This is my Black London
By Olive Vassell
The UK’s capital, London, is a vibrant, multicultural mix. Born here to Caribbean parents, as a child, it provided the perfect backdrop for me to learn about and experience my heritage as a first-generation Brit. Later, it was where I began my journalistic journey, documenting the social vibrancy and cultural richness contributed by people of African descent. When I recently decided to take another look at my home town, it was with a renewed passion for the place where my Black British identity was formed. I’d like to share my Black London with you.
South London
Brixton
Some of my earliest memories are from here. Etched in my mind are the Saturday shop-ups in which we children would trail after our mother as she bought food from “home,” and exchanged news with the relatives and friends we would meet along the way. Today African-Caribbean culture still hums through the markets. You can still grab a saltfish patty and, strolling down Electric Avenue, you’ll find murals celebrating figures like Olive Morris, a community leader and 1970s local activist. One of the area’s most important landmarks is Windrush Square which is home to several monuments including the Black Cultural Archives, the African Caribbean War Memorial, and the Cherry Groce Memorial Pavilion.
Visit: Windrush Square
https://www.lambeth.gov.uk/parks/windrush-square
North London
Tottenham & Stroud Green
My first job as a journalist was at the long-gone, West Indian World in Tottenham. Known for its rich history of Black communities and activism, I “cut my teeth” in this rich training ground covering places such as Broadwater Farm. Nearby Stroud Green is home to one of my favourite bookshops, New Beacon Books, founded by prominent Black activist and publisher, John La Rose in 1966. With its repository of literature from Africa, the Caribbean, Asia, African America, Europe, and Black Britain, it is easy to spend hours there rifling through books you might not find elsewhere. But, it’s more than a bookshop, it’s also a gathering place where people can connect with culture.
Visit: New Beacon Books
https://www.newbeaconbooks.com
East London
Ridley Road & Three Mills Green (near Stratford)
I discovered this popular hub a little later than others but quickly developed an enthusiasm for the area’s significant Caribbean community. Thankfully, their history has been captured in the Ridley Road Stories Project which aims to ensure that the contributions of Black residents are recognised and celebrated using oral histories, photography, and other forms of storytelling. Meanwhile, as a fan of memorials, I love the bronze statue “Reaching Out” by Thomas J. Price. It depicts a Black woman using her phone and is part of The Line, an art walk. It is notable as one of the first public statues of a Black woman in the UK created by a Black sculptor.
Visit: The Ridley Road Stories project
https://hackney.gov.uk/ridley-road-market
“Reaching Out” statue
https://the-line.org/artist/thomas-j-price/
West London
Notting Hill & Westminster I spent many August Bank holidays in my youth dancing in the streets and following sound systems during the annual Notting Hill Carnival. I also relished stories about its Black residents, the city’s earliest Caribbean settlers. Today, the tony area still comes alive with the sounds and food of the islands and if you walk along Portobello Road, you might find Caribbean grocers rubbing shoulders with antique shops. Meanwhile, I am drawn to Westminster because of its rich Black history. Among the stories are those of Mary Seacole, the famed nurse who lived in the area and importantly is honoured with a statue near the Houses of Parliament and of Britain’s first Black newspaper, The African Times and Orient Review, founded in 1912 by Dusé Mohamed Ali, which was located at 158 Fleet Street.
Visit: Notting Hill Carnival.
Mary Seacole statue
https://www.maryseacoletrust.org.uk/mary-seacole-statue/
For more on Black London, read my book, Mapping Black Europe: Monuments, Markers, Memories.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mapping-Black-Europe-Monuments-Memories/dp/3837654133
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This is my Black London
Travellers focus on the unknown
By Lisette Felix
“There are no foreign lands. It is the traveller only who is foreign.” [Robert Louis Stevenson in the book ‘The Silverado Squatters’].
Travelling often means discovery of unknown locales, but as a child, I noticed that the only place my parents ever went to was their birthplace in Dominica and, I suspect that for the longest time, all other Caribbean families did the same. We were encouraged to ‘go back home’ to discover what living there was really like.
For my generation who had no guilt, we went on holiday to experience a new place like everybody else. We were seeking, sun, sea and the occasional sexcapade; if I can say that.This was, of course, after you did your duty in visiting the home country.
My friends and I visited Brussels, France, Italy, Germany and the Netherlands , far enough that you knew you were somewhere else, but close and cheap enough that you didn’t have to fly.
Brussels was amazing to me – travelling on the hydrofoil with my mum to Ostend when I was 18 and being helped off this funny sort of boat onto a waiting bus with the tour guide babbling incoherently in French and hurriedly translating her words into broken English. I was mesmerized as I passed through markets of cascading baskets upon baskets of fruit, shiny vegetables and beautiful twisted shapes of seeded bread and rolls. I had never seen anything like it.
Today, our children – the second generation born and raised in the UK, take planes like we used to take buses and trains. If they can get there, they will go – Australia, Peru, China, Cambodia, Japan, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, the Philippines and beyond. There is no limit.
My daughter, Nadine and her husband Gee are fearless travellers. In October they decided to take a trip to Romania to see her friend Leanna and some designer shopping in Turkey. Well, her university days had brought her into contact with other students of varying nationalities and they both now have friends in many parts of the world. One in particular had moved to Romania in Eastern Europe for a job in the capital Bucharest. Naturally my daughter was invited to come for a visit.
For one week they visited famous and less well known parts of the country. It’s a fascinating place with ancient castles and a very rich history. Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula, was set in and around Romania, and was loosely based on the exploits of Vlad the Impaler, who liked to impale his enemies, after torturing them, on the gates of his castle. Nadine visited Bran Castle, and was surprised at how nice it was.
“After driving for about three hours we came upon a small castle. I was pleasantly surprised, I had been very anxious on the drive to the castle, I had expected it to be a huge, dark foreboding place. Instead I found a quaint country house in a very picturesque location.”
The pair has many exciting plans for future destinations, including visiting Japan and Dubai. “We travel because we like meeting new people, seeing new things and experiencing different cultures,” they said.
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