NORBURY HISTORY

Contents:

Let’s protect ’s pioneering libraries

The Edwardian library legacy of an Anglo-Pole

From the SS Windrush to Croydon: the life of Alex Elden

A tribute to Darcus Howe

Man Mohan Singh, Indian Air Ace and Norbury

Newsletter No. 1. June 2017

History & Social Action Publications £1 1

Let’s protect Croydon’s pioneering libraries

Libraries nurture the mind of man – let’s protect our heritage

“The library was in some ways superior to Let’s hope that when Croydon Council life itself. We are limited by our three score Cabinet members consider the outcome of years and ten, but books extend our horizon the current library review, they remember to the furthest boundaries of history, nay, that a key challenge is to ensure the and far beyond, for has not the speculative continuance of the network of libraries that mind of man marched with the stars and their predecessors proudly built. The first written of the growth and decay of library had been opened in two rented shops universes?” in North End in March 1890, with 6,399 books in stock. In the year ending of March This was one of the key messages of Stanley 1931 borrowings and consultations were up Jast, President of the Library Association, to 1,673,558 books. and former Chief Librarian of Croydon (1898- 1915), at the opening of the newly built Norbury was the fifth library building in Norbury Library on the corner of London what was then the much smaller Croydon Road and Beatrice Avenue on 30th May 1931. Borough area before its merger with the and Purley Urban District in 1965. Croydon shines and has shone for a good while

Its opening was the culmination of years of January 1927. The subsequent annual campaigning by local residents, especially reports of the Library Committee reported the local Tenants on progress. By November 1929 everything Association. The Croydon Advertiser’s was ready to proceed, so the council agreed editorial of 6th June commented: “it to seek the Ministry of Health’s permission required a battle to bring in the public to borrow the money. The response was library but nowadays there is no institution, speedy. In an imaginative move, it did not probably, of those which are charged on the wait for the library to be built. The public funds more generally accepted as a following February it opened library boon and a blessing to men. As with other facilities for all Norbury children at Norbury instruments of good, much depends on its Manor School. The number of books issued administration. In this particular Croydon during the first month was 2,829. shines and has shone for a good while, so that we have ever with us an agency At the time the councillors were proud of designed for enlightenment being itself Croydon’s pioneering of library services. The enlightened because informed by the town had been only the second place in the enlightenment of its administrators”. country to adopt the open access system. It was one of the first to introduce the current The decision to build a new branch library at classification method, replacing the system Norbury was taken by the Council on 14th of coloured and shaped label.

Early library advocates proclaimed the importance of providing both first class and ‘rubbish’ literature

A lot of thought had also gone into the which the newspaper rests being adjustable design of the new library. The shelves were to the sight and convenience of the reader’, designed to ensure that no one had to said an observer of the time. As well as the stretch up to the top or stoop to the junior library area, there was also a story bottom. ‘The newsroom is unique in being hour room which children could use to do the first to be opened with newspaper their homework. stands at which readers may sit, the slope of

2

Jast praised the progressive nature in his going down by leaps and bounds, and it time of the Libraries Committee, and the would be remarkable if his committee and ‘remarkable staff’ he had had working for himself were not smothered under by him. Of Berwick Sayers, his successor at complaints as to the shocking supply of Croydon, he said that he “was one of the books. Most of us are second and third-rate most widely known and distinguished of people. We have second and third-rate modern librarians, under whom the library minds and even the few who flatter had not only maintained but increased its themselves that they have first-rate minds great reputation amongst public libraries in have their second and third-rate moods. Our this country and abroad”. libraries must function; the public must be reasonably catered for and the basic The library debate taking place now centres proposition that it is better to read than not around the future role of these buildings, as to read is a sound enough generalisation reading print books seems to be on the even if one only reads rubbish”. decline. Jast proclaimed the importance of providing both first class and ‘rubbish’ In terms of the wider information role of literature, stating that: “the librarian who libraries, Norbury had three shelves in the filled his library with only the best in reference section of holiday literature, literature and declined the second and third including guides and maps. rate would speedily find […] his circulation

The council should remember Tony Newman’s promise not to close Norbury or any other library

Hundreds of local people turned out for the had been several bookings”. It has not been opening despite the rain. On the first used for many years. The local Norbury Monday, 1,200 books were issued. Within councillors’ promise in the 2014 local less than three weeks 7,985 books had been election to re-open it has not yet realised. issued and 3,000 tickets applied for. The junior branch had 319 ticket applications So let us hope that when the council’s and 3,549 borrowings. cabinet considers the future of the libraries it confirms leader Tony Newman’s promise The first floor has a lecture hall capable of not to close Norbury or any other library, holding 130 people. At the opening and that it be underpinned by a modern Alderman Peter said that this was progressive approach to the role of libraries “something which had been badly needed in as multi-information hubs and for their part of the borough and already there community activity. Sean Creighton

Originally published in Croydon Citizen 24 August 2016

3

The Edwardian library legacy of an Anglo-Pole

At the turn of the last century, a Croydon man, now forgotten, made waves in the socially transformative field of libraries

“He saw libraries as a nerve centre for the defeat, many Legion members escaped to development of communities. His ideas may Turkey. One of them, Józef Zachariasz Bem, be a century old, but some things remain converted to Islam and served as Governor the same, even as we move ahead.” of Aleppo.

Unrecognised here in Croydon, this is the Kossuth toured Britain in 1850 and 1851, and assessment of its energetic innovator Chief visited again later in the late 1850s including Librarian Stanley Jast (1898-1915), by Dan addressing a public meeting in Croydon. Cherubin, the Chief Librarian of Hunter College in the United States (2014). Stefan and his English wife had two sons as well as Stanley: Bodgan, who became a Born in Halifax in 1868, Stanley was the son doctor, and Thaddeus, a civil servant and of the exiled Polish army officer Stefan Louis chairman of the Croydon Liberal Association. de Jastrzebski. Stefan had joined the Polish Democratic Society in exile and travelled on Stanley simplified his name to Jast in 1895. its behalf in and France. He joined He started as a librarian in Halifax and then the Polish Legion supporting the attempt led moved to Peterborough. He became an by Louis Kossuth to free Hungary from the advocate of the Dewey system of Austrian empire in 1848-9. After their classification – still used today to display books – and the open access system.

“While the revolution was in progress, an orgy of experimentation raged”

He became Croydon’s Chief Librarian in July staff. 1898 and created a dynamic service with the libraries becoming workshops for new ideas: After attending the American Library the card catalogue, the reference Library (in Association Annual Conference in 1904, he Braithwaite Hall) and information service, travelled around US libraries. Inspired back publishing The Reader’s Index: The Bi- in Croydon he implemented more changes: monthly Magazine of the Croydon Public recruiting a lady typist, holding weekly Libraries, lectures, reading circles, meetings of senior staff, and setting up a exhibitions of books and pictures, and liaison staff guild. with local schools. “While the revolution was He became permanent Hon. Secretary of the in progress, an orgy of experimentation British Library Association in 1905, and raged”, recalled a former member of his helped to innovate national changes.

In 1931, he introduced the first mobile library in the country

Stanley provided support and a base for the project opened in 1934. ‘Survey of Surrey’ photographic project. He co-authored The Camera as Historian (1916) He was a prolific writer, his pamphlets and based on the survey’s work. books covering such subjects as: the Dewey Decimal System (1895); children as readers He moved to Manchester in 1915 and (1927); books for children in elementary became Chief Librarian there in 1920. In schools (1928); and libraries and the 1931 he introduced the first mobile library community (1939). In the 1920s he gave in the country. His new central library talks on the radio, which were published as Libraries and living (1932).

4

Jast was a founder in 1916 of the Manchester experimental amateur dramatic society

A theosophist since the early 1890s, he He was a founder in 1916 of the Manchester joined the Croydon Lodge of the experimental amateur dramatic society, the Theosophical Society in October 1898 and Unnamed Society. He wrote many plays was vice-president from February 1900. He which it performed, such as The Lover and gave many talks to it and other lodges over the Dead Woman, and Shah Jahan (the the years, some of which were published in builder of the Taj Mahal). 1941 (‘What it all Means’).

In 1910 he met Ethel Winifred Austin, the Librarian and Secretary of the National Library for the Blind, whom he married. She died in 1918, and he married again in 1925.

“The perfect librarian does not exist”

He retired in 1932. He and Millicent settled As can be seen from his speech at the in in 1940 where he died on opening of the Norbury branch Library in 25th December 1944. Poems and 1931, his views were forthright. Epigrams was privately published after his death. Five days before his death he sent a “The perfect librarian does not exist, never subscription to C. C. Fagg, the Croydon- has existed and assuredly never will exist. based organiser of the newly forming But good librarians do, and better librarians Council for the Promotion of Field Studies. may.” (1915)

‘The best inventions of America are librarians on the one hand and a martini on the other hand’

“Whence my belief that a fairly normal boy His droll sense of humour is best shown by or girl can read anything that is literature what he said at the 1904 American meeting: without ill effects; at all events that to forbid books is likely to have effects that are “The best inventions of America are worse. There is a natural disinfecting quality librarians on the one hand and a martini on in the unspoilt imagination of youth.”(1928) the other hand.”

As a result of Jast’s work, Croydon libraries were the model to be followed across Britain

He was an advocate of libraries, not only As a result of his work, Croydon libraries collecting photographs but also films about were the model to be followed across their area, which should be shown to the Britain. His innovative, forward thinking public. Early acquisitions in Croydon approach was made possible because of a included Academy of Music, supportive Libraries Committee, even the funeral of the late town clerk, and the though it had budget restraints. There is Croydon Horse Show. lesson here for today’s Croydon councillors.

As the author of The Bioscope blog asks: Hitherto unrecognised here in Croydon, a “What happened to this collection? How long small display about him will be included in did it last? Was it ever used by the Croydon an exhibition about the Surrey Survey being general public?”. None of them is listed on planned by the Museum Service. the London Screen Archives website.  Sean Creighton, originally published on Croydon Citizen 14 September 2016

5

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 to Croydon

Alex Elden, a member of the Royal Airforce Bahamas. Alex was educated at Calabar from 1944, and a passenger on the SS Empire School and St. Simon College. Windrush on its famous voyage to England in 1948, died on Thursday 6th April at Croydon Young Alex was captivated by aircraft, and University Hospital, after being looked after particularly inspired by watching movies in his last years at the Norbury Hall care with Errol Flynn flying and shooting down home. jets’. His enthusiasm led him to enlist in the RAF in Kingston on 29th September 1944. He Alex was born in on 9th July 1926 travelled to Britain for training, arriving in and baptised Emanuel Alexis as a Roman Glasgow on the SS de Cuba, where he was Catholic. His father was a civil engineer who warmly greeted and a reception was held in was responsible for most of the buildings his honour. He then trained at Filey and constructed in the country at that time, and Yatesbury, becoming a runway controller at he later learnt that his great-grandfather RAF Cramwell. had been a pirate who retired in the

The women stood up for the black men and fought with their stiletto heels

According to the valuable record available in black servicemen tended to organise their the book The Windrush Legacy: Memories of own. Caribbean servicemen met up in Britain’s Post-War Caribbean Immigrants: London and enjoyed the limited night life “promotion in the RAF very much depended available. Black men could dance and swing on the officer in charge, but also Alex did their hoops which the white women loved. well in his exams and won promotion. The This caused jealousy and fights. The women white officers behaved as if they were stood up for the black men and even fought superior, but Alex always met these with their stiletto heels. Without the aggressions head-on. On some occasions the support of these women, the black men officers resorted to sarcasm and would have suffered more harassment and intimidatory antics, but he always humiliation.” confronted the issue which gained him much respect”. “Most of the outings in London while on leave ended at Common air raid “There was not much of a social life and the 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 They were informed that they could only do specialist team looking for deserters. In 1948 so from the rear of the complex. An he supervised the return of servicemen to argument ensued and Alex remembers that a the Caribbean on board the Lady Rodney. big fracas broke out. They were eventually Not being able to find work in Jamaica, he allowed front seats. then came back to Britain on the SS Windrush. The efforts of the Windrushers, supported by the Windrush Foundation, have ensured that When the ship stopped in Bermuda, some of its voyage has become the symbol of the the passengers, including ex-servicemen, West Indian migration to Britain to assist wanted to watch a movie at the cinema. with rebuilding the country after the war. 6

The SS Windrush started its life being used by the Hitler Youth

The Windrush is also symbolic of the defeat glass blowing and glass technology, he of Nazism, to which so many men and worked for J. Arthur Rank at Crystal Palace women from the empire contributed. The until 1952, making TV tubes and other ship had originally been built by a laboratory equipment. Then, in 1956, he businessman to provide Baltic holidays for became the second black person ever to members of the Hitler Youth. It had been gain the famous ‘knowledge’ and work as a captured during the war by the British and London cabbie. used as a troop ship, then afterwards as a passenger ship. He played cricket for , the West Indian Student Union and the Caribbean Alex Elden married Joan, his first wife, in Cricket Club. As a supporter of the League 1949. He was officially discharged from the of Coloured Peoples, his children took part RAF in January 1950. He and Joan lived in in its celebrations. From 1970 he helped the Carshalton and had three children: Bonnie, Melting Pot Foundation, for example by Denise and Glen. Having trained in scientific teaching driving skills to young underprivileged adults. For the last twenty-two years of his life, Alex became a Croydonian

Having met her in the 1960s, he married his Alex’s Croydon connection began the same second wife Jayne in 1976. They had two year when he and Jayne moved to Norbury, sons, Gary and Don. In 1980 he set up the and he spent the last twenty-two years of Green Badge Taxi School at the Windrush his life in the borough. They were rich and Foundation and received grants from rewarding years: by 1998 he had six Council and then the government grandchildren, and in 2016 saw his son Gary to train unemployed young people. The awarded the OBE for achievement and school also gave training in literacy and service to diversity in business. numeracy skills, in acquiring the ‘knowledge’, and in helping the community. Alex’s funeral took place on Thursday 27th Hundreds successfully qualified. As a April and gave the opportunity for his many member of the West Indian Association of friends and admirers to pay their respects to Service Personnel (as it is now called), he a well-liked adoptive Croydonian and true was its vice-chair in 1995. citizen of the world.

 Sean Creighton, originally published in Croydon Citizen 4 May 2017

7

A tribute to Darcus Howe

The towering intellectual, activist and Norbury resident is being laid to rest.

Champion British black rights campaigner Darcus Howe has joined the African ancestors. He died on 1st April aged 74.

After spending thirty years in , the leading broadcaster, writer and political activist more recently lived in Norbury.

I met Howe during the three-day 1981 mass arrests of black youth. Howe impressed uprising in Brixton, where I also lived. He me with his bravura performance, incisively was being interviewed about the indicting Thatcherism, its bullyboys in blue disturbances caused by racist policing that and establishment contempt for the plight of had culminated in Operation Swamp – the the oppressed peoples of the inner city. Howe presented the primetime Devil’s Advocate TV programme

He described the Brixton Riots as “an Dhondy, with 1960s poster boy of British insurrection of the masses of the people”. student rebellion Tariq Ali as co-editor. His Race Today collective office, on Railton Howe presented the primetime Devil’s Road in Brixton, was on the front line, and Advocate TV programme (1992-96), where the group recorded the events in its radical he put people like Bernie Grant, the late magazine of the same name. Howe argued black MP, and me, under harsh scrutiny. that no longer would simply complain about white power – they would In 1994, in a controversial show that got the confront it head on. highest rating for the series, I featured in a programme about the political clash His first TV series, The Bandung File (1985- between the black-led Anti-Racist Alliance 91), was commissioned for Channel 4 by his and Socialist Workers Party-run Anti-Nazi ex-fellow Race Today member Farroukh League, and Howe did me no favours. Howe wrote an unflattering pamphlet about the Labour Party Black Sections in 1985

As a founder member of the Labour Party merely a vehicle for the ambitious black Black Sections – an unofficial caucus of middle-class, namely councillors Bernie Africans, Caribbeans and Asians fighting for Grant, Paul Boateng, Russell Profitt, Diane political representation – Howe and I had Abbott, and others, to become MPs. also crossed swords. At the time, Britain’s House of Commons was all white and there He saw this as flying in the face of the were few black councillors. grassroots, working class black politics in which he had been involved, though he was Howe wrote an unflattering pamphlet in raised in a middle-class household in 1985, claiming that the organisation was Trinidad, where he was born. Howe stubbornly refused to join the Labour Party until his progressive friend Jeremy Corbyn stood to lead it

Aged 18, Howe moved to England where he he was clearly a towering intellectual and I had intended to study law but decided to do was an upstart TV reporter and fledgling journalism instead. His uncle and mentor, political activist in a Labour Party that he Marxist intellectual C. L. R. James, inspired railed against because of the racist him to combine writing with political immigration laws which it had passed when activism. in government.

Despite our differences, we had a grudging Howe stubbornly refused to join the party respect for each other. In the early 1980s, until his progressive friend Jeremy Corbyn 8 stood to lead it, though when we had a drink that me he had no illusions about the Labour at a pub last year he told leader whom he had helped to elect. The had targeted the Mangrove as a “place of ill repute”

Rewind to , west London, in the repute”, claiming that drugs were sold 1960s. Howe was a leading light at the there. Mangrove, a restaurant on All Saints Road, owned by fellow Trinidadian Frank In truth, the Mangrove was, as Howe put it, Critchlow. “the headquarters of radical chic”. Locals and their guests, some of them celebrities, They both came to national prominence as socialised, discussed the issues of the day, defendants in the high-profile ‘Mangrove and organised against efforts by the nine’ trial. The Metropolitan police had authorities to suppress the rebellious spirit targeted the Mangrove as a “place of ill of the ‘Swinging Sixties’. This was the first acknowledgement from a British judge that there was racism in the Metropolitan police

Howe, Frank Critchlow and his brother At the Old Bailey, Howe and Althea Jones- Victor, organised a demonstration against Lecointe themselves led the defence of the the continual raiding by police of the Mangrove nine in the biggest black power Mangrove. trial ever in Britain.

Large numbers of police tried to disrupt the The nine were acquitted and the judge march. Fights broke out and officers made stated that there was “evidence of racial arrests. The nine most prominent hatred on both sides” – the first participants were singled out to face serious acknowledgement from a British judge that charges that could have resulted in long jail there was racism in the Metropolitan police. terms. Howe helped to organise the largest ever political demonstration by black people in Britain

Howe became a key figure in the Throughout his life, Howe kept his links with Massacre Action Committee and was a the Mangrove, working with their ‘mas and leading organiser of the Black People’s Day steel bands, and was once chair of the of Action in 1981 that highlighted the death Notting Hill Carnival. of thirteen young people in a suspected arson attack by racists on a birthday party. At the end of his life when he had prostate He helped organise the march, the largest cancer, Howe made a TV special about it ever political demonstration by black people and advised men of African-Caribbean in Britain, which, on a working Monday, origin, who are particularly vulnerable, to drew more than 15,000 protesters. “get themselves checked out early”.

His funeral takes place today

He inadvertently gave my citizen journalism Darcus Howe: a Political Biography, was website the-latest.com a headline-grabbing published in 2013, a copy of which he scoop in 2008. James McGrath, the spin- donated to Croydon North Labour Party, of doctor for London mayor Boris Johnson, was which he was our most famous member. sacked after he told me that elderly black people, whom Howe had said in Sadly, he was too unwell to attend as guest a Voice newspaper column didn’t approve of of honour the Robert Burns night where it BoJo’s right-wing policies, should “go back was raffled to raise money for campaigning. home”. His funeral takes place today at All Saints Church, Notting Hill.

9

 Marc Wadsworth, originally published in Croydon Citizen 20 April 2017

Man Mohan Singh, Indian Air Ace and Norbury

‘People passing along London-road, Norbury, may have wondered why one house is so gaily decorated with pennants’ reported the Croydon Advertiser on 15 August 1936. ‘The reason is that the house is waiting to receive the Indian airman, Man Mohan Singh’ on his return from .

Singh was born at Rawalpindli, now in , in September 1906. He studied civil engineering at Bristol University between 1923 and 1927. He stayed a further two years studying flying and aeronautical engineering on a scholarship from the Government of India.

Aga Khan flying competition

He entered the flying competition funded by Maharaja Bhupinder Sifigh, ruler of Patiala the Aga Khan the leader of the Muslim state, made him his personal pilot. (1) Sikhs Ismaili sect for an Indian to fly from India to in the Army website). On 1 August 1935 he England. Singh tried twice in early 1930 flew to Cape Town from England last August. setting off from Croydon aerodrome on 24 He ‘reduced the record from London to January 1930 but damaged his plane landing Cairo by seven hours. While in Africa he took in fog in southern Italy. He tried again up twenty thousand people, Europeans, setting off from Croydon on 8 April reaching Africans and Indians, for free flights.’ ‘Two Karcahi, but took longer than the specified weeks ago he left India to fly to England by month. Another pilot won the prize. (1). easy stages. He stayed at Cairo and Basra Singh admitted that he was inexperienced and has been at Marseilles since Saturday. and that he was not adept at map reading. He is waiting for good weather to complete (2) his journey.’ (3)

Welcome in Croydon

When he arrived at Croydon Aerodrome he London Rd where he stayed when in was ‘welcomed by a crowd of his fellow England, which was decorated with bunting countrymen’. He was ’presented with a to welcome him. purse of money by Mr. Sardar Kutar Opal, on behalf of the Indian community in London.’ He hoped to participate in the London to (4) Johannesburg air race, which started on 27 September. (3)(4) He then went on to Mrs Leaf’s home at 1256 Second World War

Singh was one of the hundreds of thousands England for training. He later fought against of people in the colonies who signed up for the Japanese in the Philippines and the forces at the beginning of the Second Indonesia, and was killed in in West World War. He joined the Indian Air Force Australia on 3 March 1942. (1) Volunteer Reserve. He led its members to

 Sean Creighton

Photographs of Singh can be seen on:

 The Sikhs in the Army website http://www.sikhsinthearmy.co.uk/man-mohan- singh/4555822575

 The Kalgidhar Society website: http://barusahib.org

10

 In the Pathe News film of the Indian pilots training on

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtLwn5sSmsI and

http://bharat-rakshak.com/IAF/history/ww2/1330-video-iaf-pilots-uk.html

(1) Sikhs in the Army website

(2) Flight. 23 May 1930. p. 559

(3) Croydon Advertiser. 15 August 1936. p. 15

(4) Croydon Advertiser. 22 August 1936. p. 9

Photos:

The Library book cover is from Open Library

Alex Elden in his taxi has been provided by Jayne Elden

History & Social Action Publications

6 Oakhill Rd, London, SW16. [email protected]

Printed by Cherrill Print, 297 Brighton Road, , CR2 6EQ

June 2017

11