When David came out we started seeing a lot more of him, especially around Chapeltown. But the truth was although he still wore a suit and tie he was beginning to look a little unkempt. He had a bit of a wispy beard, not like the straggly one he had towards the end, but he wasn't really holding it all together as well as he'd done in the past. The Hayfield pub in Chapeltown was now our regular hangout, and he'd sometimes come into the pub, but David was never much of a drinker. I mainly saw him in the street, and he always gave me the impression that he knew where he was going. However, it was only after two or three years that I realised that when David left us after a night in the Hayfield he was, in fact, going to sleep in shop doorways. Things were getting worse for David, and in those days he was always getting himself arrested, but mind you it was never his fault. I would go to the cells and try to get him a solicitor and arrange for bail, but it was clear what was going on. Once I went to court and David was in the dock with a bruised right eye, yet they were convicting him of assaulting a police officer if you can believe it. I mean, you only had to look at the size of the police officer and then look at the size of David to see how ridiculous this was. The other charge that they habitually brought against David was that he had been drunk, but everybody knew that David was not a major drinker, but the situation was hopeless. The police did whatever the police wanted to do, particularly when it came to vagrants, and especially when it came to coloured people. David, being the only coloured vagrant in Leeds, was in a bad situation.
My husband and I always looked out for him, and if we ever heard that he was in a particular shop doorway we would always go out and try to find him. The white vagrants slept in the city centre underneath the railway arches, but whenever I went down there looking for David they would say 'He's not here' and 'We don't want that type around here'. I mean, the cheek of them. We tried to get David into the shelter at St George's Crypt, but they said that he was a drunk and that he was too loud, but what they didn't say was that he was too black. The Salvation Army would often take him in for a couple of days, but then he'd get racially abused and he'd answer back and that would be the end of that for they'd want to get rid of him. You know, that was half the problem, that David wouldn't take any abuse from anybody. And he was an easy target. In the early days, the lonely walk back home across Woodhouse Moor from a night's drinking in Chapeltown, or from the Mecca, always left him exposed. I'd never realised just how much of an easy target he was, but he'd never take any abuse from anybody, including the police. They would always tell me that David had failed the 'attitude test', but that was because he wasn't prepared to be anybody's victim. Some of the other Africans tried to help him, but you know it was a very busy time with lots of activism. People's energies were being used up all over the place. It was, after all, the beginning of the Black Power movement for one thing, and the local community were actually succeeding in their efforts to close down racist pubs. People were busy and so they didn't always realise that David was no longer on the scene.
I think David suffered a lot in silence. I'm sure that the first time they took him into Armley jail he wouldn't take any abuse from the screws, and that's why they sent him to the asylum where they treated him like a schizophrenic and tried to drive him mad. Oh, they have their stupid reasoning, telling you that he gets aggressive and that they can't understand him, but it's a cultural thing for heaven's sake. Rather than add another adverb or clause, West Indians and Africans tend to raise their voices or use their hands to speak. Jews do it as well, and that's not madness that's culture. But by sending him out of Armley jail and to High Royds they deliberately made David 'slow' when he was never, ever, slow before. I mean, when he emphasises with his hands they say he's aggressive, and so they pump him full of drugs. Like anybody, David could be lippy if you insulted him, but ninety-nine per cent of the time he was extremely gentle and polite, and very protective. I remember that once when we were out somebody swore in a pub, and David just looked at the offender and said, 'Ladies', meaning, 'Stop that because ladies are present.' After David came out of the hospital he was very, very quiet. On a few occasions the police actually phoned my house. Not all the police were bad apples. There were some good ones, and if they found him sleeping rough anywhere near my house they might call me up and David would come here and spend the night. In the morning he'd wake up, read the Guardian, then have some breakfast and go off. Before David left the house my husband would often ask him, 'David, shall we go and look for a flat for you?' but he would always say, 'No, I'm fine. I'm going to meet somebody.' He never wanted help. He was too proud. In fact, as soon as I even got close to saying that I'd get him a flat, or a rented room, he didn't want to discuss it. He was a man of great personal dignity. He used to have such high hopes for his future, but the sad thing was he came to recognise that all of that had gone. In the old days he used to wonder what he'd do once he qualified as an engineer. That's all he used to think about. But this new David didn't want to be pitied. Not by anybody. But I should also say that there were others who helped a lot more than I did. Other Africans were always looking out for him. If they saw David wasn't doing well they would offer to give him money, or help him in some way. I remember one Ghanaian who sold crockery, and who had a crockery warehouse. This man always left the side door of his warehouse open in case David needed somewhere to sleep, but David didn't want to bother anybody. He didn't want to be a burden or cause trouble for anybody. This was his way.
These days the typical black admission is young, in his twenties, loud, paranoid, resisting strongly — you need to get him sedated to restrain him, and the doctors don't know what's going on — he's usually brought in by the police, therefore the doctor hasn't got a clue as to his history — and as with men generally they would be more aggressive, you would be more frightened of them and you would put them on more medication.
National Health Doctor, 2002
In 1858 the Empress of the British Empire, Queen Victoria, came to Leeds to open the newly constructed town hall. Boasting Corinthian columns, and guarded by large stone lions, Leeds Town Hall was one of the largest civic buildings in Europe. The words around the vestibule — 'Europe — Asia — Africa — America' — reminded the people of Leeds that, only one year after the Indian Mutiny had been put down, the globe remained Britain's true sphere of influence. Leeds was perfectly positioned to take advantage of this fortuitous fact. Clothing was no longer the town's main business, and Leeds was becoming better known as the 'workshop of the world'. Hundreds of factories produced bicycles, cranes, nails, sewing machines, bolts, train rails, locomotives, axles, bricks, and much more. There were scores of furnaces burning every day, and the sky was choked with chimneys and pollution. Glassworks and tanneries, skinworks and breweries, every type of industry was represented. Leeds was a hive of productivity and entirely dependent upon the labour of the poor and the young.
Thousands of little children, both male and female, but principally female, from seven to fourteen years of age, are daily compelled to labour from six o'clock in the morning to seven in the evening, with only — Britons, blush while you read it! — with only thirty minutes allowed for eating and recreation. Poor infants! Ye are indeed sacrificed at the shrine of avarice, without even the solace of the negro slave; ye are no more than he is, free agents; ye are compelled to work as long as the necessity of your needy parents may require, or the cold-blooded avarice of your worse than barbarian masters may demand! Ye live in the boasted land of freedom, and feel and mourn that ye are slaves, and slaves without the only comfort which the negro has. He knows it is his sordid, mercenary master's interest that he should live, be strong and healthy. Not so with you. Ye are doomed to labour from morning to night for one who cares not how soon your weak and tender frames are stretched to breaking! You are not mercifully valued at so much per head; this would assure you at least (even with the worst and most cruel masters) of the mercy shown to their own labouring beasts. No, no! your soft and delicate limbs are tired and fagged, and jaded, at only so much per week, and when your joints can act no longer, your emaciated frames are instantly supplied with other victims, who in this boasted land of liberty are hired — not sold — as slaves and daily forced to hear that they are free.