Moss Side stronghold

Manchester’s suburb was home to early Windrush pioneers. By Leah Mahon

FAR AWAY from London, in one of Manchester’s inner-cities, a place called Moss Side is where some of the Windrush generation chose to call home.

Similar to the blossoming strongholds of Brixton and Notting Hill, Moss Side was predominantly Black, predominantly Caribbean and also the most deprived.

Only now, Manchester’s Moss Side is almost the same as when the mass migration of people from the West Indies first came to Tilbury Docks with a large Black community still living in the area.

Linford Sweeney, 67, pictured above, tells The Voice that he arrived in the UK with his mother from Clarendon, Jamaica in 1964. They started life to- gether in Moss Side. Although still very young, he was one of the many “barrel children” that were left behind in the Caribbean when his father made the same journey ten years earlier.

“Where we lived there were quite a lot of houses which were destroyed, because obviously there had been a war, but as a child I didn’t understand that,” says the local historian.

“People couldn’t get housing [when they arrived in Britain] and they had to go into the areas with the bad housing, and Moss Side became that place.”

On June 22, 1948, there were 492 passengers on the SS Em- pire Windrush but only five came to Manchester, Linford says. They included people like Lord Kitchener; the Trinidadian calypso singer who famously sang, “London is the place for me”. But by 1954, he was living in Manchester in a borough called Trafford.

The Caribbean presence could be seen in the shops and dancehalls, to the market stalls and hairdressers across Moss

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He arrived in Plymouth on 6th June 1916 and was transported to Withnoe Camp in Cornwall for training.

It is unlikely that Herbert was totally unscathed, however. Dennis recalled his father telling him about his time in Wales during World War One. Herbert’s Battalion was deployed in Egypt so it is probable that he was considered unfit to serve on the front line but well enough to carry out duties in Wales. Indeed, a Travelling Medical Board that visited Withnoe on 22nd June 1916 found that the majority of surviving Verdala passengers were still suffering from frost bite and many were permanently unfit for further service.

The fact remains that there was a member of the Bernard family on each of what must surely be the two most famous (or infamous in the case of the Verdala) sea voyages in West Indian history.

Rebuilding

At the end of World War Two Dennis returned to Jamaica where like many of his fellow ex-servicemen he was disillusioned at the lack of opportunities offered in his home country. He had a taste for Britain and knew the country needed rebuilding after six years of conflict. He jumped at the opportunity when he heard about the Windrush and pulled together the £28 and 10 shillings needed to buy that one-way ticket.

The Windrush passenger list shows Dennis as passenger number 564. His

Side. By the 1970s, Manchester Carnival became the city’s latest cultural event which still sees hundreds parade through the streets and make their way to Alexandra Park.

Linford says the stories of Windrush communities that emerged outside of London are no worse or better from the narrative so commonly told about this pioneering generation.

Rather, all Caribbean com- occupation is recorded as ‘carpenter.’

When I interviewed Dennis, his son, Roy expressed some surprise that his father had once been a carpenter. Dennis gave an impish smile and admitted he was never a carpenter, he simply thought it was a good trade to put down. In truth he could turn his hand to most things.

Fortunately

On arrival in Tilbury most passengers were destined for addresses in London or the Clapham South Deep Shelter in the case of those with nowhere else to go; Dennis headed for the Midlands and the National Service Hostel in West Bromwich. The hostel could house around 700 men and was the site of serious rioting in August 1949 – predominantly between Polish and West Indian men who were based there.

Fortunately, Dennis had left the hostel by the time of the rioting and moved to nearby Telford where he had found work in a factory. He later worked for Vauxhall in the car manufacturing industry.

In 1952 Dennis married Marjorie Wildey in Wolverhampton, which is where he still lives. Unfortunately Marjorie passed away in 1987.

Dennis and his father had both served their country and Dennis and Marjorie’s four children certainly continued that tradition. Son Roy has gone on to become an extremely successful entrepreneur, primarily in the health care sector. Tyron became a fire fighter and younger daughter Sonia, a nurse.

Dennis’ other daughter Verona, munities from St Kitts and Nevis, to Dominica and Jamaica all have something that makes them unique and yet still undeniably Caribbean.

He adds: “There’s a whole load of people we could look at of Caribbean descent who have made Manchester what it is today, who we can say contributed. That didn’t just sit back, that did the work they were told to do.” under her married name of Elder, represented Great Britain in the 400 metres at the 1972 Olympic Games and won Gold and Silver medals at both the 1974 and 1978 Commonwealth Games. In a yet further coincidence, when Verona’s grandfather Herbert died in Claremont on 30th November 1969, the doctor who certified his death was none other than Arthur Stanley Wint who in 1948 had been Jamaica’s first ever Olympic Gold medal winner in Verona’s event – the 400 metres. Wint could have represented Great Britain but opted to run for Jamaica. Trinidadian McDonald Bailey faced a similar dilemma but elected to wear a British vest rather than a Trinidadian one. Passenger number 11 on the Windrush was McDonald’s father who was coming to London to watch his son in the 100 metres where he finished sixth.

Dennis later married Margaret Artwell who died earlier this year. Tragically Margaret won’t see how he will be celebrated and acknowledged during this, the 75th Anniversary of Windrush in recognition of his “immeasurable contribution” to British society.

The Bernard family has certainly contributed to British society. We start with Herbert who in order to fight for ‘King and Country’ patiently queued up outside the recruitment office in Hanover on 11th January 1916 and then move on to Dennis who proudly carried service number 724500 in the RAF and finally Dennis and Marjorie’s four children who have all continued the family tradition of service to the United Kingdom.