorted myself out I had got married, had children, bought a car and had lots of bills," he said. But in 1960 he bought a truck and became a self-employed lorry driver.

"I've had a good life in England," he said. "No regrets."

Vivian Blake, who has spent most of his working life in engineering, remembers his trip to England during the war.

His ship called in at an army camp in the US where troops were segregated.

The Jamaican recruits were treated as 'honorary whites', must to the displeasure of the white GIs and placed in the white camp, forbidden to mix with the black Americans.

Vivian still recalls the words of an American officer, explaining the situation to his men.

"These ain't Uncle Sam's niggers, these are King George's niggers," he told his troops.

And many immigrants faced an unfriendly reception when they arrived.

"Many people were hostile to you or frightened of you," said Boyce Oswald Alfonso Drake, who came to England from Guyana, then British Guinea, in 1953.

But Boyce did get to follow his dream, studying at art school and setting up an art shop in Gloucester where he fills his time restoring paintings and teaching others.

The book deals with the hardships and racism faced by the Afro-Caribbeans.

The successes and set backs of trying to establish a real black community in the county are charted and many interviewees shared happy memories, along with humorous stories about the culture shock of moving to Gloucester from a Caribbean paradise.

"I arrived in the summer of 1960 and my husband came to collect me," said Naomi Patterson.

"We took the first train to Gloucester and I commented; "what a lot of factories." he just smiled and told me that they were houses."

Our Untold Stories, priced £6, is available from Stroud.Com in the High Street and through local libraries.

SB