West End letters: Peter Beresford Street | Enda Delaney | Wilson John Hare | The Irish in Post War Britain | Elephant and Castle

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West End Extra - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Published: 21 August 2009

Times were tough for the Irish migrants

• PETER Beresford Ellis reviewed Enda Delaney’s book: The Irish in Post War Britain (Review, August 14) and in doing so I feel he is mistaken when he mentions the signs that appeared in local newsagent windows mostly during the 1950s.
He claims they read: “No Blacks. No Irish. No Dogs.”
What they actually said was: “No Coloureds. No Irish. No Children.” Very few people had dogs during the 1950s (they could barely feed themselves) but many had children at a time when the building of council accommodation had scarcely begun.
When the sign said “Business People Only” then you knew it meant English office workers. Some signs said females only. The sexes were more segregated then.
When yet another sign read: “Irish, Coloureds Welcome” then look out, brother, look out! That usually meant a cold tap in the yard for washing and a breakfast of weak tea with margarine on bread. Then there were Irish houses that would not tolerate the Irish, or “Coloureds”.
Forget the Irish and the Coloured tag for a moment.
Think of young men, mostly teenagers coming from highly disciplined homes where mother did the cooking, ironing and making the beds. Father would whack you up to the age of 18 for breaking minor rules.
Getting away from home you mostly went mad on someone else’s premises in a war-shattered city.
I was stuck myself in the Elephant and Castle of 1954 with its still-blitzed streets and, living in an “Irish/ Coloureds Welcome” house, I thought there must be more than this in a huge city like London. There was, and it was called Hampstead where a bedsit cost no more than in the Elephant. Lived happily ever after.
Wilson John Haire
Lulot Gardens, N19

Send your letters to: The Letters Editor, West End Extra, 40 Camden Road, London, NW1 9DR or email to letters@westendextra.co.uk. The deadline for letters is midday Wednesday. The editor regrets that anonymous letters cannot be published, although names and addresses can be withheld.
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