Empire struck back
For King, Country and Home is an exhibition in Leeds exploring the lives of the West Indians who answered the call to ‘duty’ and joined the RAF during the Second World War. Chris Bond reports.
ALFORD Gardner was just 17 when he applied to join the RAF at the height of the Second World War, having seen an advert in Jamaican newspaper The Gleaner encouraging people to sign up. “The RAF had put an advert in asking for volunteers,” says Howard Gardner, his son. “His father had served in the First World War and he thought, ‘my father’s done his duty, I’ll do mine.’ So that’s why he applied.” Alford had to wait until he was 18 before he could actually join the RAF, arriving in the UK in June 1944, three days before D-Day. He did his basic training at RAF Hunmanby Moor camp, near Filey, one of the 4,000 Caribbean men who trained on the Yorkshire coast.
At the age of 97, Alford is the last surviving Jamaican Second World War veteran in Leeds. He is among those featured in a poignant exhibition – For King, Country and Home – which explores the lives and times of the West Indian RAF veterans of Leeds who volunteered as teenagers and young men to answer Britain’s call to defend “the Mother Country”.
The exhibition, which runs at Leeds Central Library until June 24, is curated by Out of Many Festival director Susan Pitter who worked closely with the veterans’ families. It includes photographs, keepsakes and memories gathered over the years of those who, preWindrush, helped to form the beginnings of the city’s black community.
It also pays tribute to Caribbean veterans who are unidentified or little-known. They are remembered through a collection of moving portraits exchanged between the RAF men after the war as mementos of their brotherhood, friendship and time serving shoulder-to-shoulder with each other.
During the war Alford was stationed in Gloucestershire where he worked as a mechanic repairing and maintaining vehicles. “At the time they were needed because there had been a lot of casualties, and even though a lot of them didn’t see any action, they kept the infrastructure going – they repaired the vehicles and planes – and without them the war could have lasted a bit longer,” says Howard.
Afterwards Alford did a six-month engineering training course in Leeds before being sent back to Jamaica at the end of 1947. Unable to find work he was among those who travelled on board HMT Empire Windrush which arrived at Tilbury 75 years ago this month. He returned to Leeds, one of many who started a new life in the city.
“He enjoyed his time here. I think because they were in uniform they were more accepted,” says Howard. However, attitudes changed after the war ended. “He went to a couple of houses where he stayed before to get some accommodation and he was told ‘you’re not in uniform any more, what will the neighbours say?’ It must have been very hard. When they’d been in the RAF only a year or two earlier everything was fine, and then they came back to find out that even though they were needed, they weren’t wanted.”
Undeterred, Alford set about starting a new life. He married Norma, who he had met during his initial stint in Leeds, in 1952. Many of the Caribbean men who settled in the UK married local white girls, which often caused racial tension. “As children, me and my siblings never noticed any problems,” says Howard. “But speaking to other people, I did hear that some people had problems with neighbours, but I don’t know of my mother and father having any. I think they would have done but they kept a lot of it to themselves to protect us.”
’He was a young lad looking for adventure so he answered the call. He must have thought the streets were paved with gold.’
The family settled in the Hyde Park area of the city and Alford put his wartime skills to use working as an engineer before retiring in the 1980s. Howard believes his father’s generation don’t receive the recognition they deserve, not only for “doing their bit” during the war but helping to rebuild Britain in the decades that followed.
“A lot of people don’t know their story. They don’t know that many of them came here during the war and came back to help rebuild the country. They just see their faces and don’t understand why they’re here,” he says. Which is why exhibitions like this are important. “It helps educate people because there’s a lack of education about why people came here in the first place. It’s important, because it’s part of this country’s history and I think people need to know what their story is.”
Charlie Dawkins is another veteran whose story is told in the exhibition. He was 25 when he answered the call to join the RAF in 1944 and help support the war effort. The air force mostly wanted administrators and mechanics, and Charlie signed on as a leading aircraftman.
“He was a young lad looking for adventure so he answered the call. He must have thought the streets were paved with gold,” says his son, Allan. “I think he thought he could help his ma and he might have a bit of fun along the way.”
In 1947, Charlie came to Leeds to do a welding course and when he was demobbed the following year, he settled in the city. He was a skilled welder and worked at local firms, including Taylor Rustless, for over 30 years. He met his future wife, Joyce, at Leeds’s fabled Mecca Ballroom, and like his peers brought a bit of Caribbean sunshine to the city.
“They were all sharp dressers, zoot suits they used to call them, and they were good dancers,” says Allan. They had four children and lived in Armley. “We were the only black family in the street,” he adds. In 1948, Charlie was among the Jamaican RAF servicemen, including his friends Alford Gardner and Errol James, who formed the Caribbean Cricket Club, which became a focal point for the Caribbean community.
Exhibition curator Susan Pitter says: “The significance of their service, joining the RAF as young men and teenage boys to fight a war thousands of miles away, should not be underestimated. They were true pioneers who are too often unrecognised or under-valued. Their contributions are a part of British history that deserves to be championed.”
For King, Country and Home, at Leeds Central Library, runs until June 24. www.jamaicasocietyleeds.co.uk