Iwas fourteen when I last saw my father. On a cold, wintry morning in London, my parents tearfully kissed me goodbye and boarded a train from Waterloo station to Dover, then by ship to the East. Sobbing and shivering in my school uniform, I ran alongside their carriage to catch a final glimpse of them.
Something hurt deep inside while I watched my father’s hand waving a white handkerchief out of the window until it faded into steam and haze. I never saw my father again.
My life as an immigrant was anything but straightforward. To begin with, I did not arrive in the UK by plane, boat, bus or train. Instead, my family and I drove across the world by road via deserts, forests, mountains, villages, cities all the way from Southern India to the UK. At the time, our journey was considered an unusual achievement headed by an ordinary retired Headmaster from Singapore. As a result, a photo of us and our dusty, four wheeled, Borgward Isabella was printed in The Times newspaper.
It all began on a hot, dusty afternoon in Bangalore, South India. Without prior warning, my sunburnt father turned up at my school donned in a frayed suit and trademark topi: ‘Mother and I have planned to take the family to the UK to give you all a good English education. But we are driving there by car,’ he announced.
I was gobsmacked but incredibly relieved at leaving school where I was classed as a dunce and dimwit. Naturally, I could hardly wait to join my parents on this adventure of a lifetime.
That journey was a true leap of faith deserving a separate story though two events remain etched in my mind. One was our harrowing escape from a truck full of murderous bandits stalking us inside the dark, snaky Suleyman mountains of Pakistan. The other, when we almost lost our lives inside the boiling Persian desert; how a mysterious stranger clad in dusty, long robes suddenly appeared from nowhere and guided us into an oasis.
Having lived through life and death situations as a young girl through my travels, I felt ready to take on anything. Or so I led myself to believe until I landed in London at thirteen where a set of exciting, strange, disturbing, sad and happy experiences lay ahead of me.
Upon our arrival, two siblings more than a decade older than me, vanished into universities while mother took care of me in a decaying Victorian home in Ilminster Gardens, Clapham Junction, South London. Summer was coming to an end while I waited anxiously for a place at school. With my pathetic academic record and misbehaviour at boarding school, my prospects seemed shaky. But I was lucky. Kindly staff at a local grammar probably felt sorry for an untried, dark skinned, slight teenager in long, black pig tails with nothing more to offer than playing the piano with a large smile. And so I became the first Indian girl or non white girl to register at Clapham County School, SW11. I still have a very long photograph of myself as a little dark dot amongst a sea of white faces.
On my first day at school, I was surprised and ecstatic to find myself being treated more like a celebrity than a pupil. Staff and pupils seemed well-meaning and friendly towards me. Older girls loved my travel stories, classmates competed to sit next to me. I had never felt such instant adulation from strangers. However, the welcome and acceptance I received at school would be shattered elsewhere, later.
For a brief period, my delicate mother stayed on to look after me while father worked in Singapore, the place where I was born. Sadly, the loneliness and stinging rejection she felt as a so called ‘coloured’ cut into her deeply.
‘Why can’t the English call us Indians, Africans or wherever we came from? It is offensive to brand us all as ‘coloureds’ just because of our dark skins!
She complained bitterly.
Despite this, my treacle tanned mother tried her best to make friends with white English neighbours. Well-spoken and immaculately tied in fine silk saris, she invited them to tea. That didn’t work because the English were happy to greet her with a smile and a few pleasantries but none wished to fraternise any further. Then she tried to make conversation at the local launderette but she was politely ignored. Depressed, lonely and demeaned, she wished to return home: ‘I cannot live in a place where I have no friends or family,’ she cried.
Father arrived, sold our home. Knowing how much I loved school in London, he courageously presented me with two options: ‘My child, you can live here with carers under the eyes of your sister and brother at college. Or you can come with us. After university, you can return home.’
To them, having a good English education was worth the risks of leaving me virtually alone in a foreign country. Be that as it may, they were confident of my survival skills especially after years at boarding school. I was provided with two options: back to boarding school or living in paid foster care. I chose the latter.
As devout Christians they found a couple via recommendations from local church-goers. That vague church connection appeared sufficient to hand me over into the arms of two middle aged, English strangers for a handsome sum of money. I was fine about that because I was determined to continue my schooling in London: ‘If you don’t like it here, you can return to us at any time. But always stay brave and dignified like your great grandmother,’ announced father who fed me childhood stories of a tall, dark skinned, fearless swords-woman from Malabar who fought and won battles against her opponents. Stories meant to instil courage and confidence in his daughters.
My new life with carers began in an unkempt Victorian house perched on top of a sloping street named Bramfield Road near Wandsworth Common. I began my stay with the same hopes and expectations I felt about school. Sadly, it did not work out that way.
For I soon discovered my carers, Rose and Joe, were a friendless couple with the wrath of the neighbourhood upon them. Whenever I walked down the street beside them, neighbours whispered audibly, ‘there’s the old dancing tart and her dirty boyfriend.’
Rose and Joe did not bat an eyelid at those awful comments.
Joe, a tall, broad man with piercing blue eyes and large builders hands only referred to me as ‘the coloured girl in my house.’
‘Where’s the coloured girl gone today?’ ‘Is the coloured girl back from school yet?’
Evidently, I had no other name but ‘coloured girl.’
That rankled but I learned to accept it as the norm of the time. Rose, similarly built with bleached blonde hair, had beautiful large, brown eyes which avoided looking into mine.
They often chatted to each other without including me. I didn’t mind that until drunken conversations about the war, Nazis, black people unmasked repugnant views especially from Joe who thought he was being funny: ‘Bloody Kangaroos (Jews)! Ha, ha send ‘em back to Palestine! Hail Hitler!’
An inebriated Rose chuckled over his ugly jibes .
That was not all. Joe often ranted loudly at the rare sight of a black man on the streets of South London.
‘Bly me, another black, bloody monkey!’
Such repulsive asides strangely contradicted their visible respect for the medical student from Ghana living across the road. When I expressed my obvious disapproval and distress at Joe’s behaviour, Rose attempted to mollify me with the same pathetic excuses: ‘Oh we don’t mean you! Not You! It’s the others. You are different. You’re not really black.’
I suppose she meant I was acceptable like the African medical student they chatted to. Rightly or wrongly, Rose’s appeasements made me feel different and safer from the immediate firing line of her intolerance. At least neither of them would kill or lynch me. All the same, I spent sweaty nights fretting over what they really thought of, ‘the coloured girl’ in their care?
Strangely enough, Rose took reasonably good care of me. She provided meals of meat, mash and vegetables on time, washed, ironed my clothes while Joe took us all out for long drives around London. But hearing Rose’s muted complaints while washing my clothes in the kitchen sink was very upsetting: ‘Ugh! Bly me, her clothes really smell!’
It was less painful to pretend her horrid ramblings were due to alcohol. Moreover, I had nowhere else to go. At the time, neither my brother nor my sister were in London but I knew I could contact them in any emergency. Thank goodness, my school kept an eye on my welfare and this eased any fears I had of being hurt by Rose or Joe. With this in mind, I plodded on without mentioning a word about my carers behaviour to either my parents or the school, for fear of being returned back home. School was my lifeblood and I aimed to complete my education up to university and return home clutching a degree. Every day, I reminded myself why I came to London.
In order to survive the unpleasantness of living with Rose and Joe, I tried in my own naive way, to make sense of their bigotry. Perhaps it was their lack of education, culture, travel? Or maybe they had some dreadful experiences of foreigners. Whatever it was, they were unlike most staff, pupils, my family nor anyone else I knew. In my naivety, I decided to treat my carers with the kind of pathos my family showed back home towards those less fortunate than ourselves. This tactless attitude surfaced when I handed over weekly payments drawn from a bank account set up by my parents: ‘Here you are Joe and Rose. Please count it, in case it is a penny or two short?’
Rose’s retort to my condescending remarks were understandably brutal but she also sought to wound my self esteem: ‘Yeah. Remember, you’re very lucky to have us. Not many people would have a coloured in their house.’
In all honesty, Joe and Rose probably saw me as a spoilt ‘coloured’ brat undeserving of a healthy bank account or the self confidence nor privilege accorded to my white middle class counterparts. I was sure, if I was white and middle class, they would have been deferential towards me. Time went by and I grew bolder with my newly discovered teenage defiance. They in return became more scornful while they saw me developing into a self assured, verbose teen who learned how to defend herself.
Being a ‘coloured’ teenager attending a reputable Grammar full of white girls was an eye opener. I noticed how the British class system was very much alive amongst girls. For example, the children of professional parents tended to mix together and those from working class backgrounds had their own little groups. However, working class girls whose parents were cleaners, dustmen, caretakers, bus conductors etc could break the class barrier by gaining a good education to become professionals like nurses, teachers and so on. As they moved upwards, they also emulated middle class speech and accents. A well-spoken, plummy English accent appeared to be the mark of success in a class ridden society. In time, I jettisoned my own Indo/Singaporean accent with the help of an elocution teacher who trained and trimmed me and other girls to acquire the accent and language of power. It wasn’t long before I too spoke, walked and behaved like a middle class white teenager, a characteristic my carers utterly despised. But I had to look in the mirror to remind myself who I really was: a dark skinned Indian girl fostered by a white couple with diabolical ideas. Irritated by my new self assurance and fake accent, Rose bawled out: ‘Don’t you talk posh to us. Don’t suit you ‘cos you’re coloured.’
I hit back: ‘My elocution teacher told me to speak posh and properly.’
The school drama/elocution teacher’s undivided attention had inculcated an unjustifiable conceit within me: ‘Young lady, you possess an elegant gait. Speak up well and loudly, my dear! You will get far ahead of the others.’
Equally, my piano teacher, Ms Bedana Chertkov, devoted extra hours for me to win competitions which went straight to my head.
Meanwhile, at home, my carers were educating me otherwise with somewhat dubious entertainment. On certain evenings, after kissing each other hungrily in front of my astonished eyes, Rose and Joe fled to the bedroom like inmates on the run, leaving me with a lovable Dachshund named, Kaiser, who was of immense solace. He was a warm reminder of my home in Singapore where my parents adopted dozens of abandoned street dogs as loving pets. Kaiser preferred my doting company and headed to my bed. He slept soundly under the covers undisturbed by loud panting, squealing and rocking from the bedroom above as if a horse were cantering above our heads. I had never come across such sexually charged sounds before and was keen to find out what it all meant from my schoolmates.
Thus far, I was thoroughly ignorant of sexual matters or how babies were born, thanks to my god-fearing parents who kept sex hidden away from us as if they were governmental secrets. My initial understanding of the subject came from modest Miss Whitaker who shyly displayed the most unexciting illustrations of ovaries, eggs, testicles and sperm accompanied by brief, clinical explanations on ‘the travels of a sperm.’ Not much more than that! Nonetheless, I gradually began to discover more on sex through Rose and Joe’s eroticisms as well as discussing it with friends at school break times. Soon, my titillating anecdotes attracted a flock of virgins waiting with bated breath for the next episode on horny Rose and Joe. Eventually my audience who knew much more than I did, evaporated because I had no sensational information to offer apart from hearing strange loud noises. It was through serendipity that I learned from my school friends what I should have been taught by my own parents.
After a lot of decorous, empty talk on sex and babies, I found a new outlet to my energies by joining the literary and debating society; a place where my understanding and knowledge on politics, modern society or democracy fell far below standards required by the society. Again I was lucky they allowed me in. This proved to be a game changer. Debates at meetings were unfamiliar to someone like me who was branded a dunce and dimwit at boarding school where lessons on racism, colour bar was yet to reach my classroom. As a result, Apartheid, Socialism and Fascism were way out of my vocabulary. Listening to girls, especially older ones, exchanging views on Fascism, a favoured topic at the time, was groundbreaking. They talked of proudly joining their parents to march against Oswald Mosley and his blackshirts in London. My education and understanding of the world widened in quick time. And so did the chasm between my carers and myself.
Rose and Joe now felt increasingly alienated by me and I by them. I was even more unhappy with my living circumstances and confided with a friend from the society. Janet, a savvy, highly intelligent young Londoner who remains a trusted friend to this day, encouraged me to move away from my ‘inappropriate’ carers. She and I talked at great length in secret on how to find another room. Neither of us repeated a word to anyone at school.
Now in my mid fifteens, I decided not to inform Joe and Rose of my intention to move until I found somewhere suitable to live, in case they threw me out straightaway. I don’t think they believed I had the tenacity move out of their home at the age of fifteen.
There isn’t time to describe the multiple rejections from mean-spirited, racist landlords and ladies who callously shut the door on my face.
‘Sorry we don’t take coloureds’, was what I heard again and again.
Even so, I swallowed my pride, hurt, rejection and accepted it as the norm.
By chance one day, I got lucky.
A kindly Irish, elderly neighbour, Mrs Eileen Camp, whose shopping I occasionally ferried up the road, invited me into her home. Sitting beside a warm, crackling fire with tea, home-made cakes and a motherly presence, she reduced me to tears. I confided in her about my carers behaviour and how hard it was to find a room despite having plenty of money. Sensing my reluctance to go back home that evening, she said: ‘Why gal, you don’t need to go back to that awful woman and her man. No one in the street likes them anyhow.’
Lifting my chin gently and looking at my tear-filled eyes, she announced: ‘Ah little gal, I’ll have ya’ with me. Don’t you worry yourself no more.’
In one sensitive moment, my bravery and infallibility diminished into tears and heavy sobbing. The more she comforted me, the more I wept.
After school the next day, I informed Rose of my immediate departure. Turning towards me, lips curled in contempt, she replied: ‘Huh, bloody lucky anyone would have you. Not many people like coloureds in this country.’
I scuttled into my room, packed my belongings and went towards her to bid goodbye. But I will never forget the brutal coldness as she pulled away from me and shouted: ‘Just go away you stupid wog! And good luck, ha, ha!’
Humiliated but unbowed, I hid my tearful eyes and walked out with belongings in tow into my next lodgings down the road. I would never buckle under those with wicked intentions.
My family were informed of my new friendly, elderly carer. To my surprise none questioned my move. I did not let it worry me so long as my brother and sister were in England even though I had little contact with them; my parents regular air mail letters of love and encouragement helped to keep me going.
Mrs Camp, a fine lady with black hair and chalk- white skin, charged me four pounds and fifty shillings a week for room and board… less than the price of a cup of coffee and piece of cake today. We got on well because we had one critical thing in common. Both of us were migrants: an elderly white immigrant and a coloured immigrant schoolgirl. We suffered discrimination from landlords who blatantly stated the following in their adverts: ‘No Coloureds, No Irish, No dogs’, often in that loathsome order.
Mrs Camp and I spent hours commiserating with each other: ‘Aye, I know what you’ve been through, gal. The English wouldn’t have me in their house when I first came here.’
Comforted by her sensitivity, my hidden wounds gradually healed away.
Life was warm and benign at Mrs Camp’s for a few weeks. But it came to an abrupt end when at almost sixteen I started dating an older white man living across the road who fortunately for me turned out to be decent. Ernie, well over ten years my senior, went to work in a smart suit which impressed me no end, plus he had a degree. I was thrilled to be courted by him especially when he took me to candle-lit cafes in Chelsea ending in long spates of French kissing at the back of his Austin A30.
Mrs Pindar, our Religious Education teacher was alarmed when I rolled into Monday lessons half-asleep, lipstick and mascara smeared over eyes and lips.
Soon I was hauled into the head’s office, Mis Beryl Viner who was rightfully worried about my precarious schoolgirl existence. Having advised me on what a teenager should and should not do, she announced with firmness: ‘It is best if we help to find you a family to take care of you. Do you see, dear?’
I felt a large weight fall off my shoulders when she said that.
Miss Viner had a soft spot for me and me for her. Her respect for India shone when she read Rabindranath Tagore’s poetry at assembly. On one afternoon while chatting to her, I was distraught to hear of my parents sudden reduced circumstances. My father had been diagnosed with cancer and to make things worse, his English schools had collapsed due to new rules and regulations. Apparently, without my knowledge, they had written to my headmistress and asked her to become my legal guardian as they could no longer support me. Otherwise, I would have to return home immediately, unless a way was found to pay for my keep. Terrified and dismayed, I felt the ground break under my feet at the thought of having no financial support from my parents. But as luck would have it, my kind hearted headmistress helped turn my life into something I never anticipated.
‘What would you like to do, dear? Return or stay?’ she asked
‘I want to stay,’ and burst into floods tears on her shoulders.
‘And so you will, my dear. We will find you somewhere soon,’ she assured.
I had only one good thing to offer in life: playing the piano. With no money from parents, I now had to perform to charities for my subsistence. In a curious twist of fate I was to receive handouts when I had been used to being at the other end. I felt like the poor singing for their supper and begging at peoples gates. Funnily enough, this sudden downturn in fortune was what I needed in order to become independent and to face the reality of having no money. I had to eat humble pie. And that pie proved to be one of the richest experiences in my life. It brought me greater self belief, strength, understanding and tolerance.
With my one and only talent, I won funding from a gentlewomen’s charity. Now my caring headmistress sprang into further action. I cannot explain how embarrassed I felt when she pleaded on my behalf at assembly begging for any school parents to take care of me in return for payment. I kept looking downwards in shame whenever she appealed for help. No one answered the appeal for weeks. I was in total despair. This first experience of mass rejection at school shattered my pride especially when pupils murmured audibly at assembly: ‘Gosh! How sad! No one wants her because of her colour.’
I bit my lips, tried to hold my head high.
Eventually, two families answered and I was dutifully farmed out to a responsible, caring family, The Endersbys, whose daughters, Gillian and Susan were pupils at school.
Mrs Camp and I wished tearful goodbyes and presented me with a tin of homemade biscuits as a parting present: ‘Here you are gal. Loved having ya’ with me. You take care now.’
We hugged and hugged. Sadly, I never saw her again.
There was an instant warmth and affection in the home of Harold and Anna Endersby, a three story house in Grayshott Road beside Lavender Hill near Clapham Junction. Harold, a handsome, blonde chef at the Savoy welcomed me enthusiastically with an alternative version of curry: ‘What do you think of my cooking?’
‘Very tasty, Harold, thank you.’
The curry was strange and unappetising, but my appreciation for the man who went out of his way to make it for me brought tears to my eyes.
Harold’s wife, Anna, a Jewish lady with a heart as soft as butter immediately took on the role of a proxy mother. With black hair and shining brown eyes, she somewhat resembled close family friends hailing from the ancient Jews of Malabar. It didn’t take long before we became close enough to talk about our own mutual experiences of rejection and racism. She understood the loss I knew without family and was deeply sensitive to the hurt and prejudice I had encountered: ‘Huh, don’t you care about those horrible people. You’ve got more brains than they have, anyway,’ she pronounced reassuringly.
The three years I spent in her care were worth more than any money can buy. All I needed was some motherly love and care and she gave it to me without condition. The whole family enjoyed my piano playing and even housed a piano in the upper floor for me to practice on. Anna took me to special places like Petticoat Lane market on Sundays which reminded me of an Eastern bazaar bustling with sellers auctioning and haggling over goods. I loved hot salt beef sandwiches and to my amazement, if anyone dared give us strange looks, Anna boomed in a loud throaty voice: ‘She is my foster daughter, alright?’
It made me laugh when they looked down sheepishly at her yells.
Anna guided and nurtured me through my complex journey across races and cultures and I owe her for replenishing my love and faith in mankind. Plus I learned a few Yiddish words to boot. I stayed under her motherly wings until strong enough to fly on my own.
But that adventure deserves another story.
I probably disappointed my parents by winning a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music when most of my cousins opted for law, engineering or medicine. My brainy relatives associated music as the last port of call for losers. They had no idea how music saved my life while alone in a foreign country. All my hidden feelings fell from my heart, into my fingers and on to the piano. It also opened up prestigious scholarships, new perceptions and great friendships.
The roaring sixties arrived and parents letters warned me of the dangers of having boyfriends, especially European ones. Not having boyfriends was like expecting me to do yoga in quicksand. Inevitably, I wore stilettos, wore make-up danced to pop music and went to wild parties. I found myself amongst the most remarkable people on earth. Many were musicians, artists influenced by non-western cultures. Unlike the fifties, people wore colourful Indian dresses, sang Indian Bhajans, drummed African beats, played Gamelan music and so on. Love and peace was spreading everywhere in London.
Just about everyone I met was an inspiration though some were an irritating perspiration, in particular the solo guru I saw at a private event.
Taking advantage of a young idealistic audience stoned out of their brains, he proposed to levitate himself into thin air. Since I had met countless gurus in India with hair down to their feet, nails as long as fingers, I was sceptical. To my eyes, he was shuffling on his bottom and passing loud bouts of wind with it!
Politics was changing too. In response to blatant racism of the time, a new Race Relations Act was passed in 1965 by Roy Jenkins of the Labour government to outlaw racial discrimination on grounds of race, colour, ethnicity etc. A brave start towards fostering a kinder, more tolerant society. From then on London to me became the most sophisticated and forward-thinking places on earth. I was in cloud nine!
Due to lack of finances, I had not seen my parents for a few years. They had become distant images transmitting love and lectures via thin, air mail letters. But they told me nothing about how they actually were. For example, I knew my father was being treated for cancer, but had no idea he was actually dying. When a sudden telegram arrived, I was shocked by three devastating words, ‘Father has expired.’
It was hard for me to grieve when there was no body to behold or a grave to sit by and weep. My heart broke later when someone described my father shedding silent tears on his deathbed. I sobbed inconsolably at the thought of never seeing him again. But I hung on to my dead father by consoling myself with visions of him shining from behind the clouds, zillions of miles away and watching over me. What else could I do?
Years later, whilst sitting by his grave, I had flashbacks of what he left behind: of a fabulous life beside a tiny slab of rainforest in Singapore; of holidays beside the hot Malabar coast where I heard ancient tales from his fascinating past. Every tale cleverly tailored by him to instil pride and honour. Maybe he knew I would need them to see me through hard, lonely times.
Eventually, I fell in love and married an English composer, John Barham. My life changed beyond recognition. Through him, now my ex-husband, I met the Beatles, as well as other notables including Peter Sellers who had a private Indian music concert at his home.
For who would have imagined or believed an unknown, dark-skinned, oddball, Indian pianist had friends like George Harrison and Pattie Boyd to attend her modest wedding?
Well, it happened and a few friends are still around who came to my wedding party.
Life after this became a series of memorable changes. But I must stop abruptly here as my story takes yet another turn and requires many more pages.
Looking back, I am still amazed at how I survived reasonably intact. For who knows what unknown forces guided me through my journey? Despite the pain, loneliness and hurt I endured, it has been an incredibly rich, empowering Journey where I had the freedom to explore and participate in the variety of cultures taking place in our dynamic society.
Like many others, it has helped me shape and create a unique identity within the country I have now adopted.
For just that, I am truly thankful.
My life as an immigrant was anything but straightforward. To begin with, I did not arrive in the UK by plane, boat, bus or train. Instead, my family and I drove across the world by road via deserts, forests, mountains, villages, cities all the way from Southern India to the UK. At the time, our journey was considered an unusual achievement headed by an ordinary retired Headmaster from Singapore. As a result, a photo of us and our dusty, four wheeled, Borgward Isabella was printed in The Times newspaper.
It all began on a hot, dusty afternoon in Bangalore, South India. Without prior warning, my sunburnt father turned up at my school donned in a frayed suit and trademark topi: ‘Mother and I have planned to take the family to the UK to give you all a good English education. But we are driving there by car,’ he announced.
I was gobsmacked but incredibly relieved at leaving school where I was classed as a dunce and dimwit. Naturally, I could hardly wait to join my parents on this adventure of a lifetime.
That journey was a true leap of faith deserving a separate story though two events remain etched in my mind. One was our harrowing escape from a truck full of murderous bandits stalking us inside the dark, snaky Suleyman mountains of Pakistan. The other, when we almost lost our lives inside the boiling Persian desert; how a mysterious stranger clad in dusty, long robes suddenly appeared from nowhere and guided us into an oasis.
Having lived through life and death situations as a young girl through my travels, I felt ready to take on anything. Or so I led myself to believe until I landed in London at thirteen where a set of exciting, strange, disturbing, sad and happy experiences lay ahead of me.
Upon our arrival, two siblings more than a decade older than me, vanished into universities while mother took care of me in a decaying Victorian home in Ilminster Gardens, Clapham Junction, South London. Summer was coming to an end while I waited anxiously for a place at school. With my pathetic academic record and misbehaviour at boarding school, my prospects seemed shaky. But I was lucky. Kindly staff at a local grammar probably felt sorry for an untried, dark skinned, slight teenager in long, black pig tails with nothing more to offer than playing the piano with a large smile. And so I became the first Indian girl or non white girl to register at Clapham County School, SW11. I still have a very long photograph of myself as a little dark dot amongst a sea of white faces.
On my first day at school, I was surprised and ecstatic to find myself being treated more like a celebrity than a pupil. Staff and pupils seemed well-meaning and friendly towards me. Older girls loved my travel stories, classmates competed to sit next to me. I had never felt such instant adulation from strangers. However, the welcome and acceptance I received at school would be shattered elsewhere, later.
For a brief period, my delicate mother stayed on to look after me while father worked in Singapore, the place where I was born. Sadly, the loneliness and stinging rejection she felt as a so called ‘coloured’ cut into her deeply.
‘Why can’t the English call us Indians, Africans or wherever we came from? It is offensive to brand us all as ‘coloureds’ just because of our dark skins!
She complained bitterly.
Despite this, my treacle tanned mother tried her best to make friends with white English neighbours. Well-spoken and immaculately tied in fine silk saris, she invited them to tea. That didn’t work because the English were happy to greet her with a smile and a few pleasantries but none wished to fraternise any further. Then she tried to make conversation at the local launderette but she was politely ignored. Depressed, lonely and demeaned, she wished to return home: ‘I cannot live in a place where I have no friends or family,’ she cried.
Father arrived, sold our home. Knowing how much I loved school in London, he courageously presented me with two options: ‘My child, you can live here with carers under the eyes of your sister and brother at college. Or you can come with us. After university, you can return home.’
To them, having a good English education was worth the risks of leaving me virtually alone in a foreign country. Be that as it may, they were confident of my survival skills especially after years at boarding school. I was provided with two options: back to boarding school or living in paid foster care. I chose the latter.
As devout Christians they found a couple via recommendations from local church-goers. That vague church connection appeared sufficient to hand me over into the arms of two middle aged, English strangers for a handsome sum of money. I was fine about that because I was determined to continue my schooling in London: ‘If you don’t like it here, you can return to us at any time. But always stay brave and dignified like your great grandmother,’ announced father who fed me childhood stories of a tall, dark skinned, fearless swords-woman from Malabar who fought and won battles against her opponents. Stories meant to instil courage and confidence in his daughters.
My new life with carers began in an unkempt Victorian house perched on top of a sloping street named Bramfield Road near Wandsworth Common. I began my stay with the same hopes and expectations I felt about school. Sadly, it did not work out that way.
For I soon discovered my carers, Rose and Joe, were a friendless couple with the wrath of the neighbourhood upon them. Whenever I walked down the street beside them, neighbours whispered audibly, ‘there’s the old dancing tart and her dirty boyfriend.’
Rose and Joe did not bat an eyelid at those awful comments.
Joe, a tall, broad man with piercing blue eyes and large builders hands only referred to me as ‘the coloured girl in my house.’
‘Where’s the coloured girl gone today?’ ‘Is the coloured girl back from school yet?’
Evidently, I had no other name but ‘coloured girl.’
That rankled but I learned to accept it as the norm of the time. Rose, similarly built with bleached blonde hair, had beautiful large, brown eyes which avoided looking into mine.
They often chatted to each other without including me. I didn’t mind that until drunken conversations about the war, Nazis, black people unmasked repugnant views especially from Joe who thought he was being funny: ‘Bloody Kangaroos (Jews)! Ha, ha send ‘em back to Palestine! Hail Hitler!’
An inebriated Rose chuckled over his ugly jibes .
That was not all. Joe often ranted loudly at the rare sight of a black man on the streets of South London.
‘Bly me, another black, bloody monkey!’
Such repulsive asides strangely contradicted their visible respect for the medical student from Ghana living across the road. When I expressed my obvious disapproval and distress at Joe’s behaviour, Rose attempted to mollify me with the same pathetic excuses: ‘Oh we don’t mean you! Not You! It’s the others. You are different. You’re not really black.’
I suppose she meant I was acceptable like the African medical student they chatted to. Rightly or wrongly, Rose’s appeasements made me feel different and safer from the immediate firing line of her intolerance. At least neither of them would kill or lynch me. All the same, I spent sweaty nights fretting over what they really thought of, ‘the coloured girl’ in their care?
Strangely enough, Rose took reasonably good care of me. She provided meals of meat, mash and vegetables on time, washed, ironed my clothes while Joe took us all out for long drives around London. But hearing Rose’s muted complaints while washing my clothes in the kitchen sink was very upsetting: ‘Ugh! Bly me, her clothes really smell!’
It was less painful to pretend her horrid ramblings were due to alcohol. Moreover, I had nowhere else to go. At the time, neither my brother nor my sister were in London but I knew I could contact them in any emergency. Thank goodness, my school kept an eye on my welfare and this eased any fears I had of being hurt by Rose or Joe. With this in mind, I plodded on without mentioning a word about my carers behaviour to either my parents or the school, for fear of being returned back home. School was my lifeblood and I aimed to complete my education up to university and return home clutching a degree. Every day, I reminded myself why I came to London.
In order to survive the unpleasantness of living with Rose and Joe, I tried in my own naive way, to make sense of their bigotry. Perhaps it was their lack of education, culture, travel? Or maybe they had some dreadful experiences of foreigners. Whatever it was, they were unlike most staff, pupils, my family nor anyone else I knew. In my naivety, I decided to treat my carers with the kind of pathos my family showed back home towards those less fortunate than ourselves. This tactless attitude surfaced when I handed over weekly payments drawn from a bank account set up by my parents: ‘Here you are Joe and Rose. Please count it, in case it is a penny or two short?’
Rose’s retort to my condescending remarks were understandably brutal but she also sought to wound my self esteem: ‘Yeah. Remember, you’re very lucky to have us. Not many people would have a coloured in their house.’
In all honesty, Joe and Rose probably saw me as a spoilt ‘coloured’ brat undeserving of a healthy bank account or the self confidence nor privilege accorded to my white middle class counterparts. I was sure, if I was white and middle class, they would have been deferential towards me. Time went by and I grew bolder with my newly discovered teenage defiance. They in return became more scornful while they saw me developing into a self assured, verbose teen who learned how to defend herself.
Being a ‘coloured’ teenager attending a reputable Grammar full of white girls was an eye opener. I noticed how the British class system was very much alive amongst girls. For example, the children of professional parents tended to mix together and those from working class backgrounds had their own little groups. However, working class girls whose parents were cleaners, dustmen, caretakers, bus conductors etc could break the class barrier by gaining a good education to become professionals like nurses, teachers and so on. As they moved upwards, they also emulated middle class speech and accents. A well-spoken, plummy English accent appeared to be the mark of success in a class ridden society. In time, I jettisoned my own Indo/Singaporean accent with the help of an elocution teacher who trained and trimmed me and other girls to acquire the accent and language of power. It wasn’t long before I too spoke, walked and behaved like a middle class white teenager, a characteristic my carers utterly despised. But I had to look in the mirror to remind myself who I really was: a dark skinned Indian girl fostered by a white couple with diabolical ideas. Irritated by my new self assurance and fake accent, Rose bawled out: ‘Don’t you talk posh to us. Don’t suit you ‘cos you’re coloured.’
I hit back: ‘My elocution teacher told me to speak posh and properly.’
The school drama/elocution teacher’s undivided attention had inculcated an unjustifiable conceit within me: ‘Young lady, you possess an elegant gait. Speak up well and loudly, my dear! You will get far ahead of the others.’
Equally, my piano teacher, Ms Bedana Chertkov, devoted extra hours for me to win competitions which went straight to my head.
Meanwhile, at home, my carers were educating me otherwise with somewhat dubious entertainment. On certain evenings, after kissing each other hungrily in front of my astonished eyes, Rose and Joe fled to the bedroom like inmates on the run, leaving me with a lovable Dachshund named, Kaiser, who was of immense solace. He was a warm reminder of my home in Singapore where my parents adopted dozens of abandoned street dogs as loving pets. Kaiser preferred my doting company and headed to my bed. He slept soundly under the covers undisturbed by loud panting, squealing and rocking from the bedroom above as if a horse were cantering above our heads. I had never come across such sexually charged sounds before and was keen to find out what it all meant from my schoolmates.
Thus far, I was thoroughly ignorant of sexual matters or how babies were born, thanks to my god-fearing parents who kept sex hidden away from us as if they were governmental secrets. My initial understanding of the subject came from modest Miss Whitaker who shyly displayed the most unexciting illustrations of ovaries, eggs, testicles and sperm accompanied by brief, clinical explanations on ‘the travels of a sperm.’ Not much more than that! Nonetheless, I gradually began to discover more on sex through Rose and Joe’s eroticisms as well as discussing it with friends at school break times. Soon, my titillating anecdotes attracted a flock of virgins waiting with bated breath for the next episode on horny Rose and Joe. Eventually my audience who knew much more than I did, evaporated because I had no sensational information to offer apart from hearing strange loud noises. It was through serendipity that I learned from my school friends what I should have been taught by my own parents.
After a lot of decorous, empty talk on sex and babies, I found a new outlet to my energies by joining the literary and debating society; a place where my understanding and knowledge on politics, modern society or democracy fell far below standards required by the society. Again I was lucky they allowed me in. This proved to be a game changer. Debates at meetings were unfamiliar to someone like me who was branded a dunce and dimwit at boarding school where lessons on racism, colour bar was yet to reach my classroom. As a result, Apartheid, Socialism and Fascism were way out of my vocabulary. Listening to girls, especially older ones, exchanging views on Fascism, a favoured topic at the time, was groundbreaking. They talked of proudly joining their parents to march against Oswald Mosley and his blackshirts in London. My education and understanding of the world widened in quick time. And so did the chasm between my carers and myself.
Rose and Joe now felt increasingly alienated by me and I by them. I was even more unhappy with my living circumstances and confided with a friend from the society. Janet, a savvy, highly intelligent young Londoner who remains a trusted friend to this day, encouraged me to move away from my ‘inappropriate’ carers. She and I talked at great length in secret on how to find another room. Neither of us repeated a word to anyone at school.
Now in my mid fifteens, I decided not to inform Joe and Rose of my intention to move until I found somewhere suitable to live, in case they threw me out straightaway. I don’t think they believed I had the tenacity move out of their home at the age of fifteen.
There isn’t time to describe the multiple rejections from mean-spirited, racist landlords and ladies who callously shut the door on my face.
‘Sorry we don’t take coloureds’, was what I heard again and again.
Even so, I swallowed my pride, hurt, rejection and accepted it as the norm.
By chance one day, I got lucky.
A kindly Irish, elderly neighbour, Mrs Eileen Camp, whose shopping I occasionally ferried up the road, invited me into her home. Sitting beside a warm, crackling fire with tea, home-made cakes and a motherly presence, she reduced me to tears. I confided in her about my carers behaviour and how hard it was to find a room despite having plenty of money. Sensing my reluctance to go back home that evening, she said: ‘Why gal, you don’t need to go back to that awful woman and her man. No one in the street likes them anyhow.’
Lifting my chin gently and looking at my tear-filled eyes, she announced: ‘Ah little gal, I’ll have ya’ with me. Don’t you worry yourself no more.’
In one sensitive moment, my bravery and infallibility diminished into tears and heavy sobbing. The more she comforted me, the more I wept.
After school the next day, I informed Rose of my immediate departure. Turning towards me, lips curled in contempt, she replied: ‘Huh, bloody lucky anyone would have you. Not many people like coloureds in this country.’
I scuttled into my room, packed my belongings and went towards her to bid goodbye. But I will never forget the brutal coldness as she pulled away from me and shouted: ‘Just go away you stupid wog! And good luck, ha, ha!’
Humiliated but unbowed, I hid my tearful eyes and walked out with belongings in tow into my next lodgings down the road. I would never buckle under those with wicked intentions.
My family were informed of my new friendly, elderly carer. To my surprise none questioned my move. I did not let it worry me so long as my brother and sister were in England even though I had little contact with them; my parents regular air mail letters of love and encouragement helped to keep me going.
Mrs Camp, a fine lady with black hair and chalk- white skin, charged me four pounds and fifty shillings a week for room and board… less than the price of a cup of coffee and piece of cake today. We got on well because we had one critical thing in common. Both of us were migrants: an elderly white immigrant and a coloured immigrant schoolgirl. We suffered discrimination from landlords who blatantly stated the following in their adverts: ‘No Coloureds, No Irish, No dogs’, often in that loathsome order.
Mrs Camp and I spent hours commiserating with each other: ‘Aye, I know what you’ve been through, gal. The English wouldn’t have me in their house when I first came here.’
Comforted by her sensitivity, my hidden wounds gradually healed away.
Life was warm and benign at Mrs Camp’s for a few weeks. But it came to an abrupt end when at almost sixteen I started dating an older white man living across the road who fortunately for me turned out to be decent. Ernie, well over ten years my senior, went to work in a smart suit which impressed me no end, plus he had a degree. I was thrilled to be courted by him especially when he took me to candle-lit cafes in Chelsea ending in long spates of French kissing at the back of his Austin A30.
Mrs Pindar, our Religious Education teacher was alarmed when I rolled into Monday lessons half-asleep, lipstick and mascara smeared over eyes and lips.
Soon I was hauled into the head’s office, Mis Beryl Viner who was rightfully worried about my precarious schoolgirl existence. Having advised me on what a teenager should and should not do, she announced with firmness: ‘It is best if we help to find you a family to take care of you. Do you see, dear?’
I felt a large weight fall off my shoulders when she said that.
Miss Viner had a soft spot for me and me for her. Her respect for India shone when she read Rabindranath Tagore’s poetry at assembly. On one afternoon while chatting to her, I was distraught to hear of my parents sudden reduced circumstances. My father had been diagnosed with cancer and to make things worse, his English schools had collapsed due to new rules and regulations. Apparently, without my knowledge, they had written to my headmistress and asked her to become my legal guardian as they could no longer support me. Otherwise, I would have to return home immediately, unless a way was found to pay for my keep. Terrified and dismayed, I felt the ground break under my feet at the thought of having no financial support from my parents. But as luck would have it, my kind hearted headmistress helped turn my life into something I never anticipated.
‘What would you like to do, dear? Return or stay?’ she asked
‘I want to stay,’ and burst into floods tears on her shoulders.
‘And so you will, my dear. We will find you somewhere soon,’ she assured.
I had only one good thing to offer in life: playing the piano. With no money from parents, I now had to perform to charities for my subsistence. In a curious twist of fate I was to receive handouts when I had been used to being at the other end. I felt like the poor singing for their supper and begging at peoples gates. Funnily enough, this sudden downturn in fortune was what I needed in order to become independent and to face the reality of having no money. I had to eat humble pie. And that pie proved to be one of the richest experiences in my life. It brought me greater self belief, strength, understanding and tolerance.
With my one and only talent, I won funding from a gentlewomen’s charity. Now my caring headmistress sprang into further action. I cannot explain how embarrassed I felt when she pleaded on my behalf at assembly begging for any school parents to take care of me in return for payment. I kept looking downwards in shame whenever she appealed for help. No one answered the appeal for weeks. I was in total despair. This first experience of mass rejection at school shattered my pride especially when pupils murmured audibly at assembly: ‘Gosh! How sad! No one wants her because of her colour.’
I bit my lips, tried to hold my head high.
Eventually, two families answered and I was dutifully farmed out to a responsible, caring family, The Endersbys, whose daughters, Gillian and Susan were pupils at school.
Mrs Camp and I wished tearful goodbyes and presented me with a tin of homemade biscuits as a parting present: ‘Here you are gal. Loved having ya’ with me. You take care now.’
We hugged and hugged. Sadly, I never saw her again.
There was an instant warmth and affection in the home of Harold and Anna Endersby, a three story house in Grayshott Road beside Lavender Hill near Clapham Junction. Harold, a handsome, blonde chef at the Savoy welcomed me enthusiastically with an alternative version of curry: ‘What do you think of my cooking?’
‘Very tasty, Harold, thank you.’
The curry was strange and unappetising, but my appreciation for the man who went out of his way to make it for me brought tears to my eyes.
Harold’s wife, Anna, a Jewish lady with a heart as soft as butter immediately took on the role of a proxy mother. With black hair and shining brown eyes, she somewhat resembled close family friends hailing from the ancient Jews of Malabar. It didn’t take long before we became close enough to talk about our own mutual experiences of rejection and racism. She understood the loss I knew without family and was deeply sensitive to the hurt and prejudice I had encountered: ‘Huh, don’t you care about those horrible people. You’ve got more brains than they have, anyway,’ she pronounced reassuringly.
The three years I spent in her care were worth more than any money can buy. All I needed was some motherly love and care and she gave it to me without condition. The whole family enjoyed my piano playing and even housed a piano in the upper floor for me to practice on. Anna took me to special places like Petticoat Lane market on Sundays which reminded me of an Eastern bazaar bustling with sellers auctioning and haggling over goods. I loved hot salt beef sandwiches and to my amazement, if anyone dared give us strange looks, Anna boomed in a loud throaty voice: ‘She is my foster daughter, alright?’
It made me laugh when they looked down sheepishly at her yells.
Anna guided and nurtured me through my complex journey across races and cultures and I owe her for replenishing my love and faith in mankind. Plus I learned a few Yiddish words to boot. I stayed under her motherly wings until strong enough to fly on my own.
But that adventure deserves another story.
I probably disappointed my parents by winning a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music when most of my cousins opted for law, engineering or medicine. My brainy relatives associated music as the last port of call for losers. They had no idea how music saved my life while alone in a foreign country. All my hidden feelings fell from my heart, into my fingers and on to the piano. It also opened up prestigious scholarships, new perceptions and great friendships.
The roaring sixties arrived and parents letters warned me of the dangers of having boyfriends, especially European ones. Not having boyfriends was like expecting me to do yoga in quicksand. Inevitably, I wore stilettos, wore make-up danced to pop music and went to wild parties. I found myself amongst the most remarkable people on earth. Many were musicians, artists influenced by non-western cultures. Unlike the fifties, people wore colourful Indian dresses, sang Indian Bhajans, drummed African beats, played Gamelan music and so on. Love and peace was spreading everywhere in London.
Just about everyone I met was an inspiration though some were an irritating perspiration, in particular the solo guru I saw at a private event.
Taking advantage of a young idealistic audience stoned out of their brains, he proposed to levitate himself into thin air. Since I had met countless gurus in India with hair down to their feet, nails as long as fingers, I was sceptical. To my eyes, he was shuffling on his bottom and passing loud bouts of wind with it!
Politics was changing too. In response to blatant racism of the time, a new Race Relations Act was passed in 1965 by Roy Jenkins of the Labour government to outlaw racial discrimination on grounds of race, colour, ethnicity etc. A brave start towards fostering a kinder, more tolerant society. From then on London to me became the most sophisticated and forward-thinking places on earth. I was in cloud nine!
Due to lack of finances, I had not seen my parents for a few years. They had become distant images transmitting love and lectures via thin, air mail letters. But they told me nothing about how they actually were. For example, I knew my father was being treated for cancer, but had no idea he was actually dying. When a sudden telegram arrived, I was shocked by three devastating words, ‘Father has expired.’
It was hard for me to grieve when there was no body to behold or a grave to sit by and weep. My heart broke later when someone described my father shedding silent tears on his deathbed. I sobbed inconsolably at the thought of never seeing him again. But I hung on to my dead father by consoling myself with visions of him shining from behind the clouds, zillions of miles away and watching over me. What else could I do?
Years later, whilst sitting by his grave, I had flashbacks of what he left behind: of a fabulous life beside a tiny slab of rainforest in Singapore; of holidays beside the hot Malabar coast where I heard ancient tales from his fascinating past. Every tale cleverly tailored by him to instil pride and honour. Maybe he knew I would need them to see me through hard, lonely times.
Eventually, I fell in love and married an English composer, John Barham. My life changed beyond recognition. Through him, now my ex-husband, I met the Beatles, as well as other notables including Peter Sellers who had a private Indian music concert at his home.
For who would have imagined or believed an unknown, dark-skinned, oddball, Indian pianist had friends like George Harrison and Pattie Boyd to attend her modest wedding?
Well, it happened and a few friends are still around who came to my wedding party.
Life after this became a series of memorable changes. But I must stop abruptly here as my story takes yet another turn and requires many more pages.
Looking back, I am still amazed at how I survived reasonably intact. For who knows what unknown forces guided me through my journey? Despite the pain, loneliness and hurt I endured, it has been an incredibly rich, empowering Journey where I had the freedom to explore and participate in the variety of cultures taking place in our dynamic society.
Like many others, it has helped me shape and create a unique identity within the country I have now adopted.
For just that, I am truly thankful.
Leela Floyd was born in Singapore of Indian parents. In 1958, she and her family successfully completed an epic journey by car from the tip of Southern India to the UK. She attended a local grammar, Clapham County School, where she was the first and only Indian girl. Unexpected family circumstances during her mid teens meant that she was looked after by two English families. At seventeen, she attended the Royal Academy of Music to study the piano. After teaching for a few years, she won a Leverhulme scholarship to do research on music in inner city multi cultural schools. Since then, she has worked as a journalist, researcher for television and wrote the very first book on Indian Music for schools. Recently, she completed her autobiography which she hopes to get published. She lives in London, is married and has three sons.
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