Notting Hill BRITAIN’S PROBLEM OF RACIAL TENSION

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28906, 28 May 1959, Page 12

Notting Hill BRITAIN’S PROBLEM OF RACIAL TENSION

[By JOHN ROSSEL.LI, m the -Manchester Guardian.”! (Reprinted by Arrangement)

London, May 14.—Riot is not the normal state of the area roughly known as Notting HilL But distrust is—and bad living conditions and social fragmentation. Now that “the light nights” are coming round again and with them the certainty that ill-housed people will be spending a good deal pf time on the streets, it is as well to remember this. Collective violence has come and gone: nearly everybody hopes that it will not come again. The problems of the area persist. An American coloured leader, Mr Herbert Hill, said last week after a short visit that “unless some action is taken now there will be more trouble in the course of the summer.” Sir Patrick Spens, the member of Parliament for South Kensington, said last month: “It is absolutely certain that there will be more trouble in the area if Sir Oswald Mosley persists in the views he expressed in his recent speech in Kensington.” I met no-one in the area who would go so far. Men who live close to its people differ in their judgments (this is as true in the coloured as in the white community—it is a mistake to think of either as monolithic). Most of those I spoke to agreed that feeling still runs deep and bitter: they shared Sir Patrick Spens’s fears though not his certainty; they thought a solution would come only through long effort, and they hoped they would be allowed to make the effort without further serious disturbance.

The Drift Away Walk westwards from Ladbroke Grove and the place, though decayed, looks normal. Once or twice you-run across a couple of young girls, one white, one coloured, walking and chatting together. Of several boardedup shops one, a coloured hairdresser’s, is so for a special reason; the old front was broken once too often. (This and similar damage to a private dwelling seem to be the chief verifiable incidents of the last few months.) After a while you notice that there seem to be fewer coloured people about than there were last year. Knowledgeable residents confirm this. A number—an unknown number —of coloured people have gone away. Whatever one thinks of the move or the reasons for it (and there are reasons for moving from North Kensington which have nothing to do with colour), it seems, to be a fact. Another fact is put by a social worker: “The colo “ r community here is like a new town—mostly young people with small children. Remember, in the next 10 years we 11 have a coloured teen-age population. There is, of course, already a white teen-age population. Perhaps the long-term effort had better not take too long. Meanwhile it is being carried on by a variety of people with (it soon becomes clear) a variety of aims. Briefly, some people have tried harder than others to bring the races together; several people and groups have worked largely independently of one another. This is not to blame any _ body; but, once again, it seems to be true

Work For Racial Hanncny Shortly after the disturbances the Mayor of Kensington jet up a committee of leaders of both communities— but no politicians—to see what should be done. I* seems not to be particularly active just now. The best-known result was an inter-racial Chriatmas parly at the town hall A longer-lasting result was the borough council's vote of money to pay for a coloured social worker at the citizens' advice bureau in Ladbroke Grove Miss Yolande Achong, a Trinidadian who was brought up in ManChester has been at work for tour months. Some outsiders have talked as if she was going to perform miracles: it is as well to point out that Miss Achong s iob is that of a social worker tor the Family Welfare Association. The point of it is not directly to foster goodwill but to provide a person whom some coloured residents would be ready to trust with their individual troubles. The troubles themselves may have nothing to do with colour. More concerned with trying to bring the races together in the near future is a group of volunteer community workers centring on Mr Richard Hauser and wife, the pianist Hephzibah Menuhin. It includes people of both races (some from outside the areal and an extremely active London County councillor, Mr Donald Chesworth. (He is a member of the Labour Party, which, though not of one mind in North Kensington on racial matters, holds the division by a narrow majority The borough council, on the other hand, is Conservative-con-trolled.') The group’s latest venture is a "goodwill week” at the beginning of next month. It hopes to hold a mixed cricket match, an exhibition, an essay competition, performances by West Indian steel bands In the parks, and perhaps to start a junk playground in a disused space. Members of this and other groups are also active in helping tenants to take cases of excessively high rents to the Rent Tribunal. Frightened Off

Other attempts to help the races to do things together have had a doubtful issue. Shortly after the disturbances the North Kensington community centre, up against Little Wormwood Scrubs, started an “overseas club” —bringing in West Indians and giving them and others premises and the use of the canteen. It had to be stopped: white members did not get at the newcomers, but they chalked slogans and “hit the staff” (in one instance literally). The centre still sees “a smattering” of coloured residents—six of them make up half of a weight-lifting group. This smattering is as much as the other main youth centre, the Rugby clubs in Walmer road (nearer the heart of the disturbed area), has ever seen. What it has had is a series of talks on the colour question by the local Labour member, the Conservative prospective candidate, the Mayor and others. The questioning is described as “tough.” Two youth leaders conclude that "it’s no good forcing integration." “the best thing is to bring a few West Indians into existing groups —and anyhow not many want to come.” Whether or not this is

the wisest policy, it dearly leave* the bulk of the coloured community outside for the time being. Hence some people in the area have it in mind to found yet another community centre. Even “not makiiig it obvious that integration is going on” is a difficult job. A coloured boy in a largely white club got Into a scuffle with another boy over a billiard cue. It should have been that and no more; but although the warden prevented further trouble the boy did not go to th* club again. So, too, the Tarmoney Club, a volunteer organisation. found that coloured players did not turn up for football practice and that dances turned into overcrowded, virtually allwhite affairs. Clearly it is easy to frighten people off and confirm the bitter feeling of being rejected. A volunteer leader says: “We concentrated far too much .on making the coloured people welcome. It was really on the level of ’we absolutely love lepers.’ ” These are the words of someone who has learnt something. Yet wisdom is bitter enough. Not surprisingly, the coloured community has been readier to form and join its own semi-poli-tical organisations. They have names like the People's Progressive League and there is talk of forming a loose federation ot them, not only in London but all over the country. Their business at present is chiefly to help coloured residents who feel that they are up against an incomprehensible, unfeeling machine—whether at the labour exchange or the police station or the eouacil offices. Thinly Spread The West Indies Commission and the Migrants’ Service taka * hand both in dealing with day-to-day problems and in- longterm measures. The Jamaica* Welfare Department has sent two experienced community develop* ment officers to train others her* There is also a chaplain to tha

West Indian community. Since each of the community officers will take in a large region (Lon-. don and South-east, for instance, or everything between Trent and Tweed), while the chaplain take* > in the whole country, it must be a while before the results percolate down to the streets, of W. 10 and W. 11. In those streets one’s impression (confirmed by several residents) is that the basic problems are the same as for a long time past—jobs, housing, broken families, and distrust of the neighbour who is none of your kin, a distrust intensified but not created by colour differences. Vice, of which so much was made last year, is there all right -I but it seems to matter less in itself than as a myth potent in h the minds of people who find in - it justification -tor all their tsars. Violence may hot corrie again; -leu distrust remains. After tha mixed W Christmas party at the town hall t some whites said. “Yes, they were i all right, nice people—but they were picked, weren’t they?" (True enough, on such occasions both sides are "picked," If only by their own willingness to come ” forward). In some conversations in Notting Hill one can sense a desperate desire to be treated as a human being, not as a unit in a 1 group, fit to be picked, hated, belped, or reformed. But It will take time, and a good deal of effort, before most people can ... bring themselves to see their ',, neighbours as they wish to be seen themselves.