After Windrush

A week or so ago, more or less by chance, to Smith Square to see something photographic about the Windrush generation.

Warm by mid afternoon when I set off from Epsom Station. Bearded indigent was present by his door, dragging on a tin of something that may not have been alcoholic. While a rather different representative of the human race took the form of a young lady on the train, I imagine from somewhere in the far east, elaborately dressed in all-over cream. Face mask. Cardigan. A lot of gauze over an underskirt. A fancy looking cream handbag with gold effect trim. One supposed that she was dressed up for something important, but without going so far as to ask (which seemed a bit much), no idea what that something might have been.

Took a Bullingdon from the very top of the ramp at Waterloo. But the basket was bent and the back brake was extremely noisy, although working. Red flagged at Drury Lane. On the way picking up the piano noticed at reference 1. There was also a near stationary helicopter hovering over the Aldwych, near stationary because it seemed to keep drifting off position and then having to move back to it. Perhaps it was a learner driver. It was rather noisy; irritating if you were outside and underneath.

Plenty of cycles about. As is usual, some having road & traffic light manners, some not.

Fine new cobbles being installed in Shorts Gardens. How much are they costing? One supposes rather more than tarmacadam. The sign for the cheese shop can just about be seen under the hanging barrel. Click to enlarge.

Bought my cheese, pulled a second Bullingdon and coasted down to Smith Square. Almost came a cropper on an early right turn off Millbank into Great Peter Street (rather than Dean Stanley Street, which was next), as just at that point a previously unseen young lady cyclist was overtaking me on the right. I had to pull in and wait for a gap in the traffic. Needless to say, in days of old, being overtaken by a lady cyclist would not have been a possibility I had to think about. But at least there was a space in the stand at Smith Square.

Being a few minutes early, I admired the gardens around the church, then settled down at the top of some steps to wait. Transport House to the left, with people coming and going, Europe House to the right, not very busy at all. And a rather curious tree in front: what had happened in its life to give it this curious shape. Was the gardener keen to make a nature reserve for smaller animals out of all the ivy?

An architectural oddity, underneath the tree. Can't work out from gmaps what is going on here.

A neat mend. I suppose that someone or something bashed the corner off. Also that restoration contractors and the masons attached to places like Westminster Abbey could still be found to do such work.

Another oddity, out of sequence, opposite the Marquis.

Noise from a Chinook, low & loud, flying up-river.

Noise from the Marquis, full of the after work crowd. No doubt lots of people from the Home Office, where I ended up.

The event was not the exhibition I was expecting. Rather it was a launch party for the second Windrush flavoured exhibition of pictures put together by one Jim Glover. One could buy the two books or one could visit Clapham Library in Clapham High Street (reference 3), but in the meantime you got a few samples and a talk from Glover - and to be fair, he was good at it. And he must have a touch with people generally, to have been allowed in in the way he was. So exhibition one, a few years ago now, was black and white photographs of the Windrush generation themselves. Exhibition two, the current one, was colour photographs of the generation which came later. He seemed to be particularly interested in the way in which customs brought from the West Indies survived, were adapted or faded away in their new home.

The audience, perhaps thirty of us, mainly older white middle class; Guardian readers all I dare say. With a sprinkling of blacks ladies, a fair proportion of whom were prepared to get up and say a few words. One of the them explained that back in the 1950's a lot of Jamaicans were very patriotic, very keen to do their bit for Queen and country. Wine and bread sticks. The whole session was oddly moving and I hope to get to Clapham in the not too distant future.

A few snippets

The big Jamaican community was in south London, perhaps centred on Stockwell and Brixton. Although I remember big immigrant communities in both Gloucester and High Wycombe in the late 1960's. Going so far as to rent a bedroom in Gloucester for a few weeks off a very pleasant, older chap from the West Indies, not I think Jamaica, at about the same time.

Dominoes was a big game in their clubs and pubs.

We were told of the partner system, whereby a group of people would get together and pool regular savings, thereby enabling the occasional substantial loan to be made to a member. I think because they did not have the same access to building societies and banks as white people - but they did think owning their own home was important. Gave them a stake, I suppose, in their new land.

[Bing seems to know mostly about the Walt Disney and Enid Blyton versions. I prefer that from my own time]

We were told of stories about a clever spider, sometimes called Anansi, stories originating in west Africa. Stories which were related to the Brer Rabbit stories which I grew up with - to the point of developing the knack of reading them aloud. And I still have a copy of the book, first noticed at reference 6.

There was talk of sugar art and crochet - and as it happened a young lady was doing crochet across the aisle from me on the way home. I got to thinking about how it was that when weaving, you needed a free end, which you passed back and forth on a shuttle. While in knitting (with two needles) and crochet (with one), you managed without free ends at all, never mind warp and weft. There must be some topological difference (knot theory?) which I was not quite able to compute at the time and will have to get BH to demonstrate for me. And it further happens that only the other day we turned up her bag of knitting wool and, hopefully, the necessary needles.

PS: a snip from the Guardian: 'Jim Grover was group strategy director of Diageo plc for 16 years.  He is now semi-retired, combining life as a senior adviser to branded consumer goods businesses with being a photographer'.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/06/piano-72.html.

Reference 2: https://windrushfoundation.com/. The subject.

Reference 3: https://lambethwindrush.com/whats-on/. The exhibition.

Reference 4: http://www.jimgroverphotography.com/about. The photographer.

Reference 5: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-37471476. A rather different work.

Reference 6: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2008/04/e-number-pie.html. For the avoidance of doubt, the nannies in question are the nanny state, not the ones with perambulators.