‘To Sir, With Love’ author ER Braithwaite dies aged 104
Author whose autobiographical novel dramatising his time as a black teacher in east London in the 50s had a career that took in social work and diplomacy as well as writing.
ER Braithwaite, the Guyanese author of To Sir, With Love, has died at his home in Maryland at the age of 104.
Born in Guyana on 27 June 1912, Eustace Edward Ricardo Braithwaite was the child of privileged parents, both graduates of Oxford University. His father was a diamond miner while his mother raised the family. During the second world war, he joined the Royal Air Force to fight as a pilot before going on to Cambridge to read physics. He later said that he experienced no racial prejudice within the RAF.
On graduating, he found himself barred from work as an engineer because of racism. Unable to find an alternative, he took a job as a teacher at St George-in-the-East school in London’s East End, which was recovering from the battering it had taken during the war. This experience formed the basis of his autobiographical novel To Sir With Love, his 1959 book later adapted into a film of the same name starring Sidney Poitier.
At the school, renamed Greenslade School in the film, the well-educated middle class graduate was confronted with casual racism, violence and antisocial behaviour by a group of disadvantaged pupils. Hardest to bear was the self-hatred the racism brought out in him and the low expectations of colleagues for their charges.
Gritty and unsentimental, the book shows Braithwaite gradually turning his class around through a mix of affection and respect. It also revealed his love affair with a fellow teacher - controversial at the time because the other teacher was white. When the film adaptation was made in 1967, Braithwaite criticised it, saying the love affair had been downplayed.
The book also contrasted his experience of race relations in Britain with those in the US, where he studied before joining the RAF. He wrote: “The rest of the world in general and Britain in particular are prone to point an angrily critical finger at American intolerance, forgetting that in its short history as a nation it has granted to its Negro citizens more opportunities for advancement and betterment, per capita, than any other nation in the world with an indigent Negro population.”
To Sir, With Love has been hailed as a seminal work for immigrants from the colonies to postwar Britain. In an introduction, Caryl Phillips wrote: “The author is keen for us to understand that the Ricky Braithwaites of this world cannot, by themselves, uproot prejudice, but they can point to its existence. And this, after all, is the beginning of change; one must first identity the location of the problem before one can set about addressing it.”
After teaching, Braithwaite moved to social work, finding foster homes for children of colour. This formed the basis of for his 1962 book Paid Servant: A Report About Welfare Work in London. He went on to write a further nine books, a mix of novels, short-story collections and memoir.
A visit to apartheid South Africa in 1973, following the country lifting its ban on To Sir, With Love, resulted in Honorary White (1975). The title was a reference to his visa status, which granted significantly more privileges than enjoyed by the native black population. The book had a mixed reception: one critic described it as too soft on the apartheid regime, too hard on the oppressed black population and too focused on the author.
After his social work, he moved to Paris to work for the World Veterans Association, before transferring to Unesco and a diplomatic career that took in posts as permanent representative of Guyana to the UN and Guyana’s ambassador to Venezuela.
From diplomacy, he moved into academia, teaching at the universities of New York, Florida State and Howard in Washington, where he also served as writer-in-residence.
When asked in 2013 whether he had stayed in touch with students from the London school, he admitted he had not, telling the Coffee Table blog: “I don’t know if I changed any lives or not, but something did happen between them and me, which was quite gratifying.”
Braithwaite’s companion, Genevieve Ast, confirmed his death on Tuesday. He died a day after being admitted to a medical centre in Rockville, Maryland.