Bunce, Robin, and Paul Field. "Authors' Preface." Darcus Howe: A Political Biography. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2014. viii–x. Bloomsbury Collections. Web. 29 Sep. 2021. <>.
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Copyright © Robin Bunce and Paul Field 2014. You may share this work for non-commercial purposes only, provided you give attribution to the copyright holder and the publisher, and provide a link to the Creative Commons licence. Authors ’ Preface
Writing this book has involved many wonderful experiences. Hours in archives are, of course, the historian ’ s delight, and we thank the staff at the National Archives, the Institute of Race Relations, the George Padmore Institute, the British Library, the Colindale Newspaper Archive, Warwick University Library, Cambridge University Library, the Butler Library at the Columbia University and the archives of the Oilfi eld Workers Trade Union of Trinidad and Tobago, to name but a few. We have spent many hours being entertained by our interviewees. Early on in the project, we had the good fortune to spend an aft ernoon with Farrukh Dhondy. ‘ I expect you want me to tell you all the scandal, ’ was his opener. We earnestly assured him that we were writing a serious political piece, adding that we couldn ’ t believe that there would be enough scandal to fi ll a single page. ‘ Th ere ’ s enough to fi ll seven volumes! ’ , he retorted. One of the stranger experiences, only obliquely related to the project, was an Equality and Diversity training session that one of us was compelled to attend in the summer of 2011. Two trainers explained the workings of the Single Equality Act aided by Post-it notes, highlighters and a hundred PowerPoint slides. Th e tenor of the event is best illustrated by the following exchange. One of the delegates, clearly concerned to get everything right, queried, ‘ I was born in New Zealand and my husband’ s half Indian, so I’ m never sure which box to tick for our son when I’ m fi lling out forms.’ One of the trainers took up the question. ‘ Your son ’, she asked, ‘ does he tan easily? ’. ‘ Yes ’, replied the bemused delegate. ‘ Th en he can tick the box that says “ Lucky. ” ’ Th is book is not written in that spirit. Of the many people who have helped and supported us in this project, the following deserve a special mention: Ian Macdonald QC, Michael Mansfi eld QC, Baroness Ross Howells, Alan Hayling, Bill Bowring, John Howe, Lenin Woolford, David Abdullah, David Waddell, Deryck Murray, Liz Davies, Sami Savonius-Wroth, Katherine Butler Schofi eld, Mike Marqusee, Paul Alcala, Raffi que Shah, Tariq Ali, Russell Proffi tt, staff at the Oilfi eld Workers Trade Union of Trinidad and Tobago, especially Nicki Johnson and Maurisa Gordon-Th omas, Selma James, Knowlton Crichlow,
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Amandla Crichlow, Barbara Beese, A. Sivanandan, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Max Farrar, Linda Bellos, Margaret Busby, Clare Short, Dotun Adebayo, Sarah White, Farrukh Dhondy, Nirpal Dhaliwal, Trevor Phillips, Narinder Minhas, Marques Toliver, Barry Cox, Caroline Coon, Harry Goulbourne, Lincoln Crawford and especially Darcus Howe, who spent many hours discussing his life with us. Th ank you also to Robert Hill, Richard Small, Joe Street, Anne-Marie Angelo, Ana Laura Lopez de la Torre, Anthony Giff ord, Dr Vince Hines, Derek Humphry, James Whitfi eld, Winston Trew, Simon Woolley, Kimberly Springer, David Austin and Krishnendu Majumdar. We also thank the master and fellows of St Edmund ’ s College Cambridge and the president and fellows of Homerton College Cambridge for their support during this project. We owe a great debt to the expertise of Michael Ryan and Alix Ross at the University of Columbia ’ s Butler Library as well as Jenny Bourne at the Institute of Race Relations Archive and Sarah Garrod at the George Padmore Institute. Th ank you to Harry Carr for his editorial work, to Laura Williams, Barry Hart, Grishma Fredric and Farzad Zadeh for their comments on the manuscript and to Mark Richardson and Caroline Wintersgill at Bloomsbury. We are particularly indebted to Leila Hassan and Priyamvada Gopal. Leila’ s vivid memory and insights into events over a 40-year period have been invaluable to us, as has her support, friendship and encouragement in writing the book. Priya Gopal took time out of her own teaching, writing and research schedule to generously read and wisely comment on the whole manuscript for which we are extremely grateful. Finally, we would like to thank our respective partners, Lucy and Maggie, and our children, India, Max and Mia. Without their love, support and patience, we could not have written this book.
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