'Bike chains and knuckle dusters' used against Windrush arrivals in Preston, one child of the '60s now realises

Clinton Smith, now 71, says that he was shielded from the worst of the Black community’s experience in Preston when he was a child - but now knows that it sometimes involved physical confrontations with locals.

It is a subject that he will reflect upon during a talk on Monday (2nd October), to mark the start of Black History month, in which he will take his audience on a journey through seven decades of the Windrush generation in the city - focusing both on their contribution to the place they made their home and the ever-shifting attitudes towards them.

Clinton, who chairs the Preston Black History Group, told the Lancashire Post: “There’s a fighting spirit within the Black community that means we won't be held down by anybody. I think it’s the fight we had for independence and self-rule that created it.

“But the generations [that first came to the UK] also had to fight for physical survival against people with bike chains, knuckle dusters and the like - right here in Preston. It wasn’t at all unique to Preston, but the city certainly didn’t miss out on that.

“It’s only later in life when things are said and you realise, ‘Oh, that’s what was going on there’ - and a light comes on. [There were times] as a child when I was ushered indoors and whatever went on went on.

“I grew up with this happening, but I was too young to realise - and my parents and the community put a protective arm around me.

“That generation in the ‘60s and ‘70s fought a fight that has allowed me and generations younger than me to walk the streets in relative safety,” adds Clinton, whose family settled in the city in the late 1950s.

While life is immeasurably better for the Black community in Preston today, he says that he would be “lying if I said there wasn’t still a barrier - but I’d also be lying if I said it was a significant barrier”.

He muses on the fact that, whilst highly-qualified individuals within the first Windrush waves of immigration “ended up working in mills and factories” in Preston, their descendants have now “moved up the scale” and are either entrepreneurs or working in sectors from banking to building - a sign of the progress that has been made. Preston City Council also now regularly flies the Windrush flag over the town hall and celebrates what that generation brought to the city.

Clinton’s talk will canter through the complete history of life in Preston for those who came from the Caribbean - and that necessarily means focussing on the pain caused by the Windrush scandal and the questioning of the immigration status of people who had lived in the UK most, or all, of their lives. However, he promises to end the event on a positive note.

Tickets for the Preston Historical Society-arranged talk - at Central Methodist Church, on Lune Street, at 7pm on Monday - can be booked by searching “Preston’s Caribbean Community” on eventbrite.co.uk or bought on the door for £5.

An award-winning book, “England is my Home” - a collaboration between the Preston Black History Group and the Institute for Black Atlantic Research at the University of Central Lancashire - will also be on sale.