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This story was submitted to people’s war site by Cherstyna and Lisa Siliya of the Back in the Day project on behalf of Roy Lee and as been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

The following extracts are taken from an interview, which was conducted by the above named persons on the 27th of October 2005.

Q: Which Caribbean Island were you living during the war?

"Kingston Jamaica."

Q: Do you remember anything about the day war was declared?

"When the war was declared a lot of us in Jamaica were worried because the people who we were supposed to be fighting didn’t regard Negro people has proper people. I know we were under the British yoke in the empire but the Nazis in Germany would exterminate us like how they were exterminating the Jews… The British told us that if the Germans beat you well god help you because if you are black well that’s it…your not regarded as a proper person.
So black people everywhere realised that we had to stand up and fight these people because that is their system. Also Mussolini from Italy, he went to Africa and they attacked the Abyssinian/ Ethiopia and that’s it… because they disregard us people… as second-class or third class."

Q: Because the island was a British colony did that mean everybody thought that they were also at war with the Germans?

"Yes!"

Q: Was there conscription or did people just volunteer?

"In 1914-1918 war…yes! Remember say we were a crown colony…you were conscripted but the last war because people realised that they could be conscripted they were volunteering instead. They were flying planes and doing that…if didn’t volunteer they conscripted us…. first war they conscripted our fathers, uncles and all that but in the 1939 -45 war it was a new tactic… they asked us to volunteer first."

Q: Did you or any of your family go to fight in the war?

"Once you put on the uniform you were in the war. You weren’t in the front as ground crew but you were over there in bombers, dropping bombs. So yes, in RAF, yes. Our soldiers who where in Africa, they were in the front line. Jamaica and all those other West Indian regiments… Jamaica had Jamaica infantry, and Jamaica military artillery that fired the big guns…soldiers, airmen, and aircrew, ground crew they were in Britain behind the lines."

Q: What was school like in the war and what did the teachers tell you about the war?

"In school we were told that Jamaica was a colony, the language was English. We knew about everything that was going on in Britain. We could tell you what they were doing in Newcastle, Manchester and Bristol. When we came into Britain and we wanted to do something we knew which town to go because we had the same education as say somebody from Liverpool or Bristol. But we had one other thing, we had another book...called the ‘West Indian Reader’… also we had the ‘Crown Royal Reader’ but the one which we used was the ‘Crown Royal Reader’.

"The ‘West Indian Reader’ taught us about the other islands… and other parishes in Jamaica. A Kingstonian (somebody from Kingston) is very boasty, because everything is in Kingston... libraries the museums you name it. When you get out of Kingston its not so developed…some of the people didn’t have electricity, didn’t have water, some people at that time didn’t have water and had to go to…. something like a tank, concrete that caught the rain…Jamaica, everybody know, is a tropical country and it doesn’t rain a lot and water short...seasonal. Now there’s a lot but say June time there’s no water."

Q: What do you remember about the news/radio broadcasting of the war?

"In Jamaica we had the ‘Empire Service’. Jamaica didn’t have no broad cast until coming up to the end of the war. You had the ZQI radio station. People didn’t have radios. Those who had radios would put it up outside, say downtown, and you had the multitude of people come to listen to ‘Empire Service’ to hear the news - how many ships were sunk, what happen so forth, in the war. That’s how we got it in Jamaica, the ‘Empire Service’. We didn’t have no television then."

Q: How did you contribute to the war effort?

"I came to England in 1944 on a great ship called the SS Cuba. It went up to New York; it took a week to go to New York. Across the Atlantic… hiding from submarines, in a convey. We landed at a place In Scotland called Gourock. That’s where most of the people from the states, Canada and Caribbean docked. We did quite a lot of work in transport, flying planes, radar…quite a lot of us did wireless work and radar."

Q: What contributions did your Island make to the war efforts?

"Jamaica was geared up to war… A lot of people don’t know this but Jamaica was the first British colony that supplied a squadron of bombers for Britain. That is a landmark…being a crown colony, if Britain went to war you went.

"The first Jamaican high commissioner was a pilot in the war... even the Prime Minister of Jamaica, Michael Manley, was a pilot.
After war ended in 1955 we were still here… The war had not finished (me not completely sure) we were going to fight with Soviet Union. Britain was still under alert…demobbing people quietly."

Q: Why did you come to live in Nottingham?

"I used to be stationed outside Nottingham, Selston… RAF Selston. So I was familiar with the city."

Q: In the first few years which area did you live in?

"Long Eaton in Nottingham."

Q: What was post-war Nottingham like?

"People weren’t used to us, some of them even thought that we had tails like a baboon, but we won them over…when they realised that some of us had more knowledge than they had… After a while in 1958 when they thought that too many of us were coming into Britain, there were riots in Nottingham. We had the Jamaican Prime Minister come over here with them from Trinidad and Barbados to see why people rioting."

Q: Some Black people worked in the factories. Could you tell me more about the people who did this type of work and what other jobs were available at the time?

"When people came to Britain (from the Caribbean) they didn’t come here to get benefits and so on…there was a little bit of hand outs if you lost your job but there wasn’t any if you didn’t have a job. People coming from the Caribbean didn’t come here for benefits…they were young and wanted to work. Industry wanted us, the building sites, because Britain was bombed very much. You had …Britain had to export a lot of things to survive. People needed to work in the hospitals. We found jobs in the lower section of society very easy, railways foundry…but white-collar work like you are aspiring to do…. it wasn’t the same.

"White people never thought that black people could dress up and work in offices and things like that…you were in the factory. It was difficult even going into the mines at that time… We had to have campaigns to get our people into the mines…before 1954, there was no person employed on the buses…a few of us who were here with the Indian workers…we had demonstrations…in 1954 we had meeting as at the council house they initially allowed conductors, not drivers…but later allowed drivers who got more money…even to allow us to be drivers had to agitate."

Q: What attracted you to move to England, and was it what you expected?

"England was like home it was the ‘Mother Country’. As far as we were concerned we were just English, British, children of the Empires answer to the call; ‘God bless dear old Britain and God bless Britain’s king’. Can you imagine with that sentiment put in you…we just believe that you come to England and you walk tall, we didn’t know that these people didn’t know anything about us. We didn’t know that it was just propaganda."

Q: Were you meet with racism, and if so, how did you deal with it?

"Everybody was friendly bar the Americans, because America had a long history of segregation, because they treated their soldiers or service men awful. They (the white service men) could go out every night but the black servicemen only once a week…It’s a thing that’s natural of people of mixed society because if you were educated that you were inferior and they are educated that they are superior, we were ruling you…that is it…you just accept it."

Q: Do you sometimes think about what it would be like if you went back home?

"Everyday I think about it but you get a better life abroad, you get a better live."

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