Finding Home: A Windrush Story - Couverture rigide

Gardner, Alford Dalrymple; Gardner, Howard

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 1914344227 ISBN 13 : 9781914344220

Editeur : Jacaranda Books, 2023

Synopsis

On 24 May 1948, the Empire Windrush sailed from Kingston, Jamaica, to harbour at Tilbury Docks. It carried 1,027 passengers and some stowaways, and more than two thirds of them were West Indies nationals. On 22 June 1948 they disembarked onto the docks, Alford Dalrymple Gardner was among them. Alford's story traverses both the uplifting highs and intolerant lows that West Indian migrants of his generation encountered upon travelling to Britain to forge out a life. From joining the British military during World War II to returning to Jamaica once it was won-only to come back to the UK when the government decided it needed him again-Alford witnessed milestone events of the 20th century that shaped the country he still lives in today. In the context of a supposedly 'post-Imperial' Britain where the lives of West Indian migrants hang precariously on the whims of the Home Office, Alford's heartening testimony is a celebration of those who endured hardships so that generations to come could call this place home.

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

Born in 1926 in Kingston, Jamaica, Alford Gardner first came to England in 1944 to support the war effort, serving in the RAF. After a brief stay back in Jamaica, he decided to return to England to help to rebuild the country. He boarded the HMT Empire Windrush intending to build a life in the country he once called home. Despite a less than accommodating welcome back, he persisted and succeeded in forging a better life for his family.

In his later years, Alford spent all his leisure time at the bingo hall. When not playing bingo, he would watch sports or spend time with his family. A much fuller sense of Alford's life is conveyed in his autobiography: Finding Home.

Alford passed away in 2024 at the age of 98.

Extrait. © Reproduit sur autorisation. Tous droits réservés.

Chapter Eight:

Then in late 1946 I was called into the warrant officers office and asked if I would like to do an engineering course in Leeds. It would be a six-month training course, where I would learn how to use a lathe, milling machines and radial drilling machines, the machines that were used in engineering factories at the time. I said yes, knowing that any extra training could be beneficial. They explained that even though I was still in the RAF I would be attending the course as a civilian, so I was able to wear normal clothes and not a uniform.

I accepted the offer, and was sent to a hostel in Knottingley, which is a small mining town to the east of Leeds. When I arrived, the hostel was full of Polish workers. As I walked into the hostel the men gave me a funny look and started talking to each other in their own language. Though my knowledge of Polish is non-existent, I think they were talking about me.

The man in charge of the hostel took me to one side and said that I was probably in the wrong place. He allowed me to stay the night, as it was too late to find anywhere else, but thought it would be best if I found other accommodation. Thankfully, I did only stay the night, and to be honest I felt a little bit uncomfortable, there would have been no one to talk to. I soon realised that the journey to the training course in the centre of Leeds would be a bit of a nightmare, it was a journey of about 21 miles, and we didn’t realise at the time that it would be the start of the worst winter to hit the UK in decades.

On leaving the hostel I caught the bus to Leeds; it had been snowing and I was very cold. I had been given the name of the new hostel in Leeds that I had been assigned to, but I had no idea where the hostel was. I was always told that if you need to find somewhere or something in England, always ask a policeman. When I got off the bus at Leeds bus station, I began walking, looking for a policeman.

Eventually I found one, he was hard to miss. The man was a giant and went over to the large man to ask him for directions. He looked down at me and said, ‘nay lad, you’re not really prepared for this weather.’ His Leeds accent was thick, but I’d gotten used to a variety of accents since enlisting. After living in England for over two years, I thought that I was getting used to the weather. I knew it’d be cold, so I had a big coat and hat on, but my shivering betrayed me. He was right.

‘Come on, son. I’ll take you to get a warm cup of tea and something to eat.’

‘No, sir, I’m fi ne. I just need directions to my accommodation,’ I replied through chattering teeth.

‘Nay, lad. You need something inside you.’ He took me into Leeds market to get warm and he bought me a cup of tea and a sandwich. I told him my story and that I had to find the hostel. He sat with me, and we spoke for a while. I told him that I needed to find a place called Greenbanks. I had the address on my order sheet. ‘It’s alright, son. We will get you there,’ he said. We stayed there a bit, me finishing my food and getting comfortable while we chatted some more. Once I had warmed up, he arranged for a taxi to take me to the hostel.

With all the snow that had fallen over the last couple of days, the taxi was unable to take me to the front door of the hostel. I’m surprised he got me that close to the building. The hostel was in Horsforth, a suburb on the outskirts of Leeds. After tramping through the snow, I found my way to Greenbanks Hostel. Greenbanks was built in 1941 to house about 900 workers for the AVRO aircraft factory in Yeadon, they were building Lancaster bombers (these are the bombers used on the famous Dambusters Raid). It was now also being used for training purposes.

Once I was settled in my room, I went to the common room area where I met some fellow West Indians who were also doing various courses. On the weekends we’d spend our time at the Mecca and Mark Altman dance halls. There were six dance halls at the time in Leeds. We went to all of them, but on Saturday night, the Mecca was the place to be. With our accent and West Indian dance moves, we became quite popular with the local girls. It was much to the dismay of the local young men and unfortunately trouble would sometimes come our way.

Some people seemed to come just to cause trouble. Me? I never got into a fight at the Mecca. Not even an argument. I came to dance with the girls. Not even an argument. The girls would always come in groups, some in twos and threes, but most were in large groups. There would be a whole group, dozens of girls, standing around and not dancing, some- times they wouldn’t dance at all. I would go over to them and eventually convince one to dance. When the dance was done, another girl in the group would want to dance with you. Then the next one. Then they all wanted to dance with you.

No one in Leeds could tap-dance as well as me. The Mecca became my main haunt and I soon got to know the other regulars, the ones who came to dance too and were good at it. I’d have one girl who I’d always tap-dance with and another I’d always do the waltz with. Others I’d avoid like the plague because they had two left feet.

In the hostel there were workers of both sexes living there. Not long after I arrived at the hostel, a group of girls arrived from Scotland to work in one of the factories. They did not seem to like us West Indians and kept well away from us. I don’t believe that they were racist, they were just not used to being around black people, but one of them was keen to know where we went on a weekend and followed us to the Mecca one night.

After reporting back to the other girls, they went back to Scotland, only to return a week later with new clothes, all ready to go dancing. A couple of them even ended up with West Indian boyfriends.

I got to know a lot of English people during my time in the UK, and when I was doing this course in Leeds I would go to a little shop near to the training centre, where I met a wonderful woman and her family. Mrs Noble was her name, she made me feel so welcome. The first day that I walked into her shop, she asked me if I would like a cup of tea, and she always made sure that I had everything I needed. We would sit and talk, she would tell me about her life in the UK and I would talk about my home and family back in Jamaica.

I had been to a few places in the north of England but never Leeds before now. According to some men at the places I was stationed, Leeds was a place to avoid. But during my time on the engineering course, I found that it was an entirely different place to what I was told. I found Leeds to be a very nice place filled with friendly people. As in Bolton and Burnley, the older women really looked after me, I think it was because of my baby face.

During my time doing my engineering course I became friendly with three young ladies who I had met at the Mecca dancehall, Norma, Florence and Margaret. Florence had met Norma and Margaret in the Mecca and the three of them became close friends and were always together. They were lovely dancers and we got to talking. I’ve always enjoyed my life to the fullest and met a lot of women in my time, but these three were special to me. Now when I say special, I mean special.

Florence was eighteen and one of the young ladies from Scotland. She was sharp as a tack, a beautiful young girl, with raven-black long hair and sharp, black eyes, who would have nothing to do with black men until she met me.

Margaret was a brunette. The shortest of the bunch and the most extroverted, she was the life of the party. I knew early on that her father did not like black men, he had told her that East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet. In those days, what your parents thought always had a bearing on your own thoughts. She was a good dancer and though her father’s beliefs weighed heavily on her, we were friends.

As for Norma, she was the quiet one of the three, but she always lit up a room. People took notice of her and you could tell that she was a strong young lady. She had the same shoulder length mousy-brown hair as Margaret and warm-brown eyes. A beautiful woman. She was five-feet-four-inches and had a slender figure. She was from a white working class family but didn’t volunteer information about her father’s preferences as readily as Margaret did to me. They all loved to dance, but Norma was the best dancer of the bunch, perhaps even a better dancer than me.

Dancing was the main thing at this time, young people did not go to the pub like they do nowadays. I suppose soldiers drinking and going to pubs is an eternal truth though, but if I had the choice, I’d go dancing over the pub any day. So, Friday and Saturday nights were the time to let loose. The managers of the dance halls were extremely strict on the type of dances we did; they did not like us jiving, but we would do anyway, if the right song were played. In this early post-war era jiving was deemed a little bit risqué, so it was more ballroom dancing, however, this brought the couples closer together, which defeated the object of the managers fears of couples getting too close.

I ended up getting close to all three of these girls, especially Florence, who became my girlfriend, but the other two were never far away. Florence and I had a lot of fun together, but it was also very casual and never exclusive. We knew from the start that our relationship was doomed, I’d be leaving soon, I guess that made everything seem more urgent. So, while this was an important relationship in my life, neither of us ever let it get too serious. Still, they were all upset when the engineering course finished and I had to return to my new base at RAF Colerne in Wiltshire. I promised Florence that I would return as often as possible. However, when I returned to camp I was informed that all leave was being cancelled, with some West Indian servicemen going AWOL.

When I returned to RAF Colerne after completing my engineering course in Leeds, everything seemed to be winding down on the base. I could see the writing on the wall, my time in England was coming to an end. For the first two weeks I was not assigned any duties, I didn’t even have a uniform, I was just riding around the base on a bike that I had acquired; it was like I was sixteen again. I’d found the bike lying around the base, it must have been left by an airman who had returned home. There always seemed to be bikes left lying around the base, you would make enquiries about it and if no one owned it, you would take it, fix it up and use it for yourself.

Towards the end of the second week of me doing nothing, I was riding past the warrant officer's office, when he called me into his offi ce, ‘Now Mr Gardner, why are you not in uniform?’ he asked me.

‘Since I came back from Leeds, sir, I have not been issued with one,’ I replied.

‘You cannot keep riding around the base in civilian clothes, go to the stores and get yourself kitted out,’ he said and passed me a kit deficiency card.

So off I went to the stores, on duty that day was a little Trinidadian man. Now there has always been a bit of rivalry between the men from the different islands so I thought that I would have a bit of fun with him. I went up to him and told him that I wanted a beret, a peek cap and the good shoes.

‘No. Man, I can’t give you all that,’ he argued.

‘Those are the things I want,’ I insisted.

This conversation went back and forth for a while, with each response the Trinidadian became more tired of me and more exasperated. He started talking to me like I was an idiot, getting more confused as I refused to understand. Then I showed him the deficiency card, which had all the items I was asking for. He read the deficiency card, then looked at me. I could see he was fuming, but he retrieved the kit and dumped it in front of me, not saying one word the whole time. He didn’t even acknowledge me when I thanked him and said my goodbyes.

Once I was settled in the camp, I wrote to the girls and told them that it was likely we’d never see each other again. When they wrote back, they were quite distraught. Florence asked if anything could be done so that I could get some leave. I went to see the warrant officer again, I told him that I had no intention of staying in the country and that I wanted to go back home to see my family, when my time to go back to Jamaica came around.

I was telling the truth, but he just said that he had heard the same excuse from other servicemen and the orders were, ‘no leave for any West Indians.’ I wrote to Florence again to say sorry. I would not be returning to Leeds.

She wrote back to say that she was going to get the train to come and see me, but that would have been impractical. She would not have been allowed to stay on base and we would never have been able to book a room in a hotel. I wanted to say yes and snatch at this little time that we could get together, even if it was just for a few minutes, even if it wasn’t perfect. I missed her. But I couldn’t ask her to come all that way for a few moments together, so that idea was shelved.

We didn’t stop writing though. They all wrote to me. After about four weeks of writing to each other, the girls concocted a story to try and get me some leave. I was called into the warrant officer's office. He had received a telegram to say that Florence had been taken ill.

‘Do you know anything about this, Gardner?’

‘No, she didn’t say anything, but it’s been a few days since her last letter.’

‘It says she’s in a very bad state and is asking for you to come right away.’

‘What’s wrong with her? Can I go and see her?’ I said. If I’d thought about it for a little bit, I’d have realised that Florence was fine and dandy, but being told like this by my superior, it didn’t occur that Florence was hatching a scheme. I was scared and the warrant officer could see it. As we were talking another telegram arrived, supposedly from a doctor, saying how serious Florence’s illness was.

The warrant officer looked down for a second. Then he apologised again, making sure to avoid eye contact, but he had his orders. There would be no leave for me. We carried on speaking for a while, I pleaded with him. I begged him, trying to convince him that I really did want to go back home to Jamaica. He finally relented and told me that he would see what he could do.

Those next few days I lived in a half-state, almost a state of denial. When I left the office, I considered that it was a ruse, but doubts plagued me. Why hadn’t she told me? What if it was deadly serious? I eagerly awaited letters that never came, hoping for clarity.

A couple of days after I’d been called into the office, the third telegram arrived. Florence had taken a turn for the worse. I don’t know if the warrant officer believed in any of it, if he was tired of the telegrams or if he did at least believe that I was a man of my word and did plan to go back to Jamaica, but he let me go on leave. I was on the first train back to Leeds to meet up with Florence and the girls.

I had a strange agitated excitement, by now I’d almost managed to convince myself that this was all just a scheme, a clever one, at that, since it had worked and allowed me to act as if I was genuinely worried and surprised because I was. However, the ‘what ifs’ plagued my mind until I finally saw Florence and held her in my arms.

Because I returned to camp when I was supposed to, I was able to get leave on a couple of more occasions. The last night of my final leave in Leeds was very emotional. Tears were shed as we confronted the fact that it would be the last time we would see each other. Back at base I packed my things ready to set sail home. So my time came to be demobbed, I was keen to get back and see my family again, but it felt like I was leaving a piece of me behind. I’d miss the girls and I’d miss England. Not the weather, but the people. When you’re young you don’t think about the future, I never really thought about leaving everything behind right up until I had to. Some men remained in the UK and I understood the urge, but that thought never crossed my mind. Jamaica was my home.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Jacaranda Books
• Date d'édition: 2023
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1914344227
• ISBN 13: 9781914344220
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 216
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible