An oral history gathered as part of the In Living Memory project, Pioneers and Protest.
In the interview, Norma discusses her life in the 1980s and her experience living in Walworth during the Black People’s Day of Action.
Parts of this interview are featured in a film produced by the project entitled Pioneers and Protest: Seeking Change.
Transcript
Julia (interviewer): So my name’s Julia Honess. We’re at the Southwark Heritage Centre. The date is –
Norma (interviewee): The 14th.
Julia: – Wednesday 14th June 2022, and I’m interviewing Norma Lawrence about the Black People’s Day of Action. So Norma, I want you to cast your mind back to 1981 and tell me a little bit about your life in England in 1981 or thereabouts.
Norma: OK, in 1981 what was my life like? I was a full-time unpaid carer, just as I am now, but I worked part-time. So during the evening, when my other children were home I’d go to work in the evening, although I was a full-time carer because money wasn’t available like, well, as it is now. It’s still difficult, but you need extra cash, so I had to go to work, so I’d go to work in the evening. And also in the morning, at five o’clock in the morning when everybody’s asleep, I’d go back to another job. So at five o’clock in the morning I’d be catching the bus across the road to go to the city or wherever the work was. So that was part of most of my life, so during ’81. And then we got as far as to – you had the – I wasn’t involved in anything up to that point.
Julia: Can I just ask what the area was?
Norma: What the area was like?
Julia: What area are you talking about?
Norma: Here. The area where we are now.
Julia: Where are we now?
Norma: We’re in Walworth, it’s E17, the Walworth Road, the most famous road, Walworth Road.
Julia: And what was it like round here?
Norma: Very quiet, not many Black people. East Street market, you might find two or three just walking through. No yam and banana in East Street market. If you wanted yam and banana you’d have to go to Brixton. There was somebody who started selling yam and banana, a Jewish chap, and he started selling yam and banana. And what they did, they covered Tower Bridge on Friday, East Street on Saturday. So people would come straight from work and that, but there was no other Black people. Compared to now, majority of the people in East Street market that are shopping now are Black people, which in those days, 1981, there wasn’t many.
Julia: What was life like for a Caribbean woman, a Jamaican woman, in Walworth around that time?
Norma: There would be more problems for young children, like my children, because I’ve got boys. There would be more problem with that there than it would be for me. The time before that, before, in the Seventies when I lived at the other place – and during the Enoch Powell time, that was my time – that was very difficult for me because the children were small. By the time I moved here, they were a lot older so they could defend themself. So most of the places that they would go is – without naming, is a pub around the back there. It’s still there, and just say it’s a very famous pub in Walworth, near East Street. If you are streetwise you’ll know exactly which one I mean, and that’s where they all went.
But they tell me that when they first went in there, before there was enough of them to go in there, they’d be told, “Get out.” And we still see the same. Actually one of them is my next-door neighbour now, twice, two houses along. But until then, more Black people moved in area so they could all go in the same pub, and they all become friends then, yes. But for me, it wasn’t that difficult by then for me, but it was for the children. But before I moved here, during the Enoch Powell time, that was hell.
Julia: And where was that?
Norma: Because I lived on the Tabard Estate, we were the only Black family that lived on the estate, so people used to come and knock on my window, the kitchen window, we lived on the ground floor; “Enoch, Enoch, hoi, hoi, hoi,” and then they smashed the windows and tell us we had to get out, “We don’t want you here.” And then but mostly, for that, I just put a stop to it because the boys – don’t forget, they’re mostly boys, only one girl – I decided that nobody’s going to help us, and we’ve got to do it ourselves.
So one day when it start, we went back to the person – we knew who it was. We went to their house, and me and three of the boys went, and we called them out and I said, “Right, let’s start.” I said to the mothers and the father, “You stay here, don’t you dare move or you’ll have me to deal with,” and let them fight. But then the mother is saying that one of her son that was hit by mine was too young. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard this story before.
So she’s saying, “You can’t let your son hit my son because my son is very young.” I said, “Oh, the age matter? Hold on. Go and get your other brother, he’s the same age.” So I said, “One of them could go and get one of the younger ones,” I said, “Now, well they’re the same age.” So that sort of helped to put a little bit of duster on it. But it went on for years. We see the same people; we see the people now. They talk about it at funerals. You send them to get eggs, they come back, all the eggs are broken because they’ve been chased. Oh, by the way, they still go to the same person’s parents’ funeral now because everybody are adults now, yes, and people’s views have changed, you know. So, but for my life, my life wasn’t that bad.
Julia: So before you moved here – thank you. So before you moved here, were you aware of any ways in which people were protesting or demonstrating about some of the issues you’re talking about?
Norma: No. And if I did, I probably wouldn’t be concentrating on that, I’ll be concentrating and raising my children. Remember, they’re all boys, so I had to keep a very close eye on them. So apart from going to work I wouldn’t have done anything else, no. My time would be spent on keeping track of them, where they are, what they’re doing. My activities only start when I move here.
Julia: So what changed then in 1981?
Norma: First of all [pauses] – I’d say first of all like the carers group is slightly different because that used to help the other carers like myself.
Julia: But specifically, what changed around –
Norma: The demonstrating.
Julia: – you joining a demonstration?
Norma: Ah, well say from the situation of the New Cross fire, the way the media and the police were behaving toward – well, the way the police were behaving toward Black people in the first – young Black people in the first place, yes, my brain start telling me that something needs to be done; I need to take part in these things. When this first started, you know, Black people, young, young Black boys being arrested. I could look out of my bedroom window where I looked from upstairs and see they’re grabbing somebody off the street, chuck them in the back of the van, things like that. So I thought, no, something needed to be done.
But I didn’t like the way the police and the media were portraying the loss of 13 lives. So then I heard that there would be a demonstration. Actually I heard it on the radio. So I just make sure there was enough food in the house and told the boys where I was going. And they know what time they had to be back home, you know, everybody had to know where they each other are. And then I walked along here; I think they’d already walked past. They had already gone past, but you could hear the banging of the drums. So I met them at the Elephant and Castle.
Julia: Can I just ask you to go back a bit?
Norma: Yes, OK.
Julia: And just describe that in a bit more detail. So you said that you’d sorted everything out at home, and then you heard and saw the demonstration. Can you just take us back to that and describe it in a bit more detail?
Norma: Yes. Well, before I came out, I could hear the banging of the drums along the street, because I already heard it on the news that it’s going to happen anyway. But so by the time I’d finished what I needed to do in my house, they’d already gone under that bridge. So by the time I got the Elephant they had stopped. Well, I think they’d stopped. I’m not sure where the front was, and I definitely wasn’t in the front, and join it there. And somebody hand me a banner, and I hold one end, and I think it said on it, “Thirteen dead, nothing said,” and that’s what you’re supposed to say; “Thirteen dead, nothing said,” and apart from “We want justice.” So we joined it. So we just joined it at Elephant, then the march carried on.
Julia: What was the atmosphere like?
Norma: The atmosphere? Well, the atmosphere was they were angry. Well, people were angry, and they weren’t angry with anybody in the group, and they weren’t even angry, say, with the police. They were angry of the same reason why they’re there. Like I’m angry because the reason I’m there. I’m going to walk miles, but the only reason why I’m there is because I just do not like the way we are treated, so that’s why I was there. And so I was angry. I wasn’t angry about any individuals, I wasn’t angry that I’m going to start throwing bricks or stone, I’m just angry while I’m there. And everything seems to be fine with people talking to each other at the start of the march. The loudspeaker was going, but because at the back you can’t really tell what’s happening at the front.
But by the time we got to Blackfriars Bridge, at the beginning of the bridge, or towards Blackfriars Bridge, you knew that something is happening. Because in a demonstration, you see, if you’re at the front you don’t know what’s happening at the back, and if you’re at the back you don’t know what’s happening at the front. But then we realise that the police then, there, wanted to turn us back, which didn’t make sense because the only other bridge we would have gone over really is Westminster Bridge, and I definitely know they would’ve stopped you once you tried to get there because they think you’re trying to get to parliament. Just like if you’ve got demonstration now, you try going over Westminster Bridge, they’re going to block you. It’d be better if you went over Waterloo Bridge or Tower Bridge.
And then the police begun to try to turn people back, but we decided we weren’t going to go back, so we just carried on. The rest of it it’s just marching and shouting, so the rest of it is slightly vague how we end up in Fleet Street, and that was the worst thing I could ever experience. The office workers were throwing, emptying the wastepaper bin. That’s how they started first, the wastepaper bin as we went by. And then they start throwing chairs, office chairs, out of the window, and anything they could find they were throwing it out of the window on the demonstration.
And so I want you to imagine this; we are walking along the road there, the stuff is coming over, so now I’m gone on the pavement, just like that pavement there, so I wouldn’t get hit. And the policeman pushed me back out in the road and said, “If you didn’t want to be hit, why did you come?” And I said, “Well, I didn’t come to get hit, I come to support the rest of the people.” I wasn’t rude to him or anything, but he actually pushed me back out, and all hell let loose because things are coming out the building, thrown on people, but the police are not interested in that. The police said we wanted to drag people out of the crowd, and drag them off, and then the fight started; it started with the police.
We marched, we carried on, but I’m not even sure now, till now, how – I think we end up in Hyde Park, because we were moved from different routes. Every road you went down you were cut off and told to go to that one, and when you get to that one, and you were told you weren’t go that way. So actually, what you’re doing, you’re following everyone else. Because you know the route from here to Hyde Park, over that way, but they were changing the route all the time, it got very confusing, and then the trouble started.
That was that, but the next day – until this day I’m sitting here, I have not bought a Sun newspaper, and I will not allow anybody, anyone, to come through my front door with one. So if you’re a workman and you had one, I’ll ask you quite politely, “Could you leave it on the doorstep? You may collect it when you’re leaving.” If you insist that you need it, you don’t come in my house. I will not have The Sun in my house.
Julia: Can you explain a bit about why?
Norma: The day afterwards they describe us as hooligans, and if you look on any review you can see The Sun – actually they describe us, “Blacks Run Riot in London.” That was the big headline, “Blacks Run Riot in London.” We didn’t run riots; it was a demonstration for the rights of these people. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the New Cross fire was a racist thing, it’s the way it was dealt with that angered me, the way the police did it and the media did it.
And even after that, I was angry – angry more than annoyed – is that even the Prime Minister never sent one word of condolence to those family. Neither did the Queen. Now if you think about it, Dunblane, they got some sort of sympathy from the Prime Minister. You had shooting in – that was at Dunblane, and you had other incidents where even the Queen – you had a fire in Ireland where lot of teenagers died, the Queen sent her condolence.
But nobody in the government, either Queen or the Prime Minister at the time, even sent a bit of condolence to the parents of these children. To me, I think it’s outrageous. And so at the time, that was one that – I’d already done the demonstration, but at the time that made me still angry, and I’m still angry until this day for the way these the parents of these children were treated. We know years later – it’s over 40 years now, and they still haven’t come to how it happened. Well, history might tell one day; they’ll find out how it happened. It’s a long way, and there’s a lot of people from it that are still suffering.
I mean, nearest I knew is one of the young man that died, I knew his father from my teenage days, and he changed completely. And once he’d lost his son he just went completely changed. He was a musician, and I think he was the one who gave his son the sound system to play at the party, at aged 17. And I think he blamed himself; if I didn’t give him the music it wouldn’t have happened.
So Walworth did take part in the demonstration, just exactly where we are sitting now. So you can imagine if you were standing here you’d see the procession going past and you’d hear the bang of the drum. So it is still here, and the railway bridge is still there, but they went under. So that’s most of my memory of going on the demonstration. I’ve never been in another one since; that was the only one I’ve actually been on. I do more active things, but – stand up and demonstrate something, but to march, that was the only one I’ve done and that was 40 years ago.
Julia: And so thank you, that’s so … It’s really moving, also, to be sitting here and you’re looking out on the road that you’re talking about.
Norma: Yes, yes, exactly. Yes, exactly, and to watch these people go. Yes, it’s just there. And even their railway bridge, because it’s like a signpost they have gone on the railway bridge, because you’ve left Walworth now, you’re going Elephant and Castle. You’re going into Elephant and Castle, so it’s supposed to come from New Cross, Camberwell Green, but it’s along Walworth Road and under the railway. And it just shows you how the area has changed, because there was a petrol station on that side of the road and there was also one this side of the road.
Julia: So you said that you’d … It certainly has changed.
Norma: It has.
Julia: You said that you haven’t been on a demonstration since, but you described yourself as being active and taking part in them.
Norma: I take that; I’m an activist. Yes, I’m an activist. If I see something that’s happening that I think it shouldn’t be happening, I will say so. And if I mean it, I think I’ll stand up outside with the banner, I will. And if it mean I need to stalk the person in authority who needs to deal with it, so be it.
Julia: Can you describe some of the campaigns that you have been involved in?
Norma: After the Brixton riot, I also helped to set up the lay inspector to the police station, where – because we didn’t like, again, the way people were treated when they were arrested by the police. So we set up a group in Southwark, and that gave you – at the time it was called Visitors to Police Station. And so we could go in any police station in the borough anytime, day or night, whenever time you chose. And you had to be trained by the Home Office, you also had to sign that thing. Because I remember them saying if you saw the Prime Minister in the police station you weren’t allowed to come out and tell anybody that you see him. That’s how they explained it, an easier way. Mind you, they did it, but we weren’t allowed to do it.
I did six years, so as I say, I went round to all the police station in the borough. And what it was is to make sure that they were treated properly, they were given that one phone call. We actually changed the old police station for the new one. So it used to be the old Carter Street, and that was changed for the new Walworth police station. Because the old police station, in the heatwave – heatwave like we’re going to have now – if you were in there and you wanted water, and you called for it – I won’t use the language that they’d tell you to do, but you can guess for yourself. The officers were quite nasty to people that was arrested.
Now my view is you are arrested. They’re there to look after you properly until you go to court, and you’re charged. We weren’t concerned of what you did or why you’re there, it’s just that the law was obeyed by we’re looking after you. Make sure the place was clean, the cell was clean, and things like that. And most of the people we saw during that time was immigration. Most of the people there were immigration. Group Four, the security company, used to come and collect them probably every two weeks. You could be there for two weeks until they come and collect you.
The police weren’t responsible for you. All they did was to make sure you’ve been fed, and you don’t leave, so they don’t question you. But now that was one of the reasons why I joined that one. So I did that for three years, and then the Home Office asked me to do another three, so I did six years.
Julia: I know you’ve done a lot of campaigning and have been an activist for all the time that I’ve known you.
Norma: Oh yes, yes, yes, I know, and then I dropped.
Julia: Are there any other campaigns or activism that you think directly relate to your experiences as a Black woman living in the area or who’d taken part in that demonstration?
Norma: I hadn’t done any activities because being a Black woman, I do activity because me, myself, I think whatever activities I take part, whatever it is, I want my present to be heard. I’ve got something to say, and I’ll say it, and God help anybody else to try to stop me from saying it. So I join any group, that whether it’s the Walworth Society, because I think I want the area I live in to look better; I don’t want everything to be ripped down. So whatever group there is that I think it’s working for the common good of the area.
I also think, as a Black person, my voice should be heard, and I should have my foot around the table like everybody else. So it doesn’t all of it means you have to demonstrate on a march, you can still use your voice. And I’ll attend enough meetings, and I’ll stop them in their tracks in the meeting to give them my view. And in most cases, yes, they normally listen as most people know.
So it doesn’t always have to go on marches. If there was a march from here down to Camberwell Green, and it was – I mean I’ve demonstrated outside King’s College Hospital for mental health, but that’s with a group of people. It’s not to say as a Black woman I’m demonstrating on Black people’s mental health, it’s mental health after the people where I live. If the situation arises where it had to be done as a Black issue then I’ll go do that on the Black issue. But at the moment I find what I can see is at the moment is – in this area anyway, it’s an issue for everyone rather than a Black issue. Some areas it is, but this area it isn’t. I think because we’ve got more of us here and more of us have … And people change as well.
Julia: Thank you. That brings us to my last question which is, we’ve been asking people if they were going to take part in … Imagine you were going to take part or even organise a Black People’s Day of Action for 2022, what would it be about?
Norma: Actually it probably would … Yes, if I was going to be in one, I’d do it – it would be the Windrush because that’s still ongoing. And I think that is so unfair. And that was planned. That was no accident, yes. And if you could treat those people the way that they’re still being treated, I would go on a march now for the Windrush. Because when I think of those people who came here then, they were invited, they were asked to come, and they were needed because the people of this country didn’t …
You see, after the war, most – a lot of the men, young men, died, so there wasn’t enough people to build the country back. So the British government went to places like Italy and the Caribbean to look for workers to come and build a country. And then obviously these people, they were British citizen. My passport said that you are a British citizen, and you should be endeavoured by a magistrate. Have you ever seen one of them, what it says inside them? Oh, about Her Majesty, whatever, the Queen.
And for them, after that, to treat people in that way. That some people went on holiday, some people went to funerals, and find they couldn’t get back. And the cheek of it is, if you’ve been out, when you do find you can do it, apply for it now, “Oh, you can’t because you’ve been out the country too long.” “Well why were you out the country so long?” “Because you kept me out.” So I spend my time telling my white counterparts how it was. They might not like it; they don’t have to listen, but I haven’t come across anyone who hasn’t listened yet to explain to them how it happened and how all this started.
We knew about you in the Caribbean, we knew about the English – I don’t want to say British – we knew about the English more than the English knew about themselves. We celebrate every time the Queen had a baby. Everything had the Queen over your head; the school, the Queen over your head; the hospital, the Queen. The other generation, my mother’s generation, had a photo of the Queen in the house. I mean, my children wouldn’t have one past the front door, but my mother did. I mean even she still; even she was collecting photos of the royal family. I mean she’s left that in her legacy that we’ve got all photos and books and all things when Charles was little, because people of that era, they collected these things.
And I think for what they did, and we are not going anywhere. So if there was a Black People Action Day – and that should be done in the middle of the week like that one was done, because that was done on a working day – it should be done on a working day and not on a weekend, a working day. Not because we’re trying to disrupt, but to see how – give people more initiative that you’re quite willing to give up your day’s pay for what you think is right, just like we did, the previous generation did. So if I was going to go on a demonstration, a day of action, that’s what I would do.
There probably are other things, but not things that I come across. It’s also different for the next generation; they probably find a different struggle, so they might want to demonstrate on something else because they’ve got different struggle to what the older generation would’ve had. A different struggle. Like the people in the Nineties, they probably would be demonstrating Stop and Search. The people in 2022 might want to demonstrate on something else. It might be jobs. I’m not sure what they ..
Oh probably I might even want to object on immigration, because we know the immigration runs in two stage. One, if you’re blonde and blue eyed you’re fine. If you’re not blonde and blue eyed you ain’t coming. So you can see the difference between Romania and the other section. So there was no room. Before the war in Ukraine we had no room, but all of a sudden we found – you know, room is found. So not that I don’t sympathise for the people in Ukraine, but what I’m saying is there’s like two sides.
Because even today, a lot of these people they’re putting back on the airplane to go back to Rwanda, they’re … Afghanistan, Iraq, these are all the people that we dropped bombs on, and these are the people trying to leave the country because their country has got no infrastructure. And we said, “No.” We agreed, because that’s what they told the court, we’re doing what the public wants us to do. So in other words, the public doesn’t want those people who we went and destroyed their country, but the public don’t mind the ones we take, like Russia destroying their country.
And as the Ukraine man pointed out, “It shouldn’t happen. We are blonde and blue eyes.” That’s the sort of thing you expect in African countries, so you might find the next generation wants to demonstrate on that. But mine is what happened to the Windrush. It didn’t affect any of my family because although my mother came here in ‘48, she came, she actually went and got her papers. She went and paid for hers, and I went and bought mine; I’ve got mine as well. Just to be on the safe side, double whammy; I’ve got my mother’s and I’ve got mine.
So a lot of people didn’t because then they lost a lot of their papers as well. Some people did, and their family have lost it. The trouble is in our family we store things, we keep things. I’ve got my mother’s ration book still, so … So if we had to prove that she was here – and actually I’ve told this to my children, the reason why you keep certain papers, you never know. Nanny kept her ration book to prove that – and it’s got her name on it – she was here at the end of the war, so that made her actually being here. So it walks down to your grandparents. So that’s where we are.
Julia: Thank you so much for all your time and your insights as always. I just want to ask if there’s anything that you want to look back on over your interview, if there’s anything you want to say differently, or anything that you want to add.
Norma: Yes, the only thing is, these stories need to be told because they are going to vanish. I mean this is not the first one I’ve done. Because if they’re not told and recorded they would just disappear like lots of other things disappear. And traditionally, a lot of these things, although they happen, nobody records them. Like they’re saying, a lot of youngsters should be talking to their parents, these people up here, to find out how did they manage, what are their stories. You know, how did they manage when they first arrived.
I mean there’s a lady that we met the other day, I know two or three people who has tried to get hold of her to get their story. And her story’s so funny, and she makes us really laugh, because she said the first time she went to church and saw a harvest festival she’d never seen such beautiful food. And she’d give her feelings about the food. And it’s different with her; she came at 19 year old when lots of other people came at six and seven, so you see the different experience.
That’s why sometime, when you’re keeping these records, you need to get them from different ages of people because a person who come here 15 has got a different concept. A person who come here at 19, who had to go to work, sees things differently, and things around them differently. But things like this, they need to be recorded. And I think more people need to be – even youngsters – talking to their parents and record things.
We didn’t talk to my mother, but what we did, she did a lot of scribbling, and she left a lot of things that we can use. So we’ve passed some of it on to the Windrush oral people, stories about my mother and things like that. So that’s what I would, well I think a good idea doing it for that reason, keeping.
Julia: Thank you very much.
Norma: OK.
[End of recorded material at 00:38:40]
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