by Joyce Trotman.

A Letter to Canon Hawkey from Joyce Trotman

To Rev. Canon James Hawkey, Westminster Abbey, 20 Dean`s Yard, London, SW1P 3PA

Dear Canon Hawkey,

                             A Meditation marking this season of Holocaust Memorial

At the Church-of-England Grammar School I attended in British Guiana,

now Guyana, during the 1940`s, the girl who sat next to me in class was a white 

girl whose name was Judith Faerman. Until I met her I thought that all white

people were English of Scottish like the Headmistress and members of staff

 of the school, or like the pastor of the Congregational church I attended. Her 

name was Judith Faerman and she told me that she had come from Romania,

a country that at that time I did not know existed. When she did not return to

school after one holiday, I asked for her, (I missed her), I was told that the 

family had emigrated to a country in South America. I was about twelve or

thirteen years old. It was a long afterwards,  that I realised that she was Jewish

and that  Romania was a country in Europe, and that maybe, her presence in 

the country  and subsequent departure must have had something to do with  

Hitler and  “his final solution for Jews”.

During my adult years when I first met my friends Joyce and Irving Adler, 

now deceased, their surnames meant nothing to me, until I discoveed that they 

had been victims of McCarthyism. They too were Jews. When the first candle

was lit  I was reminded of Judith  and Joyce and Irving.

The following Meditation speaks for itself.

Do forgive me if I have imposed on your time. I am just sharing.

Best wishes.

Yours sincerely, Joyce Trotman

Lest We Forget: A meditation marking this season of Holocaust Memorial by Joyce Trotman                         

Part One

That person would be severely lacking in empathy who was not moved spiritually by the Meditation  marking the season of  Holocaust  Memorial to mark the atrocities of the Nazis and  other genocides: European Jews, Armenians, people of Rwanda, Srebrenica, Uyghur Muslims in China, and LGBT victims of the Holocaust. The candle lightings were interspersed with prayers and readings and the address was given by Rev Canon James  Hawkey, Theologian of  Westminster Abbey. 

But as I listened I recognised  the fact that the prayers, readings and the music were all important elements of the Meditation, yet I had the feeling that something was missing. It is a  paradox that the  British Government was not in any way responsible for the atrocities meted out to the  people for whom the candles were lit. It generously made it possible for a Sunday Morning  Meditation, which marked the genocides committed in the 20^th and the  21^st centuries by  other governments. What was missing was  the  marking of the “genocides” committed by  successive British governments for  three centuries, from the 16^th  to the 19^th centuries, as part of this Meditation.

The Rev. Canon James Hawkey opened his address by mentioning Belsen, Auschwitz, Srebrenica. I added  Barbados, British Guiana, Jamaica, Trinidad, St Lucia, and  other  islands of the Caribbean as  the countries connected with this form of British “genocide”.

 In my  imagination I lit the seventh  candle first, for our African ancestors who for three centuries suffered and died as a result of the dehumanising effects of the British slave trade and the special system of chattel slavery, in which white human beings including members of both Church an State, converted black human beings into beasts of burden and in some cases branded them like cattle to express that ownership; next, for those who survived to be further exploited as “children” of the Empire; and,  lastly, for their  present day descendants- the Windrush generation.

It is my hope that  a seventh candle be lit for them at any future observance of  Holocaust Memorial Day.

Lest we forget. 

Part Two

“Come to Meeting for Worship with heart and mind  prepared” says number 9 of our Advices and Queries, and I often look upon the Sunday Worship on BBC 4 as my preparation. Thus it was that when I joined my fellow Quakers for our Meeting for Worship the solemnity and sacredness of this meditation occupied my thoughts as I centred down into the silence of our worship, conscious of the reminder that we “enter with reverence into communion with God and respond to the promptings of the Holy Spirit”. As often happens when the Holy Spirit is at work among us and guiding us, a Friend in the Meeting with thoughts of the Meditation that she too had listened to, read number 32 of our Advices and  Queries as her response to what she had heard. I quote:

                       Bring into God`s light those emotions, attitudes and  prejudices in yourself which lie at the root of destructive conflict, acknowledging your need for forgiveness and grace. In what ways are you involved in the work of reconciliation between individuals, group and nations?

            After the reading I remembered a very sincere, soulful ministry that touched my heart. 

At another Quaker Meeting for Worship that I was visiting a young man earnestly spoke, “If, as we say, there is that of God in every person, nobody gets hurt.” I concluded that if we really kept  this in  mind and acted accordingly, nobody would get hurt and everybody would be loved as God loves us.

    “Beloved let us love one another: for love is of God.” The Holy Bible: New Testament. John 4:7

 I look forward to the lighting of the seventh candle.  

Lest we Forget.

– Joyce Trotman (of Croydon Quaker Meeting, London)

by Sheila Taylor (Salter Centenary Co-ordinator).

When 2022 was approaching, we wanted to mark the centenary of Ada Salter becoming Mayor of Bermondsey and Alfred being elected MP. The Salters’ political activism was always rooted in Quaker principles and the ethical socialism of the old ILP (Independent Labour Party). So we envisaged perhaps a conference with political speakers? In fact, nothing like that has happened! Instead, there has been a stream of cultural events throughout the year, with all sorts of people volunteering to arrange all sorts of activities in memory of Ada and Alfred. 

How visionary the Salters were – on environment, housing and public health – has become increasingly evident as our world faces climate crisis, worldwide homelessness and global pandemic. Their insights resonated with everyone we spoke to, and people were inspired to do something which would in some way help spread the values and principles of the Salters. 

So there have been walks and bike rides, concerts and art exhibitions, films and plays, planting of trees and hedges, school lessons and children’s books, a street mural, tea towels, a podcast, etc. Virtually every month there has been something, and this article gives a brief overview.  (For details: www.saltercentenary.org.uk.)

The Salter story for children
We foundthere was no teaching material to tell thestory of Ada, Alfred and Joyce to youngsters growing up in the area, despite its fascination and relevance.So Karen Metcalf and Sarah Mason produced a set of school lessons, freely available on the internet, encouraging teachers to take their classes to see the Salter statues and learn about their local history.
For pre-school children, Sue and Peter Rogers have written an utterly charming little book, ‘Ada and Alfred’, also available free of charge.

Bike rides
were definitely the most unexpected aspect of the centenary year! Bruce Lynn of Southwark Cyclists proposed the ‘Salter sites of Bermondsey’ as a new Saturday morning ride. It was great fun, with Bruce leading the cyclists to each stop where I told them about the Salter story. That took place in June, but had a spin-off in October when one of the participants, John Clements, organised a repeat tour for his Dulwich U3A Bike Group.
Meanwhile in August Andy Bates set up a far more ambitious ride: to Fairby Grange in Kent. The London Clarion Cycling Club assembled at Southwark Park and rode to the Salter cottages and statues for introductory talks, before being waved off on their strenuous ride. (An easier visit, by coach, took place in July. See article on page ////.)

Ada’s birthday concert
To honour Ada suitably requires performers who share her ethos. Eleanor Thorn of TunedIn London found the perfect pair: celebrated singer-songwriters Silvia Balducci and Adam Beattie, and they together created a moving celebration in the packed City Hope Church. Silvia sang of working conditions and human rights, drawing parallels with the Salters’ Bermondsey, and Adam’s performance culminated with his amazingly appropriate ‘Song of One Hundred Years’, making adeeply emotional impact on the audience.

Our Local History Society
featured the centenary at two meetings. In July members joined Salter themed walks led by tour guides Oonagh Gay and Sue McCarthy. Then in September we enjoyed a talk by Southwark Archivist Patricia Dark, on living conditions and health in inter-war Bermondsey, including the medical innovations of Dr Salter and his colleagues. 

Art exhibition: ‘The Spirit of the Salters Lives On’ (10 September – 9 October)
Southwark Park Art Gallery named their designated community room the ‘Salter Space’, and invited us to curate its first exhibition. Contributions flowed in. Local artist Nigel Moyce painted the first ever portraits of the Salters. Eugene Ankomah, artist at the Salmon Youth Centre, told young people about the Salters and they created a collaborative installation. Leanne Werner took photos of environmentalists. Karin Wach included her trauma sketches as a testimony to pacifism. Over the month, the gallery had 747 visitors.
(The exhibition handout is on our website.) 

Town partnership
Friendship has grown between Ada’s two homes: Raunds, the country town where she was born and Bermondsey, where she spent most of her life. We had exchanged visits twice, in 2016 and 2018. For 2022 we invited the Mayor of Raunds, their Brass Band and other residents to join us for celebrations. Sadly two days before the event the Queen died, civic dignitaries were withdrawn from all official duties and the council banned our concert (no jolly music in public places, please). Fortunately the rest of the programme went ahead as planned and everybody had a lovely day. 

Alfred’s great-niece Jo Crawshaw and husband Sebastian were with us to greet the Raunds group, which included Amanda Mauro and husband Andy Farrow, current owners of Ada’s Thorpe House. Following a reception by Canon Gary Jenkins at St James’s Church, we walked via the Wilson Grove estate, with a glimpse inside one of Ada’s garden cottages, to the Salter statues on the riverfront.

After a buffet lunch at Cherry Garden Hall, the afternoon was spent in Southwark Park. Gary Magold and Pat Kingwell told us some park history, and we welcomed the installation of a new (historically accurate) information board in the Ada Salter Garden. At the Lakeside Art Gallery we had tea and cakes with a private view of our Salter exhibition. A walk then took us to Sands Film Studios for an early evening performance of ‘Red Flag Over Bermondsey’, Lynn Morris’s striking play depicting Ada’s early years in Bermondsey.  

We were delighted that the Town Partnership was thus strengthened during the centenary year. Both sides hope to continue the happy link in future. 

School film ‘Ada’
On 3 November 2022 a headline in Southwark News announced: ‘Bermondsey school kids star in film about Salter family to mark centenary celebrations of historic couple’. The report explained how Joyce attended school on the site where Compass School stands today, and this fact sparked off the idea of making a film. Ben May, Head of Drama, said, ‘The film captures the legacy of Ada Salter through the eyes of her daughter, Joyce, as she travels through time witnessing the changing landscape of Bermondsey…. our film celebrates the extraordinary vision and legacy of Ada.’ 

The Principal, Marcus Huntley, said, ‘The school is incredibly proud to play its part in the Salter Centenary celebrations. We are committed to ensuring the Salter legacy continues through our history curriculum… including our new Ada Salter-inspired Chess Club…’. Southwark News quoted my reaction: ‘I never dreamt that the sadness of Joyce’s death could inspire such a beautiful little film. To see her come alive and play with kids who would have been her classmates at Keeton’s Road School brought tears to my eyes!’ (See it on YouTube: youtu.be/CkqytP80wZQ)

What a joy it is to have as patron Dame Judi Dench, a Quaker and environmentalist like the Salters. After hearing of our exhibition, she wrote to the artists with congratulations and thanks for participating. Nigel, Eugene and the young people at the Salmon Centre were amazed and so thrilled to receive personal letters signed by Judi! 

In November Southwark Council are displaying Nigel’s portraits of Ada and Alfred in the atrium of the council offices at Tooley Street to mark their November 1922 elections. Then the centenary celebrations slip over into next year and culminate with a grand finale, when the People’s Company perform John Whelan’s specially written Ada Festival play at Southwark Playhouse on 12, 13 & 14 January 2023.

Throughout the year I kept remembering how historians described the Independent Labour Party, the Salters’ old ILP. It was less of a political party than a way of life, they said: full of fun and fellowship, kindliness, good humour, equality, beauty, peacefulness, human unity, cooperation. During 2022 I had an extraordinary sense that this spirit had come alive again and was moving people in a way that the Salters would have recognised and loved.

For full details, see website: www.saltercentenary.org.uk

by Graham Taylor.

Organisers of the Salter Centenary Project have launched a new website to highlight a year-long series of events throughout 2022 celebrating Quaker Socialists and ILPers Ada and Alfred Salter.

The project marks the 100th anniversary of the Salters’ dramatic electoral breakthroughs. Ada became Mayor of Bermondsey – the first woman mayor in London – and Alfred MP, both in November 1922. This inaugurated the series of radical municipal reforms known as the ‘Bermondsey Revolution’.

As Quaker Socialists (though they called themselves Socialist Quakers in those days) and as members of the Independent Labour Party (ILP), they dedicated their lives to the poor of Bermondsey. They transformed the grim environment of the appalling slums, demolished them where they could, planted trees and flowers everywhere, filled open spaces with playgrounds, and built innovative council houses still beautiful today. Alfred Salter as a doctor brought free medicine to Bermondsey some decades before the National Health Service, and Ada, on the London County Council, helped introduce housing and environmental improvements (including the Green Belt) across London as a whole.

This project has attracted the support of Dame Judi Dench, a Quaker environmentalist herself, and she has agreed to be its patron. The project’s mission, according to the website, is “to revive the Salter inspiration”. Alfred was a doctor ahead of his time. Ada Salter was a ‘green before the Greens’, says the website: “She knew that contact with nature is vital for mental health. She brought trees, flowers and green space to the inner-city.”

The website aims to be a hub of information about all the Salter centenary events taking place in 2022 including a series of planting initiatives called ‘Beautifying Bermondsey’; a number of specially themed guided walks; a set of online primary school lessons about the Salters; and a new booklet reflecting on the lives and work of Ada and Alfred, to be published by the ILP.

Other events, some in co-operation with Raunds in Northamptonshire (Ada’s home town), include a tree walk, a bike ride, a birthday concert and cricket match, as well as plays, films and a drama festival.

Details of all the events can be found here.

by Ian Martin (editor).

Contents

Creating Welcome to counter the hostile environment for people in detention by Anna Pincus and Pious Keku……… Page 1.

So what’s Corrymeela like then…? by David Grundy……… Page 7

QSS Book Group……… Page 10

Recognising all of who we are by Davy Marcella……… Page 11

Ada Salter Community Fund……… Page 15

Credits……… Page 16

Countering the Hostile Environment

On the evening of 22nd November 2021 fifty-one people, from all over the UK and various other parts of the world, took part in the second Salter Seminar which was held on Zoom.

The speakers were Anna Pincus, who is Director of the Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group (GDWG) and Pious Keku who is a trustee of the charity and a former detainee. The aim of the GDWG is
to improve the welfare of people being held in indefinite immigration detention in
the detention facilities near Gatwick Airport (which are run by the outsourcing company SERCO). The group offers friendship, support and also advocates for the fair treatment of detainees.

The correct name for detention centres is Immigration Removal Centres (IRCs). The Gatwick IRC can hold up to 700 people at any one time. There are ten IRCs in various parts of the UK and we were told that approximately 26,000 people are being detained nationwide. The buildings are stark and are built on the category B prison model, with razor wire surrounding them. Anna said that detainees are often traumatised by the buildings and the regime, as they are reminded of past experiences in their countries of origin. Pious Keku said that from the outside they look like warehouses and inside people are kept in small cubicles with sealed windows, so there is no fresh air. It is part of the “hostile environment” policy and Pious described being inside as “terrifying”…. 

For free copies of this Newsletter, which is sent to members regularly as part of their subscription, please contact us via the contact page on this website: http://www.quakersocialists.org.uk.

Offers of contributions to the Autumn newsletter are very welcome.

by Joyce Trotman.

Joyce Trotman, now 94 years of age, a descendant of slaves held in Guyana, writes as the descendant of great-grandfather, Ben Conright (survivor), and great grandmother, Seebucka Trotman (daughter of survivors), and on behalf of all descendants of the British holocaust known as Chattel Slavery.

Which Government department decided that a visit by William and Catherine to the territories of the Caribbean was a good idea for the Queen`s Platinum Jubilee?

Were visas required for them to enter those territories?

Any Commonwealth member of the Caribbean would need a visa to enter the United Kingdom, once known as the Mother Country.

Were they reminded that the people they were going to visit are descendants of the survivors of three centuries of the British holocaust known as Chattel Slavery?

That the word ‘chattel’ accurately describes the particular system of British slavery in which these people’s ancestors were branded as beasts of burden: the letters DY on human beings enslaved by the then Duke of York (David Olusoga, Black and British: A Forgotten History), the letter S on those enslaved by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, the missionary arm of the Church of England, absentee enslaver in Barbados (Adam Hochschild, Bury the Chains, pp 62- 68).

Punishments of enslaved Africans included whipping, burning, shackling, mutilation, hanging, beating, rape, imprisonment, murder. Were the royal visitors reminded that the chief and earliest perpetrators of this crime against humanity were the royal ancestors of William, members of the royal houses of Tudor and Stuart, important members of the Church of England? And that, in exchange for granting freedom to the enslaved Africans the British enslavers were given substantial compensation for the loss of their human property?

Were they reminded of the 1831 uprising of the enslaved Africans of Jamaica (Hochschild, pp. 340) and the 1832 uprising of enslaved Africans in Demerara (Thomas Harding, White Debt), both of which were brutally put down by the British authorities? Some hanged, some shot down, some sent to England for transportation to Australia (Kenneth Joyce Robertson, The Four Pillars: A Genealogical Journey).

Were they told that the various shades of brown skin colour among Caribbean people, the fact that they have English, Irish, Welsh and Scottish surnames, that their religion is, for the most part, Christian, the Creolese and Patois languages they speak, now provide material for academic studies in university Departments of Linguistics? All this would have been essential preparation for such a visit.

I admire the zeal, sincerity and commitment that William brings to the conservation of endangered animals in Africa. He could now show that same commitment on behalf of the mixed-race (European-African) human beings of the Caribbean who under the Commonwealth Immigration Act of 1962 are deprived of the right of entry and abode in a country that was built on the labour of their black African ancestors. In addition, he could urge the perpetrators of the Windrush scandal to pay full compensation, not just apologise, to those who were subjected to this gross injustice.

Recently I wrote on this same issue to William’s father, in his capacity as Patron of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, quoting the words of Maria Ressa, 2021 Nobel Laureate: ‘Nothing is possible without the facts.’ I now say to William, as I said to his father: ‘Action is possible, now that the facts are known’. No more condescending diplomatic mouthings about ‘that appalling atrocity’, no more ‘profound sorrow’, etc, etc, etc! Words, words, words. 

The time to act is overdue. The patronage that his father is endowing on the descendants of the German Holocaust survivors, William could now likewise endow on the descendants of the British holocaust survivors. This would be an appropriate Thank You for the hospitality that he and Catherine enjoyed during their visit.

April 2022

by Matthew Brown (ILP).

This article is taken from the website of the ILP (Independent Labour Publications), which celebrates the history of the pre-1945 Independent Labour Party (also ILP), political home not only of Keir Hardie but also of many Quaker Socialists, including Ada and Alfred Salter.

Teas, Talks and Trees: Southwark Gets Set to Celebrate the Salters’ Centenary

The lives and achievements of ILPers and ethical socialist pioneers Ada and Alfred Salter are to be celebrated with a year-long series of events in south-east London where the Salters led their ‘Bermondsey Revolution’ in the early decades of the 20th century.

The Salter Centenary Project will mark the 100th anniversary of Alfred Salter’s election as a Labour MP in November 1922 when Ada also made history by becoming mayor of Bermondsey, making her the first woman mayor in London and the first Labour woman mayor in Britain.

The brainchild of Sheila and Graham Taylor, whose acclaimed biography of Ada Salter was published in 2016, the project has won cross-party backing from Southwark Council and is supported by the Quaker Socialist Society and the ILP, plus many other local and national organisations.

Graham’s book, Ada Salter: Pioneer of Ethical Socialism, helped to resurrect the memory of Ada and her impact on the community around her, including her ‘beautification’ of London slums with trees, flowers and music; her children’s playgrounds and model housing; and her defence of dockers and factory workers from dreadful pay and conditions. She also fought against conscription and spent a lifetime struggling for women’s equality and world peace.

Graham’s book described in detail how she worked selflessly over decades for the people of Bermondsey and London alongside her equally dedicated husband, a noted MP and innovative doctor, whose work for the poor prefigured the National Health Service.

The project’s ambitious programme kicks off on 10 January, when Graham leads a Quaker Socialist Society online discussion of his book. That will be followed by an imaginative series of events designed to remember the Salters’ remarkable legacy in putting ethical socialist ideas into practice in a local setting, while highlighting their continuing relevance today.

“Our aim is not just to celebrate what the Salters did a hundred years ago,” explains Sheila, who is coordinating the project, “but to connect their concerns with the issues of today, ones that remain highly relevant and vital, not only locally, but nationally and globally too.”

Three themes

Based around three themes of environmentalism, housing and public health – areas where the Salters’ groundbreaking ideas made a major difference to working people’s lives a century ago – the plans encompass everything from talks to walks, bike rides to theatre events, including cricket matches, picnics, pamphlets, tea parties and tree-planting initiatives.

Alfred’s birthday on Sunday 19 June will be marked by a cycle ride from Southwark to Fairby Grange, the 17th century farmhouse (now care home) run by the Salters as a plant nursery and convalescent centre for the Bermondsey poor, while Ada’s birthday on 16 July will be celebrated by an evening of women’s stand-up comedy.

Southwark Council will host a ‘civic day’ in honour of the Salters on Saturday 10 September when representatives of Ada’s hometown of Raunds will be guests of honour along with the Raunds Temperance Band and members of the town’s local history society.

Events that day  include the opening of a children’s orchard, a bandstand concert in Southwark Park, a tea party in Ada’s Wilson Grove Estate (where she built model public housing), speeches at the Salter statues on the banks of the Thames, and a performance of the play ‘Red Flag Over Bermondsey’ at Sands Film Studios.

Plans are also in train for a week-long celebration of Ada’s life at Southwark Playhouse in October, including three performances of a new drama in the 300-seat venue.

Organiser John Whelan, director of the People’s Company community theatre group, says the festival aims to “animate Ada’s life and commitment to the people of Bermondsey through a newly devised play, workshops, talks and art-based responses to this important part of our local history”.

Other activities to mark the year include 100 new street trees planted around the borough, primary school history lessons on the Salters, and a touring exhibition devised by the Southwark Local Studies Library. A new website dedicated to the Salter Centenary Project is due to be unveiled early in 2022.

[See the Independent Labour Publications website. Recommended.]

by Anna Pincus.

“I didn’t know such things could happen in this country”, was one appalled reaction to watching the attached video about the ‘indefinite’ detention of Gatwick detainees. The video shows this year’s Salter Seminar, presented to the Quaker Socialist Society on Zoom at the end of November 2021 by Anna Pincus.

The title of the seminar was: “Creating welcome to counter the hostile environment for people in detention“.  Anna is Director of the Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group, a group which aims to improve the welfare and well being of people held in indefinite immigration detention at the facilities near Gatwick Airport run by SERCO. Anna’s group offers friendship and support to the detainees, some of whom are detained for years, and also tries to secure fair treatment.

This is the link:https://1drv.ms/v/s!BOzmqALjpLL-gZMCBz43zbciXcGQCA?e=qX1QO2JAxkic7rmoUO6jIA&at=9

by Laurence Hall.

The Committee of the Quaker Socialist Society has issued this statement, prepared by Laurence Hall: “Quaker Socialists have always sought to live our faith by witnessing to and struggling against exploitation and inequality.

Insecure contracts, heavy workloads, low and decreasing pay, poor pensions and sizeable inequalities of race, gender & class that so define much of our economy are just such injustices we as Quakers are called to resist.

Our spiritual testimonies of equality, peace, simplicity and integrity demand that we stand in solidarity with one of the few British trade unions taking national sector-wide strike action against the horrors of precarious work that so badly affect their workplaces. Therefore, we the committee of the Quaker Socialist Society stand in solidarity with the members of the University & College Union in their national strike on 1st, 2nd and 3rd December 2021.

https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/11894/Following-the-action Follow all this week’s strike action and post your solidarity messages and picketline pics with #OneOfUsAllOfUs or #UCUStrikeUCU.ORG.UKFollowing the action!Live highlights on the action in higher education over pay & conditions and USS pens

Laurence Hall 2021.

[Please note that articles on this website represent only the views of their named authors, and not necessarily the views of Quaker Socialists in general, or of the Quaker Socialist Society in particular.]

by Joyce Trotman.

We Must Keep the Memory of British Chattel Slavery Alive

Inspired by the sympathetic foreword written by H.R.H Prince of Wales to the book Lily’s Promise, I write in this October’s Black History Month in memory of (and on behalf of) all those survivors of British chattel slavery generally in the Caribbean, but also specifically in British Guiana (now Guyana), of my great grandmother, Seebucka Trotman, daughter of freed slaves, and my great-great-grandfather, freed slave, Ben Conwright. Ten years after slavery was abolished, Ben Conwright joined with about 40 other freed slaves, pooled their savings and bought the old Dutch plantation of Williamsburg on 5th May, 1848. They renamed it Golden Grove, the home of my Trotman forebears.

The following is Prince Charles’ observation on the German holocaust: “It was the greatest crime of man against man, during which humanity showed itself capable of incomparable inhumanity on an incomprehensible scale…” This could also be said about the British slave trade and the system of chattel slavery. In the case of the enslaved Africans, complete cancellation of identity: branded with hot irons as is done with cattle, with either the name or initials of the plantation proprietor, to confirm ownership (DY for those ‘owned’ by James Stuart, Duke of York, S for the Church of England absentee landlords of sugar-cane plantations in Barbados); African first names and surnames replaced by European ones; African religion replaced by the Christian religion under the scheme of Amelioration; deprived of native language with the necessity of creating a patois or a creolese; African women raped by white plantation owners (hence the mixed race Caribbean people with skin colours of various shades of brown, devoid of family life); labour on the sugar-cane plantations in inhuman conditions; brutal beatings, cruel forms of punishments; right of the plantation owner to commit murder with impunity. “… a permanent reminder of the depths to which humankind can sink and the evil it can impart on a fellow human being,“

Observance of Commonwealth Day takes place on the second Monday in March each year. In attendance is the Queen as Head of the Commonwealth supported by the full panoply of the Church of England clergy. The High Commissioners of the countries that are members of the Commonwealth are welcomed into the Abbey holding high their colourful flags of independence. Historically, this represents the end of the process that began with free Africans captured in Africa, converted into human cargo, transported in inhuman conditions across the Atlantic to the Caribbean Islands and British Guiana, through the slave trade, chattel slavery, apprenticeship (the semi-state of slavery); then graduation to the condition of a colonist, still under the power of the British government; and ending with independence.

On this day it is never mentioned that it all began with the trade in humans starting under the reign of Elizabeth Tudor, and continuing under the Stuarts, the Hanoverians, and Victoria, but fortunately the Observance of Commonwealth Day and of October’s Black and White History Month both constitute the “recognition that the responsibility of memory is slowly but surely passing from survivors to our generation and to future generations yet unborn“.

Like Prince Charles “I have seen the impact of survivors’ words and their sheer presence have had on others, in schools, communities, and organisations across our country and around the world” – in the NHS, the Services, carnival, cuisine, music, colour, academia, art, sport, television, theatre, education; Sir Sridath Rampal, Beryl Answick-Gilroy, Sir Herman Ouseley, Baroness Amos, Frank Bowling RA, Alift Harewood MBE, Thelma Lewis MBE, Gafton Shepherd MBE, Norman Beaton, Sir Trevor MacDonald, Moira Stuart, Baroness Scotland, Rudolph Walker (all except for Sir Sridath with European surnames – and now you know why) are some of the names that come to mind. These and all the multitude of mixed-race British Caribbean people under the umbrella title of the Windrush Generation, physical reminders of British chattel slavery, have “rebuilt their lives in the United Kingdom after the Second World War and contributed enormously to the fabric of our nation.“

During this Black and White/British and African History month, while the usual good wishes are sincerely exchanged, there are two elephants in the room: (1) the 1962 Commonwealth Immigration Act instituted under a Conservative government which by Act of Parliament with royal assent converted loyal Commonwealth citizens into foreigners deprived of the right to visit or to reside in this country built on the labours of their African ancestors under chattel slavery, described as cruel and racist by Hugh Gaitskell, the then leader of the Labour opposition. The pledge of Denis Healey, then Labour’s spokesperson on colonial issues, to repeal the Act if elected, was ignored. Harold Wilson upheld it: “We do not contest the need for control of immigration into this country”, he said.

(2) The betrayal of the Windrush Generation languishing in a hostile environment. There is a warm welcome for the people from Hong Kong and Afghanistan, refugees and migrants, to this country founded on the blood, sweat and tears of our African ancestors as they laboured on the various British owned sugar plantations in the Caribbean so that those in Great Britain could have a teaspoon of sugar to sweeten their tea.

“Nothing is possible without the facts”, Maria Ressa, the 2021 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize reminds us. In our case the facts are clear, the evidence is obvious, no time for selective amnesia. The facts tell us that our joint history is connected with the production of sugar, now patented as Demerara sugar. If we are talking colour, black history and white history meet in a packet of brown Demerara sugar. As members of a common heritage, I think the time has come for us to meet and find a way to live together in harmony as we “recommit ourselves to the beliefs of tolerance and respect, and the central idea… that we are all, irrespective of race, colour, class or creed, created in the image of God“.

October, 2021.

Joyce Trotman is the author of Thomas Clarkson: My Saint (2014), and a member of Croydon Quaker Meeting.