A Circle of Five E-Book

Harris Joshua

• Herausgeber: Jacaranda Books
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Serie: Twenty in 2020
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 736

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

On a misty Monday-21st June 1948-the MV Empire Windrush sailed up the Thames and anchored at Tilbury Dock, London. There were a total of 1027 passengers on board with 802 passengers from British Colonies in the West Indies. Of these individuals, 539 were from Jamaica. The infamous images of the passengers walking down the gangplank the next morning would be the moment the Windrush Generation was born. A Circle of Five reflects on the stories of the three hundred thousand or so making the same journey between 1948 and 1971 by showcasing the voices of five Jamaican women, Evelyn, Emma, Irene, Ivy, and Melissa. Each woman tells their own story, all beginning in early 1930's rural Jamaica and spanning some eighty years. Through these women, the experiences of the Windrush Generation come alive, honouring this vital period in British history.

Leseprobe

This edition first published in Great Britain 2020

Jacaranda Books Art Music Ltd

27 Old Gloucester Street, London WC1N 3AX

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Copyright © Harris Joshua 2020

The right of Harris Joshua to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the copyright owners and the publisher.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 9781913090289

eISBN: 9781913090487

Cover image copyright © Jim Grover 2018 ‘Stockwell Good Neighbours’ from Windrush: A Portrait of a Generation by Jim Grover used with permission of the artist

www.jimgroverphotography.com

Cover Design: Rodney Dive

Typeset by: Kamillah Brandes

Foreword

On a misty Monday—21st June 1948—the MV Empire Windrush sailed up the Thames and anchored at Tilbury Dock, London. There were a total of 1027 passengers on board with 802 passengers from British Colonies in the West Indies. Of these individuals, 539 or 67% were from Jamaica.

Passengers were not allowed to disembark until the following morning—Tuesday, 22nd June. By then the media had got wind of the story and the focus of newsreels and press coverage was on the large number of Black men, women and some children walking down the gangplank of the Empire Windrush and leaving Tilbury Dock. This was the moment the Windrush Generation came to be. The term ‘Windrush Generation’ refers to West Indian Commonwealth citizens migrating to England and Wales between June 1948 and the 1971 Immigration Act, after which immigration was severely restricted. The geographer Ceri Peach estimated the overall number of West Indians arriving between these dates at 304,000.

This was the beginning of significant postwar immigration to Great Britain and the establishment of African Caribbean communities in the UK. It involved a substantial number of people arriving from all over the Caribbean—mostly by air—and settling mainly in London and Birmingham. Yet until recently, triggered by the eruption of the Windrush scandal, it is remarkable how little was known about who they are. The history of this generation was, for the most part encapsulated and summarised by a single image—‘Black men and women walking down the gangplank of the Empire Windrush and leaving Tilbury Dock’. Other than the historical preservation of the that fact these migrants arrived to help the ‘Mother Country’ rebuild after the Second World War, there was no historical context provided about this community of people.

The contribution of New Commonwealth immigration to the UK in this period was huge. The Windrush Generation remains an important part of British history. However, from the very beginning, much of the media coverage focused on a limited number of issues. Within days of the MV Empire Windrush arriving, eleven Labour MP’s wrote to the Prime Minister—Clement Attlee—complaining about excessive ‘coloured’ immigration. This narrative along with the increase in racial tensions came to dominate the news and politics cycle.

The approach to the Windrush Generation taken in this book may be regarded by some as disarmingly simple. It is neither another thesis based on questionnaires and statistics, nor is it a book that seeks to rehash the findings of previous sociological studies. It is also not an analytical account from an ‘outsider’ looking in. A Circle of Five is a historical account of the Windrush Generation by the Windrush Generation.

This book follows the community of Caribbean migrants on the MV Empire Windrush gangplank at its point of departure. From there it goes back in time by asking: ‘Where did these new arrivals come from?’ ‘What was the nature of their lives in British West Indian Colonies?’ ‘What influenced their decision to immigrate to England?’ The story then moves forward in time by asking: ‘What happened to them after they arrived?’ This story is not solely about the eight hundred or so arriving aboard the Windrush. It is also about representating the experience of the three hundred thousand that followed in their footsteps between 1948 and 1971.

Rather than snapshot interviews and quotes from a great many, A Circle of Five is based on the detailed life histories of just five people. All five are Jamaican. All five are women. All five live in either London and Birmingham—the two cities that account for the majority of African Caribbean settlement in England and Wales.

None of ‘The Five’ had any reason to believe that anyone would ever want to tell their story. They were chosen because they were part of a much larger community, a few faces amongst many thousands.

I did not know any of ‘The Five’ and they did not know each other. They were contacted by a member of my family who approached delegates attending African Caribbean Conferences and Conventions. A good few of those who agreed to participate initially, declined when I contacted them. Eventually five women accepted my offer to write their stories. The life histories of ‘The Five’ were gathered from recorded and transcribed interviews. It was agreed that the book would not reveal their identities or the identities of their families. Each of ‘The Five’ received an audio recording of our conversation and a bound copy of interviews.

My role as narrator was to provide continuity and historical context where necessary. It was also about highlighting and sustaining the intricate drama of each story. I have done my very best not to be judgmental. Over the course of my conversations with ‘The Five’, I let them decide what they wanted to speak about and it was insightful and at times surprising to hear the issues they chose to dwell on.

With a view to make A Circle of Five accessible to a wide audience, the format of the book is episodic. Each of ‘The Five’ tell their part of the journey stage by stage, chapter by chapter. Though they did now know each other, it reads as though they were sitting together, sharing their stories side by side. As the enthralling and compelling drama of their lives unfolded, it became clear to me that the ‘The Five’ were not simply, faces in the crowd. They represented something far bigger—the extraordinary within the ordinary.

There are times when the events and memories of ‘The Five’ are introduced through narration and other times through the exact and unchanged words of one of ‘The Five’—this was done to ensure the continued authenticity of the stories shared.

The opening chapter provides an account of their different journeys across the Atlantic along with their first impressions and emotions upon arriving in Great Britain.

Each account then looks at the circumstances of their birth, family and upbringing in Jamaica. This spans Chapters 2, 3 and 4, bringing to life a graphic portrayal of Jamaican society in 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s.

The story then recounts how ‘The Five’ find their footing in the new land that is England.

In Chapters 5, 6 and 7 virtually nothing is predictable. The final chapter gathers their thoughts on how their lives turned out, where they are now and their reflections on family and community looking back.

Chapter One

Boats and Planes

EVELYN

It is early morning on Monday, 3rd October, 1955 and Evelyn is making her way to the wharf in Kingston, Jamaica. She is about to board a ship that will take her to England. Being that she lives in the city at the time, it is a short trip to the wharf.

Evelyn is twenty-three years old. There is no way she could have known it at the time but she is amongst the first of many who will be making this journey over the next decade. In 1955 the overwhelming majority of those making this trip are men. Women and children are to follow later.

She is not travelling alone though. Against the explicit advice of her mother Winifred, Evelyn is eloping with the man who she hopes to marry.

I did not have a lot of discussion with my mother about my plan to come to England. She had made a decision that if I am not going to do what she wanted, then I won’t get her approval. My mom knew I was coming to England with Reggie. She wasn’t very happy with that either because he used to drink a lot. She always says to me: ‘Don’t marry a man who drinks.’ But I wanted to do what I want.

On the face of it, Winifred’s ‘objections’ are not unreasonable. Her daughter is unmarried and about to leave their island to a foreign land with a man she does not like. She has no idea if or when she will see her daughter again. What remains clear, however, is that Evelyn is determined to get her way. Her decision to leave Jamaica and create a new future in England is based on precious little. She doesn’t know much about England. None of her immediate family had gone before. Reggie, Evelyn’s fiancé, agrees with Winifred—he too is far from certain about Evelyn’s plan to immigrate.

I started talking to him about it because his brother came. So we decided to come. It was a joint decision because he didn’t want me to leave him. He didn’t want to lose me, so we came together. He said: “If you want to go—I’m coming.” So both of us decided to leave.

Evelyn presents Reggie with an ultimatium—he either joins her on her journey to England or they end their relationship. Evelyn did, however, admit to having some doubts at the time.

Looking back, it was taking a big chance and I was told not to. It was not long when the war had ended and England was on its knees.

Though she is in her early twenties and living in Kingston, Jamaica, Evelyn is not in paid employment. No doubt this is a factor in her decision, made all the easier by what she was then reading in local newspapers.

They were advertising for people to come to England and help build the country. So immigrants started coming. A lot of people was coming and we decided that we would come.

It has to be said that anybody reading the newspapers in Jamaica in the early 1950’s and 1960’s could not avoid the message that ‘Going to England’ was the correct thing to do.

The advertisement section of the Daily Gleaner—Jamaica’s national newspaper—was full of promotions and adverts enticing Jamaicans to leave their home country for England. At the time these commercials were put in place by local travel agents and shipping lines advertising their wares. Airlines—in particular the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC)—would come into the mix later. In short, if you were Jamaican and thinking of immigrating to England at the time, you would be spoiled for choice.

IF YOU PLAN TO TRAVEL

TO ENGLAND—GO SITMAR

TRAVEL THE EASY WAY!

BOOK THROUGH CHIN YEE’S TRAVEL

SERVICE TO GO TO ENGLAND

SAILING FOR ENGLAND

THE COXE BROS TRAVEL AGENTS

TO ENGLAND?

SEE MR. TRAVEL ADVISER

PHILIP SEAGA

PICK YOUR DATE

PICK YOUR PRICE TO ENGLAND

CARIBBEAN TOURS

Travel agents and shipping lines were not competing on price. Whichever ship you chose; the standard fare was £75. Today, that would equate to around £1160. One way!

This was the immediate postwar period where there was excess shipping capacity and shipping lines were trying to fill their ships. One of the ways they did this was by combining European tourist cruises to South America and the Caribbean with West Indian passengers travelling to southern European ports. The final part of this journey would be to England and would be completed by train and ferry.

By 1959 travel agents in Jamaica had a thorough knowledge of the market and knew what factors could influence customer choice. They are aware that Jamaicans wanting to get to England were not interested in tourist routes. They, simply, wanted to go direct. An advert in the Daily Gleaner sets out the latest offer.

Your Opportunity Year—1959

TRAVEL TO ENGLAND—ASCANIA

DIRECT TO SOUTHAMPTON

Here are some of the reasons

why you should go ASCANIA

WELFARE OFFICER

To ensure that you enjoy your “ASCANIA”

Trip in every detail, we have arranged

for an experienced Jamaican Welfare Officer

and a Jamaican Cook to travel with

you on your Opportunity Trip to England.

Other travel agents continue to make similar offers but with the addition of perks such us an onboard ‘Jamaican Nurse’. Whilst this is happening, the airlines do more to attract customers and begin to offer transport to people from Jamaica to England the ‘next day’ with a stopover in New York. The standard fare is £85, not significantly more than travelling by sea. Like the shipping lines, the airlines are also competing. In October 1958, the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC)—the main carrier—which would later become British Airways, cut their fares in order to attract more customers.

Your Family Flies For Less When

Flying Together By BOAC.

By then a great many men—who were the first to migrate—are sending for their wives and children. Travel by air is now the preferred option. Travel agents, who were previously focused on selling travel to England by sea, are quick to catch on to the changing market and soon find ways of outcompeting BOAC. Chin Yee’s Travel Service—for example—begins offering a new service.

Chartered Immigrant Fights to London.

Full assistance given with travel documents.

Competition for customers between travel agents, shipping lines and airlines grows fierce. As early as 1955, corrupt travel agents have already penetrated the market in Jamaica. Non-existing trips to England are being advertised in local newspapers and trips are getting cancelled with customers never receiving refunds. The extent of these illegal activities are enough to prompt the Jamaican government to launch an official inquiry in 1956. Following the report, travel agents are at pains to stress their legal accreditation in their marketing.

YOUR MONEY IS SAFE

YOUR PASSAGE IS CERTAIN

CHIN YEE’S

TO ENGLAND

BOOK WHERE YOUR MONEY IS SAFE

PHILIP SEAGA

APPROVED SALES AGENT

CARIBBEAN TOURS

BOOK WITH A RECOGNISED

TRAVEL AGENT

SAIL SAFELY! SAIL SURELY! SAIL SITMAR!

Evelyn, in 1955, would have seen the many adverts that were plastered across the newspapers. She would have, almost certainly, come across this one:

BOOK NOW

on the

T.V. SANTA MARIA

MORE Travel Agents are sending More

People to England on this fine ship.

IT COSTS NO MORE to travel on the

Luxurious SANTA MARIA but you get MORE

luxurious Accommodation… MORE

excellent service and food on this Ship of the Line

that is famous the world over.

SAILING From KINGSTON OCT. 3rd

To VIGO, SPAIN via

Havana, Tenerife, Funchal.

This is the ship that Evelyn and Reggie board. Typical of the period, it offers those travelling from Jamaica a luxury voyage of discovery to England. This trip involves visiting other islands in the Caribbean, ports in the Canaries, Portugal and Spain before taking a train across Europe to Calais and then a ferry to Dover.

The Santa Maria is one of those ships taking European tourists on an outward-bound cruise to South America and the Caribbean. This ship picks up West Indian passengers bound for England on the way back. Typical of the class and racial attitudes of the period, tourists and passengers were likely to be on separate decks in different dining rooms or made to dine at different times to each other.

When Evelyn made her decision to go to England, apart from what she remembered being taught in school—she had little or no knowledge of her destination.

I didn’t know anything about England then. It was just what I read about England. History tells you about the Mother Country. You read about Sir Walter Raleigh and you read about Captain Morgan and the whole thing. You realise so many things were sent and exported there. Your school books came from there. Everything, it was England.

Nor did she know how they were going to earn a living once they arrived. There were many reasons behind her decision to leave Jamacia but in the end it all came back to Winifred—her mother.

I didn’t know what I was going to do in England. I got on the boat not knowing. You do not know what you’re going to do or see. But you think to yourself: ‘At least, if I work, I can better myself and do what I want.’

I was determined to do what I wanted to do and not what I have to do to please my mom.

As the day of Evelyn’s departure came, Winifred made her position absolutely clear.

She didn’t say a lot. She said: “I won’t even come to see you off.”

To Evelyn, this declaration was tantamount to being disowned. She is greatly relieved when Winifred changes her mind and chooses to see her daughter off. In hindsight Evelyn thinks she knows the reason why.

She did come—she did come. There’s a thing between a mother and a child. You can be as hard as anything but there’s that little tug in your stomach that’s telling you: ‘You’ll give in, you’ll give in.’ You sort of stretch it to see whether or not you’ll win. But she did come and see me off.

Despite her desire to go to England, as she goes on board the liner that will take Reggie and her part of the way, her emotions are in turmoil.

The Santa Maria was new. It was a Spanish ship—an absolutely beautiful ship.

Going on board I was a bit excited and a bit sad. My mom came with me. We went down to the harbour to get on the boat.

I remember standing on deck and I could see her waving—just a tear. In my heart I wondered: ‘Will I see her again?’

It so happened that I did not. When I saw her again, she was dead.

So I carry a guilt for a long time—for a very long time. It affected me which at first I never thought it would. But it did affect me—it did affect me.

In their journey across the Atlantic, their first port of call is Havana, Cuba and then on to Tenerife in the Canary Islands. They go ashore on both islands, but Evelyn is not enjoying the trip.

We spent eleven days on the ship and I was sick for ten. I couldn’t go to the dining room. I was in the hospital; I couldn’t do anything. It was terrible. Don’t care what the doctors did, they couldn’t get me to settle. Everything, I just heave up. If the ship docks—I’m fine. The minute it moves—I’m ill.

Unlike his fiancé, Reggie is fine on the journey across the Atlantic. He tells her about the dolphins and the flying fish he has seen. They get off the ship in Spain and it takes another day travelling by train to get to Calais. Given her experience on board the Santa Maria, Evelyn is not looking forward to the trip by ferry across the English Channel to Dover.

I did not go down. I stayed on the deck and sat with my head between my knees. It so happened I wasn’t sick, but others who wasn’t sick on the ship were sick on the ferry.

Evelyn vows never to travel by ship again. From Dover they travel to Birmingham by train where they expect to be met by Reggie’s brother. He’s not there.

We were at New Street station and I didn’t know where to turn. Everybody’s gone off the station and the two of us just stood there. A guard came to see what was wrong and ask if he could help. We told him where we wanted to go. He actually got us a taxi.

They end up in a room at a house in Langley owned by one of Reggie’s cousins.

The first morning when I got up and looked around, I thought: ‘Where the hell was everything?’ All I could see was brick. The only thing I knew made of bricks in Jamaica was Wray Town Prison. That was the only thing I saw bricks was made of. So I thought: ‘Where the hell is this?’

There was smoke coming through the chimneys because it was October. It was cold as well—it was cold. The situation—when you saw how many people was in the house—was awful. It was not nice. I cried for days. I thought I’d made the biggest mistake.

EMMA

It is Saturday 13th June 1959, and Emma is being taken to Palisadoes Airport just outside Kingston, Jamaica where she is to board a plane that will take her to England. She is eight years old and travelling with her younger sister Emily who is seven years old.

They are going to join their parents, Millie and John Robinson.

Dad came towards the end of 1952 and Mum came in 1953. My earliest recollection of them was really from the age of eight and a half because I was quite young when they immigrated to England.

Emma was only two years old when her mother left Jamaica and her baby sister Emily was just over a year old.

We were both pretty young. I was left in the care of my mum’s parents—Clarence and Emma Bernard. My sister was left in the care of my dad’s younger sister and her husband.

Her mother’s parents’ home is in Port Antonio—Portland. Her father’s younger sister—Aunt Isobel—lives in Kingston, some thirty miles away. Having been separated at a very early age, the two sisters would not come together until 1956.

At the time of their departure, Emma is settled in a school not far from her grandparents’ home. She has been a pupil there for just over a year.

The first time I knew I was coming to England was when my grandma told me: “Your mother and father are sending for you.”

That news saddened me because I’m thinking: ‘Mother and Father? To me they’re strangers.’ I felt what I now know to be like you’re going through a bereavement. It was a shock to my system. I didn’t want to come. I didn’t want to leave my grandmother because my grandmother was me mum. I did not want to come. I was sick at the time and my grandmother said: “You’ll get better, you’ll get better. You know you have to go.”

Her grandmother tries to reassure her by passing on what little she knows about the Mother Country. Both sisters are told not to worry and they will know their mum and dad when they see them.

My grandma did tell us things about England before we came. She told us it was a really cold country and the people was of a different complexion.

Mum had got photographs of us and we’d got some photographs of Mum and Dad so we could see what they looked like before we came up.

In the late 1950’s many Jamaican parents were sending for their children. John and Millie’s decison to send for their daughters therefore, seemed a normal thing to do at the time. However, a few weeks before Emma and her sister are about to leave, things take a strange turn.

I’d had fallen ill, seriously ill. Whatever it was, it was quite a mystery. I can only say unknown. All kind of stories was behind it including Witchcraft and Obeah.

My sister wasn’t sick. I was the one who was sick. From what I recalled, I wasn’t in school for a while. People had to be with me continuously. The nightmares I use to have!

Part of the story was something, whatever it was, had hit me and I fell ill. That’s the story I heard. Apparently my grandmother had said to me mum: ‘If you don’t want your child to die, you have to get her away from here.’ I heard different stories after that from my mum. She said that it might have been some sort of love triangle.

Anyway I came to England and had a good recovery.

Later on, Emma finds out that her mysterious illness may somehow have been linked to one of her relatives.

I had heard that this cousin of mine was supposed to come to England after me and my sister. My mum didn’t want it to happen and apparently my cousin also started being sick in Jamaica.

Money had been sent to Jamaica for her and to prevent her from coming she was always falling ill. Who was behind that I don’t know but maybe mum didn’t want her to come to England and her mother didn’t want her to come either.

The dialogue, which I later realise that was going on behind the scene, was that if I didn’t leave, I would have died. That was the seriousness of it. The life was draining out of me, yet Emily was fine.

More has been able to come out since my parents passed away by talking to other members of the family, but my parents took their secrets to the grave.

Emma’s illness is serious enough to prevent her from going to school and, whatever the cause, her parents take the view that she would be better off leaving Jamaica.

I remember the day that we packed to come to England. Oh my goodness! By this time I was starting to get excited and still sad because I was going to be leaving Grandma behind.

I was like hoping that as we were leaving that day, she’d be coming with us. Then it dawned on me that I wouldn’t be seeing her again.

Their grandmother did not accompany the two girls to the airport.

That day on leaving, I kicked and I screamed.

I told her I would not lose her. It was a very bitter and emotional time for me. I don’t know whether she had the same feelings because I can’t remember seeing her cry.

The next time I saw of my grandma was a picture of her coffin going down into the grave.

We were collected by Uncle George who took us to Kingston. This was the first time I went to Kingston. Before that I cannot recall going anywhere apart from to Buff Bay. We were privileged. We went on outings as regular as anything—picnics—and it was almost always around the church. All that was a part of my life that I was suddenly going to lose.

This was going to be the first real change in my life. As hard as that was, I had to go and Emily had to go.

Looking back, Emma did not think leaving her grandmother behind affected her younger sister Emily in the same way.

My sister had already been uprooted from Kingston where she was already living a freer lifestyle.

Even though she was a child, she was made to feel equal to her aunty who she was living with. She found it difficult to come from that, when she came to Grandma. Leaving from Grandma which was a strict household and moving on, she could deal with the change of coming to England more than me.

Emma and Emily are both minors and can only travel in the care of a responsible adult—an escort.

She was a fair skin lady. I can’t remember her name. She was somebody my parents knew, maybe a relative. As people from the Caribbean, you know we’re very close knit in those days. She was a relative of someone that my parents knew. It had to be somebody that they could trust.

Mum and Dad sent some clothes down that were identical so we dressed alike—blue and white. The only difference was I think Emily who had an additional color but the clothes were identical. That was the way our parents would know us.

They had photos of us taken at a studio. Oh gosh, my sister must still have those photographs.

Emma recalls with clear memory when she and her little sister saw their parents.

We left Kingston on the Saturday and we stopped in New York on the journey. I think it was to refuel; we didn’t change planes. We arrived at me mum and dad’s house, I think it was late the Sunday evening. By the time they got us home I think it was late the Sunday evening. That would tell you it was a long journey.

My mum and dad came to meet us. It must have been at Digbeth bus station in Birmingham. I recognised them because of the pictures.

We saw smoke coming out of the roofs of houses. I thought the houses were on fire with the smoke coming out of the chimneys. My parents had their own house. When we got home they had a three-quarters bed as we called them in those days in their bedroom in readiness for us. It had a screen around it, so it was like they didn’t want to let us out of their sight—to get us settled. That was only a temporary thing for us to get familiar with them. Then they got a small bedroom for us to move into—the smallest bedroom in the house.

Before long I was loving it but I still had this hankering. I wanted to see me grandmother.

Seeing my parents for the first time because I didn’t remember them, it was a bit of a shock to my system. I later realised that I dealt with that change pretty well.

The following Monday morning both sisters are enrolled in school.

IRENE

Irene grew up in Spanish Town, St. Catherine—around ten miles from Kingston. She is seven years old when she is taken to Palisadoes Airport. It is the year 1960 and she is going to England.

Irene’s mother, Lucy, came to England a year before and Irene was left with one of her aunties. Understandably, she cannot remember that much about this early period in her life.

My aunt was a teacher and had other children. I was one of five and was not treated the best. I wasn’t mistreated by my aunt but I wasn’t the favourite.

Unlike Emma who made the same journey when she was eight, Irene was not bothered about leaving Jamaica. She had not been with her aunt long enough to form a lasting bond.

Irene remembers the day she got the news that she would be leaving Jamaica.

When I knew I was going to England I was excited. I was going to see my mum again.

My aunt said: “You’re going with a lady and when you get there you will meet your mum.” It was a white lady. I think my aunt must have taken me to the airport in Jamaica and I must have met the chaperone there. I remember going on a plane for the first time.

The lady had already warned me that when I got to England: “Your mum will not be meeting you. I’ll be taking you to my house.”

I remember when I came off the plane I had to stay at her house until my mum came to pick me up. That was quite strange because I’d never been in a white lady’s house before. I vaguely remember all this. Then my mum came and she hugged me.

My mum was living in Finsbury Park and took me to her house. I think she was really glad to see me.

IVY

It is 1962 and Ivy is on her way to the wharf in Kingston. She is about to board a ship that will take her to Southampton, England.

She is twenty-seven years old, single and travelling alone. For the last few years she has been living on her own in a rented room in Kingston, not that far from her parents and her two siblings.

No one came to see me off. I just got my bag, got on a bus and went to the wharf.

I didn’t ask anyone in my family for help with the fare. I didn’t ask for their views on coming to England either. I told my mum I was going and she said: “Are you sure?” I just said: “Yeah!” I told my dad and he said: “People say in England the streets are paved with gold. But when you go there don’t look for gold on the streets. It’s just a saying.”

I didn’t tell my aunt Mabel. I didn’t tell my brother or my sister. I just disappeared. I left my mother and father to give answers to anyone who wanted to find out where I was.

In part, it is what she is told by her close friend, Jay, that persuades her to go to England. She grew up with Jay and trusts her.

My friend came here a couple of years before. She wrote to me—she and I kept in touch. She told me about England in her letters. She told me that England was a nice place and I could make a lot of money.

The idea of me coming to England had not come up before this. It was my friend’s idea. I came on her recommendation.

But that is not all. Ivy has a deeper motivation that causes her to leave her home in Jamaica.

I think what made me finally decide to come to England was the idea of getting away. Getting away from having my mother in one place, my dad up there in another and I’m in the middle.

I don’t know. Maybe it was something I couldn’t deal with at that time. My mother couldn’t do anything to help herself, so I just decided it was nice to be on my own—to come to England and be on my own.

Despite what Jay is says in her letters, Ivy is unsure about how she is going to make her way in England.

I didn’t really form anything in my mind about where I was going to. It’s just that I’m getting away and it’s going to be far, far away from everybody else. I didn’t really actually sit and think about it. Maybe if I did, I wouldn’t have come for fear of how I am going to survive on my own and all that. I didn’t think about it.

It turns out that Jay, who told Ivy she could make a good living in England, has not been employed since first arriving in the UK. She is, in fact, a housewife with children and knows little of what it is like find a job and survive on her own.

I was coming to live with my friend Jay and her husband. They lived in Peckham at the time. I knew they were coming to meet me in Southampton. They met me as I came down the gangplank. I knew her husband from Jamaica.

We go on trains and buses. It was a long journey. They paid half fare for me on the buses because even as a twenty-seven-year-old woman, I didn’t look that big.

Ivy cannot recall her passage across the Atlantic in any detail. She does not remember the exact date of her departure or the name of the ship. However, what little she can recall is rather insightful.

I know we were at sea for a while but I don’t remember how long. It was like a lifetime. I can’t remember if food was given to us or we had to buy food. I can’t remember who was on the ship, it was just people. People who you don’t want to get besides because you weren’t up to their standard.

I was in my little corner on a big ship, that’s all it was to me. Four of us was in a cabin, all girls, all Jamaicans coming to England to find their fortune. I don’t think any of the others knew where they were going to in England. No one kept in contact after the journey.

All indications point to her travelling on a tourist ship picking up West Indian passengers on a return trip to Europe. On arrival, she immediately questions her decision to come to England in the first place.

My first impression was I could turn back, go on the boat and go back to Jamaica.

It wasn’t the nice England I’m coming to. There was no impression of anything nice and Peckham was just the same. I was too big and too old to cry, and there wasn’t anyone to go back to. So I had to make the most of it. The strangest thing about it was that it was black and dark and you don’t see anybody on the streets in the evenings.

I thought England was going to be a nice place only to be disappointed when I got here.

MELISSA

Melissa is sixteen years old when she boards a BOAC flight that will take her to England on the 20th October, 1964. She is travelling alone to join her mother, Pengal, and her stepfather, Martin Macdonald.

Her stepfather was the first out of the family to leave Jamaica. He immigrated in 1959, when Melissa was eleven years old.

I remember when Mr Macdonald was going to England. In those days people don’t talk a lot about their intention to travel. I knew—so did the family—but nobody else in the district knew. He kissed me, said goodbye. That was it.

He went out on the main road and got the bus to Montego Bay. The bus took him to the harbour in Kingston. I think Mama went with him to say goodbye at the ship.

Melissa recalls how a great many people in her area booked their passage to England around that time.

We had a travel agent—a Chinese man. His agency is called Chin Yee’s Travel Service. Most of the people who came to England from Jamaica in the 50’s and in the 60’s went through Chin Yee’s. He had one office in Kingston—which is the capital of Jamaica—and the second is in Montego Bay. £89 you had to pay to buy a ticket.

In 1962, three years after he had left Jamaica, Melissa’s stepfather sends for her mother, Pengal. Melissa is fourteen years old and Pengal leaves her in the care of her grandmother Doule.

It was the same thing again when Mama was leaving. She told me she was going. She just said: “My husband is there and I have to go. I’ll send for you. We’re going to look for a better life.” She came by boat.

It didn’t bother me because my grandmother was there. I miss my mother but I didn’t feel any lost. I didn’t mind because my grandmother was there for me.

I didn’t go to see her off and Doule didn’t go either. I think her younger sister Aunty Pearl—God rest her soul—went to see Mama off at the harbour.

She just caught the bus with her grip. Again it was £89 for the fare.

Melissa’s grandparents are living in Hampton—St. James Parish—a few miles from Montego Bay, which is just over a hundred miles from Kingston. Though she asserts that Pengal’s departure did not bother her at the time, Melissa could not understand why her mother was leaving for England without her. Pengal promises her daughter that she will send for her but Melissa later finds out whose decision it actually was.

It wasn’t my mother who sent for me. It’s me stepfather Mr Macdonald who send for me. It’s Mr Macdonald who save the money and say to my mother: “Pengal, now I have the money, send for Melissa.”

I got on very well with Mr Macdonald. Never one day has he raised a voice to me. His name is Martin and I just call him Mas Martie.

Even though Melissa is only sixteen, she has already decided what she wants to do when she arrives in England.

Once I went into the hospital in Montego Bay and I saw the nurses in their uniform and their cap—so well starch and they were looking so nice. I thought: ‘I’m going to be a nurse.’

I never thought of staying in Jamaica with my grandmother and doing my nursing training there. I was coming to England so I would train in England.

Melissa feels hopeful and excited by the opportunity to travel abroad and join her parents.

I didn’t know a thing about England before I came.

My mum and stepfather wrote to me in Jamaica but they didn’t give me any description about England. They just say you have to work every day. I knew the street wasn’t paved with gold because my mother said you have to work too hard. Nobody in the district knew anything about England.

All I know is that England is England. The Queen is our mother and I was going to go to the motherland. I know that they have red telephone boxes, red post boxes and black taxis.

Melissa is already quite independent and though she would not have noticed it at the time, she is following in her mother’s footsteps.

My mother worked in Mayday Hospital in Croydon from the day she came to England till the day she went back to Jamaica in 1973.

On the day of her departure, Melissa’s grandmother Doule and her aunt Pearl take her to the airport.

I came on BOAC. It was lovely—it was wonderful. I had never been on a plane before and you know when you’re having turbulence—I thought I was going to die. I cried because I miss my grandmother.

Melissa’s stepfather Mas Martie was working on the day of Melissa’s arrival, so it was her mother, Pengal who met her at Heathrow Airport. Melissa remembers her first impression of England.

It was a bleaky day. The sun was out but it was cold and it was very grey and dull. Although the sun was shining, the sun wasn’t hot. I never knew you could see the sun and not feel it being hot.

Pengal takes Melissa to the family home in Croydon, London. When in London, Melissa has difficulty adjusting to what she sees around her.

I look at the houses and they were bricks, bricks, bricks. I thought: ‘Oh my God, all bricks!’ I thought England was supposed to be beautiful, it wasn’t.

When you look on the roof, there’s smoke coming out of chimneys. Is all this England? Is this the place?

Melissa recalls a one positive memory about London upon her arrival.

I could hear the birds singing. That is what I remember of England, the birds chirping.

It is two years since she last saw her mother and there’s is a pressing issue she would like Pengal to explain.

We talked. She ask me how life was in Jamaica.

I kept saying to her: ‘Why didn’t you take me when you were coming up the same time.’ Obviously, I couldn’t think why she didn’t take me then.

A great many of the ‘left behind’ children likely experienced a similar sense of loss and abandonment. Melissa is perhaps one of the few to confront her parents and press for an explanation. Within Jamaican and wider West Indian culture at the time, challenging your parents—especially your mother—was almost unthinkable. She did not say exactly how her mother responded but in hindsight she is understanding, even forgiving, of her mother’s decision.

There is uncertainty coming here. You don’t know where you’re going. You don’t know what you’re going to do. Financially, they came with maybe £5 in their pocket which wasn’t much.

You don’t know where you’re going to live. You don’t know how the child will be looked after when you go to work—school and all those things—until you get use to the system. When you get use to the system, then you know that you’re more solid and you can take care of the child. That was when they sent for me.

Chapter Two

Grandma, Grandpa, Mum and Dad

EVELYN

Evelyn is living in Kingston when she and Reggie board the Santa Maria that will take them to England in October 1955. She is not a Kingstonian and grew up in Mandeville, capital of the Parish of Manchester in the County of Middlesex, some sixty miles west of Kingston.

Most place names in Jamaica reflect the island’s turbulent colonial history. Mandeville was originally a British Army Hill Station and later became a town founded in 1816 by the Duke of Manchester, then Governor of Jamaica. He named the settlement after his eldest son, Viscount Mandeville. Over two thousand feet above sea level and enjoying a more temperate climate, this is where wealthy English settlers built their mansions and country houses. With its picturesque countryside, the area probably reminded them of home. By 1868 the town already had its own golf club, thought to be the first in the Caribbean. A major hotel opened a few years later, also thought to be one of the oldest in the Caribbean. It soon became known as a ‘mountain resort’ and widely regarded as ‘the most English town’ in Jamaica.

Evelyn remembers the area with a great deal of affection.

Mandeville is mostly a tourist area. It’s one of the best parts of Jamaica. It’s in the middle.

It’s very cold, you’ve got to wear cardigans. I can knit things before I come here because it was cold. You go out and you’re shaking like that. You got to hug each other.

There was dew in the mornings. You could shake a leaf and catch a cup of water. So quite naturally my memory of my youth is beautiful.

Her mother, Winifred Sparks, and father, Bolas Spence, live in the Mayday District just outside Mandeville where she was born on the 9th October, 1932. They are not married and live across the road from each other.

I am one of three children by my mother. Me, Louise and Eloise.

I’ll be honest with you, my dad had so many children. I don’t know how many. I still have sisters and brothers I do not know. I knew a few of them, the older ones. He had five children by his wife: Gloria, Joseph, Clarence, Lenard and Bolan. My dad’s wife, I only know her as Pun. I don’t know her other name. Then he had another son named Roy. His mother was Madelyn.

Her mother Winifred is, in fact, not Jamaican.

She was born in Panama. When her mother died she was sent along with Mavis, Lillian, Alan and George—her brothers and sisters—to Jamaica to learn English and finish school.

I don’t know exactly when they came to Jamaica but I think she was ten years old when she came.

Her dad used to work for an American shipping company in the Canal Zone and because he didn’t have a wife to care for them, he sent them to his wife’s mother Catherine in Jamaica.

He sent back for the boys, Alan and George. He never sent back for my mother because she got pregnant and he was very upset. He never sent back for her. It’s funny but he did not send back for any of the girls. So you had my Aunty Mavis, Lillian and my mum left in Jamaica.

It was not unusual that Winifred along with her siblings were Panamanian. There was a time when the Panama Canal was being built. Construction began in 1881 under French control with a large proportion of the labour recruited from Caribbean islands. When France abandoned the project in 1894, most of the workers were stranded in Panama and had to be repatriated at the expense of British West Indian Colonial governments.

Construction later resumed in 1904 when the project was financed and controlled by the United States. Recruiting agents were again dispatched to different Caribbean islands. Given their previous experience with the French, colonial governments were unwilling to sanction any large scale recruitment and refused to co-operate. Barbados was the first to concede and this was where American recruiting agents focused. Some twenty thousand construction workers—estimated at around forty percent of the island’s adult male working age population—were recruited from Barbados to help build the Canal. Other smaller islands soon followed but Jamaica held out, imposing a tax of one pound on anyone wanting to go and work in Panama. As a consequence, those immigrating to Panama from Jamaica were largely skilled workers who could afford to pay the tax.

Evelyn remembers her grandfather worked for an American shipping company. It is quite likely he was one of those skilled workers.

I never met my grandfather on my mother’s side. We would write to each other. He was very kind to us. I always looked for my parcels and things. We were well-kept.

He bought a house in Kingston, 3 Catherin Street, so that we would never be homeless. He was very good to us but he did not come back to Jamaica until after his second wife died. I was in England by then so I never met him.

I’ve visited his grave twice since he died. Funny enough my mum died fifty odd years ago and he died not long after that. The graves are not far away from each other. You get to his grave before you get to my mum’s and I thought: ‘How nice’. So quite naturally when you visit Mum, you visit him.

Winifred’s mother died in Panama. This is the reason why she, her brothers and sisters were sent back to Jamaica. At the time of Evelyn’s birth, Winifred is living with her mother’s grandparents.

I was a happy child in my early home, a very happy child.

I did not know my grandmother because she had died. We lived with my great-grandmother, her name is Catherine. I had a happy time with her.

Following Evelyn’s birth, Winifred left Mandeville to become a maid in Kingston, leaving her daughter in Catherine’s care. Her stay in Kingston did not last long and she soon returns to Mandeville to help her grandmother on the farm. She then meets and marries Evelyn’s new stepfather Harold Ellis. This is when Louise and Eloise are born. Evelyn’s father, Benjamin, is still living across the road with his wife, Pun, and their five children, Evelyn’s half-brothers and sisters.

During this time, it is her great-grandmother Catherine who becomes an important figure in Evelyn’s early childhood.

She was ninety-nine years and a few months old when she died. She had ten children and she buried every one.

She was one of the slaves from Africa. She used to tell us slave stories and she dresses like Kizzy. You remember the character in the film Roots. She dressed all in grey material with the stripe. She wore a two piece—skirt and blouse with long sleeves. She dresses like they did in slavery. You’ve never seen her ankle; her dress was right down to her feet. Her Peter Pan collar was always fastened up. She wore a frill over the skirt with five or six underskirts and she had a ballerina gathering on the bottom of the skirt. She also wore a wrap and she kept her money in her wrap.

She was about five feet ten or eleven in height. She had soft wavy hair and a very straight face. She was beautiful—jet black—but beautiful. Every time I see a tribe in Africa, I wondered which one she was from.

Evelyn remembers some of the stories Catherine would re-count to her whilst she was growing up.

My great-grandmother didn’t tell us much about coming over from Africa as a slave. She told me mainly about when they were working in the cane fields, the hut they lived in and how hard they had to work in those days.

Sometimes when they go into the cane field there was a lot of snakes. She never calls them snakes, she called them nankas. So that should be the African word for snakes—I think.

‘Nanka’ could well be an African word for snake—there are a great many African languages and a great many snakes. However, in West African folklore there is a legendary creature known as a ‘Ninki Nanka’ reputed to be a reptilian, swamp-dwelling, extremely large, dragon-like creature. Parents would sometimes use ‘Ninki Nanka’ stories to scare their children: “If you don’t behave and do what you’re told, the ‘Ninki Nanka’ will get you.”

Evelyn continues and recalls some of the other things her great-grandmother told her about the ‘Nankas’.

She said so many people died from snake bites in the field. Sometimes when she got out of bed to use the potty, there were snakes curled up in it. That was the reason why mongoose is in Jamaica because they brought them there to kill the snakes.

Catherine was right. The mongoose is a small carnivorous animal native to Southern Eurasia and Africa. They were introduced to some Caribbean Islands and Hawaii to control the population of snakes on the plantations.

Snakes and mongoosees aside, we cannot be sure that Evelyn’s great-grandmother was ‘one of the slaves from Africa’. Catherine died when she was ninety-nine. Evelyn was nine years old at the time which puts the date of her great-grandmother’s birth around 1842. Slavery was abolished by Parliament in 1833. However, Parliament also decreed that abolition had to be followed by a period of transition during which ‘freed’ slaves would undergo an ‘Apprenticeship’ which could last up to six years. There was not much difference between outright slavery and Parliament’s ‘Apprenticeship’. So, for all practical purposes, slaves during this period remained slaves. In Jamaica, slave ‘Apprenticeships’ did not come to an end until 1838.

It is therefore likely that Evelyn’s great-grandmother Catherine grew up in an environment not that far removed from outright slavery. Her surname and that of her husband’s was ‘Senior’, which Evelyn thinks they got from their slave master.

The bond between Evelyn and her great-grandmother was very strong.

She was one of the most loving persons I ever had when I was growing up. So I had a very nice, loving, giving life at the time.

She was such a sweet person. I got a lot of love—a lot of love. That has made me really, really caring for older people. I hate it when anybody is trying to hurt older people—I don’t like it. I’ll defend them because I grew up with one and all my memories are so nice.

Evelyn’s father, Bolas Spence, and her great-grandmother, Catherine, are relatively prosperous.

Both sides of the family had a lot of land, so you have a run. But with my great-gran it was a lot of land with paddocks and things.

We had a small holding where they use to grow corn, sweet potato, yam and Irish potato—which we call spuds here but we use to import it in barrels in Jamaica. She used to grow strawberries. We had a lot of fruits so we never went hungry.

She paid people to come in and work the land but it was fun for us to go and pick fruits—soursop, nisberry, oranges, grapefruit—the citrus that they export. We had another one called sweetsop. We use to climb the tree, bore it so that we could eat it and tell them that the birds ate it.

We had horses and a buggy. We also had donkeys and mules. When we were small we use the get the horse up by the veranda and climb on its back.

We had a lovely, lovely, happy life in my youth.

There are two houses on her great-grandmother’s land.

One was like a cottage. The other one was L-shaped, built of concrete with a zinc top roof—one side was lower than the other. The tank was behind, away from the veranda. We use to go on the lower side, run round the L bit and jump off the high part—that was fun. There was a pimento tree with a swing and we use to swing in the evenings.

I could ride a bicycle when I was about four—without any brakes. I rode the horse and the donkey but I did not ride the mule because he would jump and kick. We even rode the pigs. Some were big, so we jump on the back. As children you do anything for amusement.

We were allowed to go to the pictures once a week in Mandeville. We had to go to the matinee. You were never allowed to go to the late show. We went to the six o’clock and came home while our parents went to the late show.

Evelyn spoke at length about her relationship with her great-grandmother Catherine before delving into the nature of her complicated relationship with her mother, Winifred.

My mother was strict about a lot of things. She would say: “As a girl you’re suppose to learn to cook.”

Although we had helpers, we had to do housework. She would say: “You don’t know what your life is going to be like, so you must learn to do it.” I had to learn to clean the house, which I didn’t like. I had to learn to sew my buttons and I had to learn to wash clothes.

She started off with our socks, we must wash our socks. Then you got to your pants. The first time I wash her blouse, I was so proud that I did it and hang it out. I did not touch the collar or the arm, so I had to go back over it. I thought: ‘If I wasn’t at home I wouldn’t be doing it.’ So you thought of running away.

Everybody got on well and the children on both sides of the family grew up together. We played and ate together, there was no animosity. You played from one yard to the other.

Life, however, young Evelyn would learn, was rarely that simple.

I was never very close to my dad when I was young. I acknowledge him, I speak with him and I mingle with him and the other kids. But his wife use to let them call me names and tell me I wasn’t their dad’s child and things like that. So quite naturally I sort of distanced myself—not because of him, but he didn’t stop it.

It’s not that I hated my dad—I didn’t hate him. I did not want to be very close to him because of his other children. It wasn’t so much the children—it was more his wife. What she put in their heads is what they speak.

I thought it did me the world of good because it made me strong. I had his name. He signed my birth certificate and he didn’t disown me. He did not disown me.

Looking back on her early childhood, Evelyn thinks she knows why her mother treated her harshly.

I think the reason for it was because her dad hadn’t taken her back and she made the mistake of getting pregnant with me.

Sometimes I was accused of being the reason for her dad not taking her back. Sometimes she took some of her anger out on me.

If you do something and she said to you that she was going to punish you, you might as well stop and be punished. If it’s until you go to bed, she’ll never forget it. She promise you and she’s going to deliver the punishment. It’s no good running. Don’t care how you cry and beg—she’s doing it. I was one who was very scared of a beating. She only have to tell me that and I’ll wet myself. It’s not that she’s going to hit you constantly, you just don’t want it.

But my great gran was there for me every time. When my mum is raging, I get to my Gran and I’m safe. So you had protection and it cools down. She worked hard—my mum—to bring us up.

Evelyn is also not always getting on well with her younger half-sisters Louise and Eloise Ellis.