Page 66 - BBC History - September 2017

Books / Interview

PROFILE CLAIR WILLS
Clair Wills teaches at Princeton University. She is the author of
That Neutral Island: A History of Ireland During the Second World
War (Faber & Faber, 2008), Dublin 1916: The Siege of the GPO
(Pro!le, 2009) and The Best Are Leaving: Emigration and Post-War
Irish Culture (Cambridge University Press, 2015)

IN CONTEXT With some exceptions, 1940s Britain hard to fill. For example, Yorkshire mills
Following the Second
World War, an exhausted Britain was a largely monocultural community. replaced old equipment with expensive new
witnessed unprecedented levels of Migrants stuck out a mile, even the Irish, machines that were not worth turning off at
migration, as displaced European who claimed in memoirs that they could night. This created a new night shift that the
refugees and economic migrants from recognise each other from a mile away. locals had no intention of working, so
across the globe arrived to fill the gaps in migrants from Mirpur and the Punjab
the workforce. Clair Wills’ new book aims What motivated people to move to were brought in.
to reconstruct what life was like for those Britain in this period?
who arrived in postwar Britain, through The majority were economic migrants. We What did migrants expect their new
the eyes of the immigrants themselves. think of the wave of ‘Windrush’ migrants lives in Britain to be like?
from the Caribbean, but until the mid-1950s What is really sad is that the people who had
Why were you interested in looking they were only a tiny proportion of the the highest hopes about life here were often
at postwar Britain through the eyes people who came to work in Britain. Irish, those who encountered the worst discrimi-
of immigrants? Indian and Punjabi migrants were also nation. West Indians usually left for Britain
Histories of the postwar period are moving to Britain, because there was no amid an atmosphere of celebration. As
dominated by the idea that Britain “never work for them back home. Meanwhile, the members of the Commonwealth, they
had it so good”. In that story, immigration Second World War had left Europe with a thought they were going to the mother
appears only incidentally, when race huge amount of displaced persons. Ukrain- country. I was amazed to discover the
relations reached crisis point. So we hear ians, Latvians, Lithuanians and Poles were number of people who really believed this
about the 1958 Notting Hill riots, the 1964 also brought to Britain from refugee camps imperial rhetoric. They had been educated
Smethwick by-election (in which Conserv- in Germany, largely in order to work. to think that they were part of British
ative Peter Griffiths was elected after an British companies and the government culture, but for the most part their dreams
explicitly racist campaign), and Enoch were actively going abroad to source workers of belonging here were cruelly crushed.
Powell’s ‘rivers of blood’ speech. But what on group work schemes. London Transport The Irish, on the other hand, left home
about everything in between? I wanted to ran a ‘Barbados scheme’ to recruit bus in an atmosphere of absolute dread. The
get underneath the big political story to the conductors, while leaflets written in Punjabi Catholic Truth Society published pocket-
variety of smaller everyday stories about life offered £10 to anyone who could convince a sized pamphlets for those going to England,
as an immigrant in postwar Britain. friend to come and work in Yorkshire’s mills. advising them to avoid drinking too much, or
I was keen to get away from looking at These schemes could transform communi- fraternising with “women of low repute”.
immigrants from the perspective of the ties – Bedford’s London Brick Company When my mother left Ireland for England in
host community, as very often they were sourced its workers from Calabria, and by 1948, she was warned to watch out for English
thought of as a problem, in explicitly the end of the 1960s, 20 per cent of Bedford’s men in dancehalls who “couldn’t keep their
racialised terms. Some British people were population was Italian. trousers up”. For the Irish, migration was a
constantly complaining about immigrants There’s an assumption that migrants took moment of resignation, panic, misery and
committing crime, increasing queues at the the jobs that British people no longer tragedy. There are countless stories of people
doctor’s, taking up primary school places wanted. But that’s only partly accurate. It’s weeping as the train pulled away, as if they
or being benefit scroungers. So there’s an true that after the war, the British were used would never return. In a sense, the Irish were
enormous amount of source material if you to more modern workplaces and didn’t want right – in this period, emigration really was a
want to tell that story. Getting at the other to work in grim foundries with no toilets, door closed on the past. There was no Skype
side of the story is much harder. You have or as cleaners in TB isolation hospitals in the or cheap airfares. Communication was
to find first-hand accounts from immi- middle of nowhere. Migrants did take these difficult, while journeys took a long time and
grants themselves. jobs, but they were also filling new jobs, were often prohibitively expensive.
which British people also didn’t want.
What state was Britain in a!er the As factories and mills modernised, new How successfully did immigrants
Second World War? low-grade jobs were created that were very integrate in this period?
The Ministry of Labour was absolutely The displaced refugees from Europe’s camps
panicked about the lack of manpower. knew very well that they would be staying
It took a long time for those in the armed “British companies for good. They could not go home, as
services to be demobbed, while a number borders had been changed and the countries
and the government
of women who had been corralled into they came from often no longer existed. As
wartime work now wanted to leave. On top they knew they would be in Britain long-
of this, the school leaving age was raised in were actively going term, you would think that these groups
1947. All of this took large numbers of would have integrated quickly. But actually,
people out of the workforce. So the ministry abroad to source perhaps to do with language difficulties, it
was desperate to fill this gap, and encourag- was only the second generation of these
ing migration was one solution. workers” refugees that became fully at home here.

66 BBC History Magazine