Enrico's Story
http://mobile.jamaicagleaner.com/20081215/news/news1.php
Enrico Stennett, a privileged half-black Jamaican youth, and two friends, stowed away to England, where he thought he belonged, on the SS Empire Windrush. When they gave themselves up on board, the ship captain was upset. He put them to work, but was very kind to them. After weeks at sea, they arrived in Southampton, southern England, in August 1947.
No gold
They were turned over to the police, but were released because the captain spoke well of Enrico and his friend, Frankie. The ship captain had given them a note to take to a man in London, to where they departed from the docks at Southampton. It was a long, cold ride and the first signs of disappointment were everywhere.
Enrico: "On my journey from Southampton by train to London, I did not see any nuggets of gold on the streets, only tarmac, and worse still, all I saw were buildings with great chimneys with smoke billowing from the top of them, leading me to believe they were all factories."
They arrived in London at Victoria Station. There was no one from the colonial office to greet them. The half-Chinese, who stowed away with them, was arrested because he had got into fights on the ship. A policeman directed them to Trafalgar Square to find the man to whom the note was addressed.
They found the man, an army captain, in a dilapidated building. The man made them feel welcome, telling them they needed a ration book, an identity card, clothing coupons, etc. But when the man learned of Enrico's background, he said: "That's why you should not have come to England. There is no place here for you. You could do a lot better in Jamaica." Enrico was shocked.
Unexpected attention
But what the man did next was even more shocking. He suddenly left his seat, grabbed Enrico, and attempted to kiss him. However, buckra massa pickney resisted strongly.
Enrico: "I pulled myself away in sheer disgust and made it clear by my actions that I had no wish to be kissed by a man. This infuriated the captain, who changed from being sympathetic to being annoyed."
He suggested that Enrico find work in the coal mines.
His friend, who went in after him, apparently got the same surprise because he too came out of the man's office very upset. None of them spoke about what happened. An African man was directed to take them to the Labour Exchange to get their documents. On the way, Enrico was stunned to see a white woman scrubbing the floor and steps of St Martin-in-the Fields church.
In the midst of war
Yet, it was the bombed-out building that really caught his eyes. Enrico had no clue that he went to England at a time when the English were yet to recover from the German Blitz, and that London was literally in a social and infrastructural mess.
They boarded a double-decker bus, and went to the top deck, which had many empty seats. Enrico saw a black man sitting by himself, so he went to make conversation. He asked the man where in the West Indies he was from. With anger twisting his face, the stranger snapped at Enrico, making it clear that he was not a West Indian, butan African. Enrico's follow-up questions were met with great disdain, so he apologised and left the man alone.
Desperate people
When they arrived at Labour Exchange, it was full of desperate people from different races trying to get assistance from the government. They had to join long lines before they were attended to. By the time they received their documents, the African man who took them there had disappeared. They were now on their own, nowhere to go, nowhere to turn.
Then, in walked another black man. They waited until he was finished doing business before they approached him. He was a Jamaican! They introduced themselves. The man, named Dudley McGann, took them to Colonial House, another run-down building, where they had a meal, but there was no sleeping vacancy. A seaman's hostel turned them away because they were not sailors.
Disgusting room
McGann took them to a three-storey building on Pell Street, where they gathered around a small fire in the basement. The first and second floors were overrun with gambling seamen and their female visitors. Later that night, they were taken to a room on the third floor, where four young men were awoken from their slumber to make space on a small bed for Frankie and Enrico. The six of them, fully clothed, lay across the bed in the cold, dark room.
In his sleep, Enrico felt something biting him, and there was an unpleasant odour in the room. He got off the bed to investigate.
Enrico: "I was surprised to find the bed infested with bedbugs or 'chinks', as they were called. They were like soldier ants crawling on the walls and on the bed; some of them were big and fat with human blood. The place was disgusting."
The following morning, McGann took them to get second-hand clothes from the Women's Royal Voluntary Service. On the way, McGann told Enrico that the golden streets in England were a myth, as Enrico was to find out for himself.
Enrico: "What struck me at the time was that, in Jamaica as a child, I was not among the poor and needy, far from it, but here I was glad for the handout."
Worsening conditions
Back at the lodge, he spent the night sitting up, refusing to sleep on the bug-infested bed. In the morning, it was to the public baths to cleanse himself. It was McGann who gave them money for food and to pay for the baths. Every night there were new arrivals at the lodge and the already-poor conditions were worsening.
They thus attempted to find accommodation elsewhere, but they were rejected because they were 'niggers', according to Enrico.
They found a dormitory called Rhoten House, where he stayed for a week, because it was full of old men, sick men, tramps and more bedbugs. Having returned to the Pell Street lodge, he found that he and his clothes were infested with lice. He had to burn every piece of clothing he was wearing.
Hunt for warm room
The hunt for somewhere suitable to live continued, but it was the same song everywhere he went - no niggers, no darkies, no sambos. So, he resorted to living in the bombed-out buildings in East London. He moved from one building to the other, with only an overcoat to protect him from the elements. He attempted to find work but, again, his skin colour was in the way.
One night, he went to a police station to seek shelter. He told the police to arrest him so that he could be thrown into a warm cell. The police told him to break a glass and they would have certainly arrested him. He opted to stay in the waiting room, which was very cold, so he went back to the bombed-out houses.
It was now five weeks, five weeks of hunger, being cold, homelessness, shock, regret, disappointment in the motherland, facing the reality that England was a racist country, admitting that he was indeed very black and unwanted, despite his skin colour, education, deportment, speech and privileged background.
Enrico: "As I lay in a bombed house, covered with my overcoat and shivering with cold, my thoughts went back to the home I had left behind, and the comfort of the life I had known in Mount Carey. I felt so desperately lonely and sad, the tears streamed down my face. I just did not know how I was going to survive."
Next week, definitely the conclusion.
paul.williams@gleanerjm.com