What About George?

By Mei

Everyone has a gift, something unique that makes them special. I spent my life searching for mine only to discover without luck, you’re on a hiding to nothing. I joined a firm of Stockbrokers on Friday then Black Monday hit and wiped me out. I formed a band and landed the first digital recording deal just before the record company folded. There was more chance of a rocking horse winning the Grand National than me living the dream; but I was not bitter. I found peace; I found a better dream. I am George and this is my story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mei
• Release date: Aug 12, 2015
• ISBN: 9781370975556

Mei

Most writers lose themselves in fantasy; it’s the troubled, semi-deranged ones that find themselves in the glaring light of the truth. Mei escaped the mean streets of Tottenham to become a successful musician and TV Line Producer, leaving the grit and grind of the working class behind in the pursuit of creative freedom. But for all the towers of gold and starry sunsets, Mei has found his greatest treasures in the dark, dirty spaces most are quick to pass over. His debut novel, Cherry Smack, follows the story of a young man trying to crawl from society’s gutter, only to discover his greatest enemy is one that might just follow him everywhere.

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Dedication

In Loving Memory

of My

Dad Vincent & Sister Patricia

And To

My Dear Mum

Thank you For Your

Sacrifice

And

Devotion

Contents

Preface - Exodus

Chapter 1 - Guyana

Chapter 2 - Childhood

Chapter 3 - Blackboard Jungle

Chapter 4 - Roaming Around

Chapter 5 - The Boys

Chapter 6 - The Office

Chapter 7 - The Road to Ronnie’s

Chapter 8 - Parenthood

Chapter 9 - Vietnam

Chapter 10 - Coming to America

Epilogue - The Syndicate

Preface

Exodus

I’m British but Black. I’m Black British a special class of citizen; an ethnic cocktail of South Indian with a splash of Asian and Black. I am one of four siblings born to first generation immigrants in London, England. My Mother was born in Good Faith Mahaicony and my Father Georgetown, Guyana.

Poles and Italians were invited to the UK to help fill the labour shortage left after the Second World War. Despite a good uptake there simply weren’t enough to fill the gap; as a last resort British Commonwealth subjects were invited. The government had deep reservations and knew that Blacks would find it hard to integrate due to racist attitudes in the UK. My folks arrived to the UK in the late 1950’s fresh faced and innocent, able ambitious individuals eager to gain experience and better advance their career prospects back home. Although they were qualified workers they were seen as part of the homogenous mass of unskilled labourers that had become an unwanted nuisance. Mum, a light skinned, distinguished looking young lady met Dad at the General Store in Georgetown where he worked. Dad was a man of slight build with thick swept back hair; he grabbed any chance to serve Mum on her frustratingly patchy shopping trips from Mahaicony into town. They lost contact when they migrated but met up again by chance in England. When they arrived it was hard to find lodgings and many landlords openly shunned the new comers. Despite the "No Blacks, No Irish, No Dogs" vacancy signs they managed to find accommodation in Highbury, Islington.

My Dad worked the trains to get a quick foothold. He was treated quiet badly and given the tasks no-one else would do. He was marking time whilst looking round for more suitable employ. When asked to pump human effluent from a carriage he jumped ship and found work as a Marine Plumber; his pay tripled and he was now part of a skilled workforce. My Mum worked as a trainee nurse for a Hospital in Shepperton. She was a very out-going, single minded woman with great aptitude. As she was already a qualified Nurse, after completing her UK exams she was quickly promoted to Charge Nurse. The situation had changed; they were no longer single career driven individuals seeking experience but a committed couple on good pay. They soon realised the economic benefits of staying in Britain outweighed the prestige and prospects of returning to Guyana; so they decided to stay, get married and start a family. They worked hard and saved hard; within six short years they had four kids and a huge house in Haringey with a brand new Cortina Mk1 on the drive. Fully grown; Patricia was the baby of the bunch, a determined but delicate wallflower. Desmond was the second eldest, a slender bespectacled intellectual and Tyrone was the eldest; a charismatic leader with a loyal pack of followers. We looked uniquely alien in appearance but were essentially Madras Indian’s with streaks of Black and Asian; shockingly my folks joked I was a "Red Nigger" slang for an American Indian on account of my fair skin. We knew very little about Guyana and gleaned scant information from encyclopaedias. It was presented as a mysterious land known for its pristine Amazonian rainforest, many species of exotic wildlife and was ethnically Caribbean. We knew its motto; One people, One Nation, One Destiny. We knew its flag The Golden Arrowhead; we knew its location on the Caribbean coast of South America but we did not know its people, its culture. My upbringing was a mish mash of different cultures; a bit of this from England and little of that from Guyana; it was a much jumbled mix and as a result I struggled with my identity. I lived in denial for a long time not wanting to accept I was part of an ethnic minority I was puzzled when form filling; the question racial background would come up, I never knew which box to tick and felt confused as they already had my nationality. I felt they were insidiously trying to undermine my Britishness and find a reason to marginalise me. As a black teen in the UK it only served to amplify my ostracization.

The British Public were not buying into the positive show reels of politely spoken immigrants from the SS Windrush but instead onside with the Enoch Powell xenophobic rhetoric; riots ensued and so we became innocent casualties of an unheralded racial war. I had been attacked and provoked physically and verbally without cause on more than a few occasions. I had endured fights in clubs and my local pub; been chased for a kicking all because of the colour of my skin. These bigots were not interested in the moral argument and I wasn’t about to start preaching; all that mattered was the fight the win.

I could handle the racist abuse when it was directed at me but when I saw my parents harassed I grew angry and sickened. In the 1980’s my Dad’s brand new Rover SD1 had acid splashed over it the day after we bought it. We had to have it re-sprayed and garage it every night after that. Goods were tossed off the shelves of our Grocers Shop; the taunters called it foreign muck teasing me for reprisal.

My parents became eager to adopt a British way of life. Instinctively they were trying to shield us from the bigotry they encountered by helping us to integrate. My Mum, Tamil adopted a British alias Doreen. As an inquisitive lad, I would ask Mum which was her real name and why she had two. She said her British name was Doreen and not to use the other as it would confuse people. When she signed cheques I noticed she used her real name. I was confused, why was she acting like a secret agent? Thank god my Dad had a British name, Vincent but also had a second name, Sonny his friends used, although confusing, I found it agreeably less covert. They never disclosed much about our ancestry. No traditions were purposefully passed down; no heritage or cultural roots imbued, the past seemed irrelevant. It was of little consequence as we were only kids; more soul surviving than soul searching. It wasn’t till I started work that I began to seek answers to my childhood questions. Why did we eat Black Cake and not Sherry Trifle? Why did my school friends get the slipper and not the belt? Where did it all start and how did a Chinese man named Wong wind up in Guyana.

My Great-Great Grandfather was Chinese on my Dad’s side and Indian on my mother’s. They arrived in Guyana in the 1800’s and were part of the indentured work force drafted in by the British and Portuguese to replace Black slaves after liberation. They were recruited, very often on spurious promises by local gents. Intimidation, coercion and deception were often used to entrap labourers. Indians were imported in 1838 through the Calcutta Company of Gillanders. Soon after the Indians landed, allegations of serious abuses were levelled by John Scoble, Agent of the Anti-Slavery Society in British Guiana. The result was a temporary injunction against further emigration from India. With the ban on importation, British Guiana looked to China for an alternate supply.

The British and the French were Empire building under the patronage of Queen Victoria and Napoleon. Large British and French forces set sail for China and defeated the imperial Chinese army at the Battle of Baliqiao on 21 September, 1860. The subsequent treaty, the Convention of Peking, was signed in October 1860 and resulted in China being opened up to foreign commerce legitimising the Coolie trade. Prior to the treaty the first batches of Chinese were brought forcibly from Malacca, Singapore and Penang in 1853; thereafter to curb the excess of human trade British and Chinese authorities agreed to a formal supervised recruitment process and families were encouraged to migrate. Mr. Wong was one of the pioneering few who set sail from Canton on one of the 39 ships destined for Guyana. It was a three to six month journey via Singapore and the treacherous Cape. I don’t know what drove him to leave exactly but these were troubled times. Lucrative life destroying opium was sold legally by the Imperial British; wars were constantly being fought and lost with the West. It was a way to escape the mounting evils of the day. It was a bold but necessary move one that he must have regretted at first.

He was paid 1 cent a day and had to work the night shift to make ends meet whilst watching his western whip crackers become very rich indeed. Things had changed, before paid labourers arrived; Commandeurs had to look after their slaves or pay dearly to have them replaced. Now workers could be replaced for free so care and safety were sacrificed for increased output. He was fed a meagre diet of rice, salt fish, and vegetables for the first four months after which he had to pay. The rules were harsh; five day truancy would lead to two months imprisonment; to add insult to injury he was trained and antagonised by his enslaved predecessors. The controlling grim reality was unfurling and must have been a terrible shock. Christian missionaries were keen to convert everyone on arrival but had little success with the Indian populous as their beliefs in Hinduism were deep and the consequences of conversion would lead to outcast on return to India. The Chinese were much more compliant and an easy target but few in numbers, a mere 10,000 arrived between 1860 and 1875. They tried to persuade him to adopt their religion and in the process they suggested he change his name from Wong to Walker. Mr Wong, in the face of bullish coercion repeatedly declined. It would have been easy to give in and accept much needed help from the Church but he was an untypical man with unshakeable principals. He had nothing to his name, no possessions, no home so defiantly fought to hold on to the only thing he had left, his identity. My name is George Wong not George Walker; my Great-Great Grandfather was from China not England and he knew that his heirs had a right to know; a right to hold on to a proud lineage.

Many Chinese labourers were unprepared for the rigours of the plantation regime; they saved up and returned to China but not Mr. Wong; he saw out his 10 year contract married an African local and started a family. Maybe he saw something the quitters didn’t or maybe he had little choice. Either way he was undeniably a strong man with tough resolve who suffered the toils so he could forge a better future for his family. One generation later George Benjamin Wong my Grandfather and name sake was born in 1905 he married our Grandma, a delightfully warm Madras Indian. Soon after my Dad was born on the 30th September 1930; Mr. Wong fought for his name and his name would now live on.

My Mum’s side of the family were a bit more well-to-do. Mum was very proud of her background. If she felt affronted she’d cry I am a Madray you know, a Madray, like it was Royalty or something. I found it curious and wondered what she was so proud of.

There was an old framed black and white on the mantle with my Grandpa being presented with a medal by the Duke of Edinburgh by way of a Royal visit. I am not sure what the medal was for as my Mum was guarded about it but the following extract hints clues.

BRITISH GUIANA 1962

Riots and arson broke out in Georgetown, British Guiana. The Battalion was alerted initially to fly out complete as part of Operation WINDSOR 2 to deal with the situation….   The rioting (called 'Black Friday') which cost several lives and caused damage that ran into millions of pounds, followed the calling of a general strike in protest against Dr. Cheddar Japan’s austerity budget. …. 110 local young men asked to join the regiment; later 20 were authorized to join. The company returned to England, April 1962.

My belief was he was one of the twenty, the timing is exact and as it was presented by Prince Philip it had to be a military medal. I am not sure how Cheddi Jagan "Father of the Nation" would have taken it. Cheddi and My Grandpa were good friends; they grew up together but these were very complicated and fragile times. The Brits came over under the guise of restoring law and order but secretly the intervention was a directive from the CIA to prevent Cheddi aligning with Russia and becoming the new Cuba. The wealth the medal all pointed to the fact we belonged to a family of some note.

Guyana remained a British Colony for over 150 years until it achieved independence on 26th May 1966. On 23rd February 1970, Guyana officially became a republic. In 2008, the country joined the Union of South American Nations as a founding member. Guyana is a member state of the Commonwealth of Nations and has the distinction of being the only South American nation in which English is the official language. Guyana struggled after independence in trying to run a country split by racial tensions between African and Indian nationals.

Extract from Kaieteur News - 2012

"Four decades have passed since Guyana won Independence. Other countries that were at the same level Guyana was when it became independent are now among the richest in the world. Singapore is just one and its history makes for remarkable reading. Unlike Guyana, it had no natural resources but it had a leader that was nationalistic, one who was prepared to recognize the shortcomings and work to correct them. Cheddi Jagan was defeated by Burnham (in a rigged election) in 1964, despite winning the plurality of the vote. Once in power, Burnham went on to lead a 20 year dictatorship in which he intensified the racial divide amongst the Indo and Afro-Guyanese population Singapore had ethnic problems but rather than let it be a hindrance, the leader made it a significant factor in national development.  Unlike Guyana where ethnic differences and conflicts still continue to stultify development, Singapore has been able to use its people to help develop the future generation. Guyana has had its pluses, though. It kept producing brilliant people but unlike Singapore, it kept losing these people

to the developed world. The Guyanese did not develop the sense of nationalism. Singapore was able to keep its brilliant people. There were many things that worked against Guyana, most of them of our making. There were other factors. For Example, the

colonial master never gave Guyana the golden handshake that some countries got at independence. It has been 46 years and not much has changed for the better, the education system has declined sugar that was once king is now a pauper as is bauxite, cocaine has become a major export, murders are more common, and our political leaders are still not sure that they want to bridge the ethnic divide."

The purpose of writing this book was to lay down my story for prosperity; to get things straight in my head. Writing a book is not a hard thing to do but it is a hard thing to do well. One spends hours looking for the truth, the point to a story only to discover that is just the beginning; one has to convey point in style or the meaning is lost. Guyana