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When times were tough for the Irish migrants
• PETER Berresford Ellis reviewed Enda Delaney’s book: The Irish in Post War Britain (CNJ Review, August 13) 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 eighteen 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/Coloured 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
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