FROM THE SS WINDRUSH TO CROYDON: THE LIFE OF ALEX ELDEN The late Alex Elden made a rich contribution both to London’s black community and Croydon
A
lex Elden, a member of the Royal Airforce from 1944, and a passenger on the SS Empire Windrush on its famous voyage to England in 1948. Alex was born in Jamaica on 9th July 1926 and baptised Emanuel Alexis as a Roman Catholic. His father was a civil engineer who was responsible for most of the buildings constructed in the country at that time, and he later learnt that his great-grandfather had been a pirate who retired in the Bahamas. Alex was educated at Calabar School and St. Simon College. Young Alex was captivated by aircraft, and particularly inspired by watching movies with Errol Flynn flying and shooting down jets’. His enthusiasm led him to enlist in the RAF in Kingston on 29th September 1944. He travelled to Britain for training, arriving in Glasgow on the SS de Cuba, where he was warmly greeted and a reception was held in his honour. He then trained at Filey and Yatesbury, becoming a runway controller at RAF Cramwell. The women stood up for the black men and fought with their stiletto heels.
78 BLACK HISTORY MONTH 2018
According to the valuable record available in the book The Windrush Legacy: Memories of Britain’s Post-War Caribbean Immigrants: “promotion in the RAF very much depended on the officer in charge, but also Alex did well in his exams and won promotion. The white officers behaved as if they were superior, but Alex always met these aggressions head-on. On some occasions the officers resorted to sarcasm and intimidatory antics, but he always confronted the issue which gained him much respect”. “There was not much of a social life and the black servicemen tended to organise their own. Caribbean servicemen met up in London and enjoyed the limited night life available. Black men could dance and swing their hoops which the white women loved. This caused jealousy and fights. The women stood up for the black men and even fought with their stiletto heels. Without the support of these women, the black men would have suffered more harassment and humiliation.” “Most of the outings in London while on leave ended at Clapham Common air raid shelter, where they stayed for protection from
the bombs.” When black cinema goers were told that they could only watch from the back, a big fracas broke out. When the war ended, Alex joined a specialist team looking for deserters. In 1948 he supervised the return of servicemen to the Caribbean on board the Lady Rodney. Not being able to find work in Jamaica, he then came back to Britain on the SS Windrush. When the ship stopped in Bermuda, some of the passengers, including ex-servicemen, wanted to watch a movie at the cinema. They were informed that they could only do so from the rear of the complex. An argument ensued, and Alex remembers that a big fracas broke out. They were eventually allowed front seats. The efforts of the Windrushers, supported by the Windrush Foundation, have ensured that its voyage has become the symbol of the West Indian migration to Britain to assist with rebuilding the country after the war. The Windrush is also symbolic of the defeat of Nazism, to which so many men and women from the empire contributed. The ship
