I arrived in England from Nigeria as a stowaway in January 1951. Takoradi to Middlesbrough. There was one foot of snow on the ground and all I had were tennis shoes and dungarees, that's all. And a shirt with Sugar Ray Robinson drawn on the back of it. It was winter and I was freezing. I'd never been so cold, and to me it was like living in a freezer. But eventually I made my way to Yorkshire and that's where I met David. The way I see it, Yorkshire people are friendly, hard-working men. Socialists. You get the occasional problem here and there but they're generally okay. There were not many of us coloureds in those days. It was like you could basically count the number of blacks in Britain on one hand back in 1951. The only West Indians we really knew were a few ex-RAF guys with half-caste children, but there were no West Indian or African women there. We didn't mix much with the West Indians to start with; that came later. Eventually I got a job working at William Graves Foundry. We made shipping equipment. Then, around about this time, I met David. David was short and stocky-like. He looked like a jockey. He wasn't really a drinker or smoker, but he loved to dance. However, he was mostly by himself. Always alone. I never went to David's flat because I never knew where he was living. He'd say, 'Goodnight, I'll see you tomorrow', and then he'd be gone. He never invited anybody to his place, but you didn't ask him about it because you knew it would be an argument. The problem with David was he didn't understand the colour-bar situation and he would get very wound up. 'I'm from a British colony and I'm British,' he would say. 'So why do they call me "nigger"?' This was the attitude David couldn't deal with. He wasn't able to think around a situation and do something else. He was always in trouble and in conflict with the police. He wasn't crazy, he just didn't understand the system, that's all. He was a good guy. He'd never fight anybody, never draw a knife, but verbally he could be very abusive, especially against the police. He was always telling them to 'fuck off '. The only time David would cool down was when he was with his mates. On his own he couldn't handle these situations. David needed somebody to sit down and tell him what was happening to him. Some of us nearly went mad in England because the environment was new. We spoke the same language and we thought everything would be okay, but we soon found out. David really was a smart cat who could always think fast if he had to, but he was a loner who wanted to do everything by himself. The guys tried to help him, because we knew the situation, which is why we always walked out in twos or threes or fours. On your own you had to be very careful. However, David was never a troublemaker. He could be very foul-mouthed, but he wasn't a troublemaker. We knew that the police were against us because we could see it, and we had to work around them. But not David. He was determined. He never discussed his ambitions or any idea of going back to Nigeria. But then again, the majority of us didn't want to go back to Africa again.
And then David just disappeared and that was that. At first nobody thought it was unusual, for we were used to people leaving or just moving on. But after a while I remember asking people, 'Has anybody seen David?' And then I was told, 'Didn't you hear? He's been arrested.' A lot of my own work with the Chapeltown Commonwealth Citizens Committee involved having to deal with the police, who were very much in the habit of picking up people just because they were coloured. The word on the street was that one night, while walking home and minding his own business, David had been arrested and he had been sent to Armley jail. I thought okay, this is not good, but I suppose we'll see him when he comes out. But we never did. He just disappeared.
There they stand, majestic, imperious, brooded over by the gigantic water-tower and chimney combined, rising unmistakable and daunting out of the countryside, the asylums which our forefathers built with such solidity.
The Rt Hon. J. Enoch Powell, Minister of Health, 1961
You can see it from the road; a large Gothic building and a sprawling estate of outbuildings. Built in 1888, this is a deeply depressing complex. The West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum; a place of grim, Victorian nightmares set in 200 acres of land. Once you turn off the road, and pass the sign that reads 'Treatment Centre', the gloom deepens. Another sign reads 'Welcome to High Royds Hospital'. The asylum. Thereafter, the sheer scale of the place soon becomes apparent. The buildings begin to multiply and it is clear that High Royds Hospital (as it became known in 1963) is the size of a village. In its heyday over 2,000 people could be 'treated' at any one time in the dark stone buildings which huddle together beneath the sinister turrets and towers. Lights are burning in the windows but there is nobody in sight. Imagine. Inside. Dirty rooms with plastic armchairs and filthy carpets. Walls and windows stained with years of nicotine, burn marks on the floor, ashtrays overflowing with crushed fag ends. Inside ex-patients sleep in the corridors for they have nowhere else to go. Some wear daisies in their hair and bluebells for earrings. (My friend, you spent eight years from 1953 to 1961 in this asylum. Doing what? What were they doing to you? Were there any others like you?) The main building resembles a large stately home. Above it there is a clock tower which, somewhat cruelly, serves only to remind you that in this place time no longer matters. Your time has been taken away from you. Farewell time. (What were they doing to you? Were there any others like you?) Inside the front door one tiled corridor leads into another. One wing quickly gives way to another wing. A crazed maze. Neither dignity nor privacy. Eating with spoons. Male and female wander abroad. Through a double door there is a huge ballroom with a mirrorball nestled high in the ceiling. On Monday nights, the cinema. On Friday evenings, between seven and nine, the weekly dance. Male and female mixing. Just after Christmas the Annual Asylum Ball. The social event of the season. On New Year's Eve, the patients' Fancy Dress Ball, where the staff present a music-hall-style pantomime, and the asylum band play on and on. (Did you dance, David? Or did they simply sedate you into submission?) Beyond the immaculate lawns, and through the trees, one can glimpse the small Yorkshire village of Menston. Civilisation. In the grounds a truck trundles into view. The driveway curves around the bend. Deliveries? Of food maybe, or perhaps towels? Or medicine? Or needles? Or straps? Cruelly sedated and now ready for electro-convulsive therapy. One man remembered. 'It was like going to the gas chamber, you walked in and saw this horrendous cap that they put on your head and this bed that they asked you to lie on and the injection, to this day I can taste and smell it, and that was to me horrific.' (Did they sedate you into submission?) The tranquil picture must not be disturbed. Cruelly sedated. Perhaps the screams of the patients are too high-pitched for the human ear? (What, my friend, were you doing here for eight years? Really, were there others like you?)
The growth of the woollen industry, and the development of cloth manufacturing, meant that despite occasional visitations from the bubonic plague Leeds continued to expand. By the early seventeenth century, buildings now lined both sides of the River Aire and the town's leading citizens were vociferously complaining of overcrowding. In fact, according to contemporary reports, Leeds Parish Church could no longer accommodate the hordes of people who 'resorted thither every Sabbath'. This expansion was somewhat checked by the Civil War, during which Leeds was idly batted forward and backward by the Royalist and Parliamentary armies; growth was also interrupted by a particularly violent mid-century outbreak of bubonic plague that swept away a fifth of the town's population. However, by 1660, with the monarchy restored, and a new charter granted to the town, which included permission to appoint a lord mayor, things were once again looking buoyant for Leeds.