Roxy Harris

Opening Remarks

Good evening and welcome to this celebration for John La Rose, and for 40 years of New Beacon Books, which was founded in 1966. My name is Roxy Harris, and I was a friend and comrade of John’s for over 30 years. Like very many people here tonight I miss John more than words can express. The scope of John’s interests, activities and influences is too wide to be embraced in a single event. The main focus tonight is on personal testimony, but also, most importantly, on books and literature. I met John in pursuing interests in books and literature, by, for, and about black people. And when I met him it was so long ago it was a mystical search after a rumour that, somewhere in London, there were people who sold books about black people (audience laughter). The first place that I searched wasn’t in fact John and New Beacon. It was Bogle L’Ouverture Books. And I remember walking down a long street, after a long tube journey, in Ealing, and finding this house in an ordinary street which took me aback because it said ‘book’. I thought ‘books’, ‘bookshop’?, but this was a house and a front room, and the same happened to me when I looked for New Beacon Books. I found it in a house in a front room.

And what these two experiences taught me is what the people who came from the Caribbean, that John described as the ‘the heroic generation’ did. The spirit that they had. They couldn’t go from nothing to opening bookshops in the high street. So they did what they could, with what they had, where they were. And that lesson has been an inspiration ever since. For those of you who want to look into some of the wider influences of John, it’s worth looking at a few publications. The first one is a book called Foundations of a Movement. The second is a book about the Bookfair called A Meeting of the Continents, and the third is the few issues of New Beacon Review that John edited and published. Everybody here tonight, who knows about John, and knows about New Beacon Books, knows that the backbone, the untiring worker, a really essential part of all that John accomplished is Sarah White. Not only does it give me great pleasure to open this event tonight, but it also gives me great pleasure to introduce my friend, and John’s partner, Sarah White.

(c) Roxy Harris

Sarah White

Origins of New Beacon Books

Good evening, friends,

Many people in the audience will know that I am not a public speaker, but I would like to say a few words, or at least read a few words.

I want to speak tonight about the very early origins of New Beacon Books.

John came to Britain in 1961 already with the vision of developing his own independent publishing company. As he himself often stated, growing up in a colonial society in the Caribbean made him acutely aware that colonial policy was based on a deliberate withholding of information from the population. There was also a discontinuity of information from generation to generation. Publishing was a vehicle to give an independent validation to one’s own culture, history, politics – a sense of self – and to make a break with discontinuity. It is this conception which permeates the work of New Beacon.

But how do you go about creating a publishing house?

One of the first things you need is some money — not enormous amounts but at least enough to pay a printer. I met John in 1965. In the summer of that year he decided to get work as a brickie’s labourer and he was taken on at the Shell building then being built behind Moorgate station by John Laing. John found it a fascinating experience and needless to say he was soon elected a shop steward, but that is another story. On February 26 1966, the day that Kwame Nkrumah was ousted from power in Ghana, John also had a fall that day – luckily not from too great a height – but enough to temporarily damage his back and prevent him from working for some weeks. But more important — being the trade unionist he was and with considerable experience in insurance and legal matters, John was able to make a successful claim against Laing for negligence and was awarded a few hundred pounds compensation. This money, together with some savings I had, was enough to start New Beacon Books.

We decided to publish our first book – Foundations – a book of poems by John himself but put out under his second name, Antony, as he felt that John was too closely involved with his political persona at that time.

In 1966, my father, Eric Walter White, was Literature Director at the Arts Council. I have to add, that although Eric was fully supportive of what we were doing, New Beacon never received any financial backing from the Arts Council. John was absolutely clear of the need for financial independence and he was also very wary of being seen to benefit in any way from his personal connection with Eric. My father had always been interested in poetry and would usually have copies of recent publications lying around. We were at my parents’ house one day and looked through the books to see which ones we liked. We found some attractive publications being printed by Villiers Publications based in Tufnell Park, close to where we were living at that time. We visited Villiers, met its owner John Sankey, who quoted us £168 for 1300 copies. John Sankey became New Beacon’s printer and friend and remained so until his retirement just a few years ago. And I must add here that, although New Beacon never sought grants or bank loans, John Sankey was absolutely key in offering us credit over the years.

Why did John call New Beacon New Beacon? He named it after the magazine, The Beacon, which emerged in Trinidad in 1931-1932 and had a tremendous cultural impact at that time.

So the name was part of John’s vision of historical continuity. In 1966, Alfred Gomes, who had been a leading member of the 1930s Beacon group was living in London in 1966. As an ex-colonial minister from the former colony he had a grace and favour house near Hampton Court. John got in touch to tell him of our plans and we went to visit. It was a lesson in the humanity of John and of his independent Marxist outlook. Although they had been on opposite sides of the political divide in Trinidad – John a member of the marxist West Indian Independence Party and Gomes the Chief Minister in the government responsible for banning John from travelling and making it very difficult for him to find work – John recognised and appreciated Gomes’ cultural contribution to the Beacon movement and his support for the steelband movement in Trinidad. Gomes was delighted by John’s visit and appreciated the name New Beacon being given to this pioneering publishing house.

John turned to his good friend and fellow Trinidadian, Art Derry, who was a talented painter and sign writer to design both New Beacon’s distinctive logo and the cover for our first book, Foundations. So again this was part of John’s vision of independence and self-validation.

We had no idea how to price a book. I remember a meeting we had with James Macgibbon, the publisher and a family friend, in a pub in Covent Garden where he explained on the back of an envelope how a book was priced — the percentage for printing costs, for discount to bookshops, for royalties etc. and the unlikely possible percentage for profit. He both discouraged and encouraged us — we were much more likely to lose money than make it, but we would gain great satisfaction from the enterprise.

So we were ready to go, and New Beacon’s first book Foundations: a book of poems by Antony La Rose was published in August 1966.

Finally I must just say a brief word about bookselling. New Beacon went into bookselling in 1967 because of the demand for books stimulated by the formation of the Caribbean Artists Movement and the cultural resurgence among blacks in Britain that came into being with the black consciousness and black activist movements.

I think what many people remember from that period is the image of John riding on the red Honda 50 motorbike with his M&S bag of books that he or we were taking to sell at some meeting. One point I want to make is that we did not need a building to go into bookselling. At the time we were living in a one room bedsitter in Hornsey Lane. In 1969 we moved into our house at Albert Road and the book selling was based on the ground floor there. Four years later we managed to purchase 76 Stroud Green Road and the publishing, bookshop and international bookservice have been based there ever since.

One of John’s favourite maxims was ‘we are slow builders and consolidators, not flash and dash’, something he said he learnt from observing Chinese businesses in Trinidad. With John’s inspiration and vision New Beacon has managed to survive as a publishing ‘maisonette’, another favourite phrase of his, bookshop and international bookservice for 41 years.

Thank you.

(c) Sarah White

Janice Durham

A Personal View — Working for New Beacon Books

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, my name is Janice and I warmly welcome you all here to join in the celebration of John La Rose and the 40th anniversary of New Beacon Books. This is my first public speech.

John — the father, grandfather, great grandfather, friend, confidant, writer, activist, publisher, comrade. A man of many faces.

I remember John for many different reasons but especially in the context of being a family man.

John had three sons, six grandchildren and 4 great-grandchildren. John would involve himself with all members of his family. He was a hands-on grandfather although very busy with other things. He used to assist with home work with the older two grandchildren, and if he did not hear from them for a while he would call them up making enquiries about school, social life etc. John loved and was very proud of his family.

When I met Michael, John’s eldest son, he introduced me to New Beacon Bookshop. I was excited and used to help out when I could. After having our first child, Renaldo, we lived above the bookshop and I continued to help out. John and Sarah offered me a job at New Beacon while I was at home with Renaldo before returning to my nursing career. Well, that was 27 years ago.

John definitely had a quality that enabled him to put all people at ease. He encouraged and drew people with similar interest and ideas together. It was that quality that gave shape to the ever growing international community of friends and supporters of New Beacon Books. John never just wanted a bookshop. He saw it as a community space where people could and would pop in to learn about our history and to seek out new African, Caribbean, Black British, African American and Asian authors.

John had many hours of debate and discussions with strangers and friends who were just passing by. He would be in his element introducing customers to authors such as Ngugi wa Thiong’o, C.L.R. James, Sam Selvon, Kamau Brathwaite and he would talk about Nkrumah, George Padmore, Frantz Fanon. He kept everyone informed, including the grandchildren, by sending then photocopies of articles which he thought they should read.

John was a publisher with a wide vision. He published books on and by African, Caribbean and Black British authors. He did not narrow himself and his ideas just to the Caribbean. John was always thinking of new ways to expose and introduce writers from the diaspora. Together with Bogle L’Ouverture he decided to have a black book fair. The International Book Fair of Radical Black and Third World Books was a place where publishers, authors, filmmakers and artists from UK, Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and the USA could come to meet, make new deals, explore new ideas and share solutions as well as problems to critical issues affecting the international community.

John, I miss your intelligence, your eagerness to share knowledge, your open mindedness, your humour, your compassion, your fairness, your hospitality, your warmth, your hearty laughter which shook your body, your love and concerns for your friends, comrades and family. John, I will always be appreciative being accepted warmly and lovingly by you, into your extended family.

John was a man of many faces. However, I return to my cherished memories of him as a family man. John loved and appreciated having his family around him, he accepted difference and treated everyone equally. He never took sides, but always offered practical solutions to sometimes difficult situations, and for that I have had the utter most respect for him. Together with Sarah, he selflessly offered and gave real and practical help to many of us. The most recent members of the family, Micha, Chaniya, Aamira, Janae were as important to John as their parents, and he delighted in knowing he had four lovely great-granddaughters.

John, I miss you and will always remember you.

Thank you.

(c) Janice Durham

Anne Walmsley

Personal View of a Writer

The Society of Authors' magazine recently ran an article titled 'Authors from Hell'. It listed, in chilling detail, the things that authors do and don't do that publishers find most tiresome. My tribute to New Beacon Books is titled 'Publishers from Heaven'. It draws on my experience of publishing one book with them — a history of the Caribbean Artists Movement, and of publishing – or trying to publish – other books elsewhere. I, a mere chronicler, am honoured to be asked to speak about New Beacon as a writer, alongside such a galaxy of real writers on New Beacon's 40-year-long list. All will have precious memories of their own experience. To me, John La Rose and Sarah White at New Beacon Books exemplified what is really important about a publisher.

Prompt, unqualified decision on author's proposal, and wholehearted confidence in it
John, as a co-founder of CAM (also 40 years ago) had already given me his blessing, and full cooperation, for writing its history. Later I asked him, in a quiet moment at a Black Book Fair, whether New Beacon might consider publishing it. His response was instant, without hesitation or provisos: 'Of course'.

Concrete evidence of the book's acceptance
No whacky advance, and a contract came later. But I really felt taken on as a New Beacon author when, after Sunday night supper for discussion of the book with John and Sarah – at their legendary kitchen table – Sarah packed me off home in a minicab.

No pestering on progress
When I apologised to John for the years the book was taking (seven in total), John calmly responded: 'Serious books take time'.

Sensitive, informed editorial feedback, and scrupulous attention to detail

All that John and Sarah recommended – at typescript and proof stage – contributed immeasurably to the final, published text.

Readiness to discuss design of the book
As a former publisher myself, I'm fussy and demanding about the look of a printed book: from format and page layout, to choice of typeface. I rejected the printer's specimen page shown me by Sarah. But she was not put out. She simply gave the complete typescript to Julian Stapleton, and asked him to design it. She did let me share the extra cost.

Full cooperation over title and cover
So many publishers insist on total control of the cover, believing that only they know how best to market the book. My catchy suggestions for the main title, with 'a history of CAM' as subtitle, were fully considered. But Sarah wisely insisted that 'Caribbean' and 'arts' be in the main title. Then John, like an oracle, spoke the final title: The Caribbean Artists Movement 1966-1972: A Literary and Cultural History. It was John, too, who opted for a Ronald Moody sculpture alongside, but the choice of the one called, so appropriately, 'Vision', was made by all of us.

Sticking to publication schedule
Sarah's time-keeping at each stage was meticulous — and demanding. She made a series of triangular car journeys with the proofs between Finsbury Park, Greenwich and Wimbledon. In consequence, the book was out, as planned, on 19 June 1992, for the start of Salkey's Score, the celebration for Andrew Salkey: co-founder of CAM, with Kamau Brathwaite and John La Rose — also 40 years ago.

An appropriate publication party
On formal publication, three days later, at New Beacon itself: with the shortest of speeches, much laughter, apt refreshments — and all the right people.

Keeping the book in stock, and accounting for sales
No remaindering or pulping the many unsold copies, 15 years on. I receive a statement of sales, however modest, and corresponding royalty cheque, most regularly, each April — in Sarah's own hand.

Evident pride in the book by the publisher
In the closing shots of John, in Horace Ové's film, Dream to Change the World, he is standing in the New Beacon Bookshop, clasping the CAM book, and smiling. What more could a writer wish for?

(c) Anne Walmsley

Susan Craig-James (read in her absence)

New Beacon Books and the Caribbean

In the Caribbean we say that ‘laugh and cry live a’ de same house’. Today, as we gather to celebrate the life of John La Rose and 40 years of New Beacon Books, we do so with joy tinged with sadness at his passing.

I believe that New Beacon Books is important for the Caribbean in five senses.

The first is our collective memory. John was struck by the strength of our oral/aural traditions and the relative weakness of the written. Therefore he was concerned to end what he called our ‘history of hiatuses’, our lack of knowledge of the institutions, efforts and creations of past generations. In reprinting John Jacob Thomas’ seminal works, The Theory and Practice of Creole Grammar and Froudacity, Arthur Lewis’ Labour in the West Indies, C.L.R. James’ Minty Alley and Alfred Mendes’ Pitch Lake, New Beacon has helped to keep alive our knowledge of the political and cultural creations of the past.

Secondly, New Beacon touched our vision. By choosing to identify with The Beacon, a ‘little newspaper’ from the 1930s, John deliberately identified with the political and cultural awakening that laid the foundations for the modern Caribbean. All over the region – English, French, United States and Dutch – there were upheavals in the 1930s, against colonialism, for equity and social justice. In the British Caribbean, the working class, through a series of labour rebellions, won recognition for its right to organize with the right to picket and with protection from actions in tort. But above all, in those rebellions one hundred years after Emancipation, the working class thrust its way into the formal political arena. Before the 1930s, every reform movement wanted more political rights for the educated, those considered ‘fit to rule’. After the ‘revolution’ of the 1930s, as Arthur Lewis puts it in Labour in the West Indies, such narrow political thought has faded into insignificance. The major issues discussed today no longer revolve round the aspirations of the middle classes, but are set by working class demands.

As a result, social services, slum clearance, poverty, land settlement, and other issues which, Lewis states, ‘were seldom discussed before’, became part of the political agenda of the BWI.

The events of the 1930s ushered in the modern era in the British Caribbean, and brought de-colonization and self-rule. They expressed the stirrings of Caribbean nationhood. They brought a new interest in the folklore and the culture of the urban and rural poor. Therefore, by positioning New Beacon in that stream of events, John highlighted the pivotal role of working people, one hundred years after Emancipation, in the building of the Caribbean nation.¹

At the same time, New Beacon understood the strategic position of the region’s Diaspora: 500 years after Columbus globalised the world by linking all the continents on the soil of the Americas, globalisation of capital and labour would place workers from the former colonies in the major cities, the heartland, of the colonising powers. So significant is that emigration that any definition of the Caribbean today must include its Diaspora — which has become the heartland of Caribbean integration.

Therefore, New Beacon stands on two pivots:

* firstly, its understanding of the importance of the events of the 1930s one hundred years after Emancipation, and its deep sense of the connectedness between those events and the modern Caribbean;

* secondly, its understanding of the strategic importance of the Diaspora in the shaping of the Caribbean nation and its destiny.

Many of the issues of the 1930s are still with us. Lewis’ Labour in the West Indies and his own policy prescriptions foreshadowed that major conflicts in the Caribbean would be, not only between waged labour and capital, but between wageless labour and the rest of the society. In 1964, observing the effects of his policies, Lewis stated that unemployment was Jamaica’s most serious social problem. He continued:

After years and thousands of lives like this, the middle classes must check their guns every night before they go to bed.²

That was 1964. Add the following facts:

* the region as a major transhipment area for narcotics since the 1980s;

* the influx of illegal arms with the drug trade;

* the low capacity of the criminal justice systems;

* the fallout in a hopelessly inadequate educational system;

* the increase in urbanization and urban poverty; and

* the inadequacies of the social services, especially those dealing with family and children’s issues.

Therefore today, in many parts of the Caribbean, we are faced with the grim and sober realities of living in an open war between the lumpenproletariat and the rest of the society. Once we understand the issues of the 1930s, we can clearly see, in many of these places of ‘sun, sand and sea’, that some of the chickens of that period have come home to roost. Thus New Beacon has given us vision, a long view of where we are located in time and space.

Thirdly, New Beacon gave voice to many forms of intellectual and political expression. Edward Kamau Brathwaite’s History of the Voice (1984) deals with the growing respect for the ‘nation language’ of the Caribbean nation. Women writers like Erna Brodber and Lorna Goodison found in New Beacon an encouraging publisher. Of immense importance were the biographies of lives that continue to speak: of Marcus Garvey by Adolph Edwards; of Elma Francois by Rhoda Reddock; and Khafra Kambon’s study of George Weekes, the President General of the Oilfields Workers Trade Union, a union that involved itself under Weekes’ leadership in all the major issues For Bread, Justice and Freedom in Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean.

New Beacon touched our memory, our vision, our voice. But to remember, to see, and to speak are not enough. The dream is to change the world; to get up, stand up, for what is right. Therefore, fourthly, New Beacon called us to an uncompromising stance, against all forms of oppression, and for equality and social justice for all people.

Finally, New Beacon showed us a method. New Beacon itself is a model of how to build institutions from below, starting where you are, with what you have, and attracting the goodwill and support of a global community. In founding the George Padmore Institute, they have also been careful to record, document and conserve the work of New Beacon and aspects of the life of the black community in Britain. Institutional memory is an important part of institution building. John and his partner Sarah White have given us a shining example to follow.

Memory, vision, voice, stance, method. I believe that this sums up the importance of New Beacon for the Caribbean. I congratulate you most heartily on this your 40th anniversary. May God continue to establish the work of your hands.

Notes

¹ W. Arthus Lewis. Labour in the West Indies: The Birth of a Workers’ Movement. London: New Beacon Books, 1977. 42

² W. Arthur Lewis. Seven articles on ‘Jamaica’s Economic Problems’. The Gleaner Sept. 1964.

(c) Susan Craig-James 31 January 2007

Michael La Rose

A Personal Testimony: ‘Start Where You Are’ — Building the New Beacon Books institution

I have worked in New Beacon Books since its founding over 40 years ago. It is an important part of my life. I was a full time worker in the bookshop between 1983 until 1992. One of my father’s principles for organising was ‘Start where you are’. Practically, this meant that I, my brother Keith and later my brother Wole, would be weighing books and stringing up parcels for New Beacon’s International Book Service on Saturdays and after school. I would also help to run bookstalls and serve in the bookshop. We learnt about hard work, the book trade and contributing to a family business.

New Beacon taught me everything was possible. You could even have a bookshop in a house! There is still a nameplate at 2 Albert Road. I measured people’s reaction when as a young black boy I told them that my father had a publishing house and a bookstore AND explained it was in a house. I assessed the person by the next question they asked. I still do. New Beacon got a building that looked like a bookshop in 1973 on Stroud Green Road, Finsbury Park.

My father’s slow methodical vision for organising New Beacon meant we could take Independent Action. John La Rose felt that financial independence was very important. He felt independent action could only come with financial independence. New Beacon refused to apply or take government grants during the period of ‘projects’ and ‘Urban Aid’ money on offer that swept up black organisations. Profits from New Beacon were ploughed back into the business .We all worked for expenses, reduced wages or for free. New Beacon has dedicated and committed workers like Janice Durham and Sarah White along with many volunteers over the years. Without their continuing collective commitment and sacrifice New Beacon Books could not exist.

New Beacon is not simply a business it is an institution. That was part of my father’s vision. It is a resource for people in struggle especially the Black community in Britain. It represents an independent radical ideology and through the bookselling a reliable source of information, history and culture. New Beacon has assisted and supported numerous political and cultural campaigns. The bookshop has provided space for meetings, supplementary schools, mas camps and leaflet production. I remember clearly the bookstalls New Beacon provided for the early Caribbean Artist Movement meetings in Earls Court and the electric Black Power conference at Alexandra Palace.

John La Rose’s ideas on the politics of alliances were important in guiding how New Beacon operated. New Beacon would continually assist other people to start bookshops. People were freely given advice on how to set up a bookshop, a publishing house or how to publish their own books. New Beacon was involved in setting up Bookshop Joint Action, an organisation of black bookstores, which were under racist attack. Ultimately this ideological position led to the formation of The Alliance, the New Cross Massacre Action Committee and the Book Fair of Radical Black and Third World Books. These groupings all took significant and important independent action. In recent years we have founded the George Padmore Institute, an archive of the black struggle in Britain, which I currently chair.

‘Start where you are’, build institutions, financial independence, independent action, independent radical ideology, and the politics of alliances these are the foundations and vision on which New Beacon Books has been built for over 40 years.

I am proud of New Beacon Books and all those who have supported and built this significant institution in Britain.

Thank you.

© Michael La Rose 2007

Errol Lloyd

A Personal View from a Book Cover Designer

Compared to the role of the author and publisher of a book, the contribution of the cover designer is a relatively minor one. This contribution is usually recorded on the rear cover, in appropriate print size, and it would be an unusually egoistic artist who would not be satisfied with that acknowledgement.

To be invited by New Beacon Books to speak about my book cover designs is therefore a rare honour, as it goes well beyond the usual recognition afforded to cover designers.

This is typical of the spirit of generosity and goodwill which we associated with John La Rose, and which continues to permeate the activities of New Beacon books and the George Padmore Institute.

As I have never set myself up in a professional way as a book cover designer, but rather responded as best I can to requests by publishers, usually small independent publishing houses like New Beacon, this invitation has forced me to stop and take stock of my activities as a book cover designer. It’s comes as a bit of a shock to realise that I have compiled what could be described as a body of work in this field, represented by over 60 cover designs, and I am pleased to say note that quite a number of these have been for New Beacon Books.

Part of the expressed mission of New Beacon Books has been to bring to public notice the works of Caribbean, African and Black British authors, and it is entirely in keeping with this vision that John and Sarah sought cover designers who share something of the cultural background of the authors concerned and who could give, through the images they create, a degree of aesthetic coherence to the book as a whole whilst giving some indication of the book’s contents. With New Beacon Books, one always sensed that this took precedence over the purely commercial aspects of book cover design.

However familiar you may be with the background of the author, it is always a terrifying task to have to read a manuscript and conjure up images that somehow mirror or symbolise the world that the author’s work inhabits. You invariably start with a sense of diffidence which can persist, I assure you, up to the moment you part company with your design.

Inevitably, as least in my case, you always wish you could do better. However there is always some compensation, such is the reflected glory that you gain from being associated with distinguished writers. I can feel pride in being associated -mostly through publications by New Beacon Books — with the names of people like C.L.R. James, Alfred Mendes, Andrew Salkey, Mervyn Morris, Dennis Scott, Valerie Bloom, Erna Brodber, Kamau Braithwaite, E.A. Markham, Linton Kwesi Johnson and, last but not least, John La Rose himself.

I am particularly pleased with my association with Erna Brodber who is with us here today. I am pleased partly because John was pleased with the association and was particularly fond of my cover painting for Jane and Louisa Will Soon Come Home. But for my part I am pleased with this association as Erna’s writing is neither literal nor linear and pushes you to the limits of your imagination. I only hope I have been able to do some justice to her work.

Finally, it is worth commenting on as aspect of the actual creative process of standard cover design practice today. When I started out it was the days of manual colour separation – a technical and laborious process – as well as manual application of lettering using Letraset. I spoke to some Year 8 school children the other day who were working on cover designs who had never heard of Letraset. Today of course it’s all computer technology — which allows for a more genuinely collaborative process than hitherto possible. The latest cover for Erna Brodber’s The Rainmaker’s Mistake features my illustration, but with a significant contribution by Glenda Pattenden’s lettering and design. Using computer email technology the image was shared with Sarah White for comment and suggestions. So, you see, if you don’t like it, you are invited to spread the blame!

One last word. Today is a celebration of John’s life and work. Through his myriad activities as publisher, writer, activist, thinker he has made deep inroads into our collective psyche. He is one of those public figures who was and is genuinely loved by those who had the privilege to know him and to work with him. I am proud of my association with John and with New Beacon, and pleased that I was given the chance to develop my skills as a book cover artist and designer.

John dreamt to change the world. I am sure many of us here never dreamt we would miss him quite so much.

(c) Errol Lloyd

Caryl Phillips

Keynote Address: John La Rose

In 1982, shortly after the conclusion to the First International Book Fair, Errol Lloyd interviewed John La Rose and asked him to describe the opening ceremony to the Book Fair. John replied as follows:

‘I introduced the person we had asked to open the Book Fair. C.L.R. James, political theorist, novelist, critic, political activist … for us C.L.R. James had become a symbol for the continuity between the past and the present in Britain. Between an earlier intellectual … and political presence here: [represented by figures such as] Olaudah Equiano: Paul Robeson: the revolutionary Pan-Africanist … George Padmore: C.L.R.James … Kwame Nkrumah: [continuity between these figures] and what they had been able to do and what foundations they had laid in Britain at an earlier period … [continuity between this and] what we were about to begin in the International Book Fair on the 1^st April.’

Even before John La Rose arrived in Britain in 1961, he intuitively understood the wisdom which informs the statement of another Trinidadian, the scholar and former Prime Minister Eric Williams, who said that ‘History is the basic science.’ John knew something about ‘foundations’; he knew that unless you first understand who has preceded you, and respect the sacrifices and difficulties that have bedevilled the journey of those people who have travelled before you, then you are almost certainly wandering in ignorance and unlikely to go much further. John La Rose knew that one has to look to, and respect, the past, and as he grappled with what one might call the front story of British life in the sixties, and the seventies, and eighties, and nineties, and on into the present century, John La Rose was always subtly and carefully reminding us of the back story. There were precedents; this was not a unique occurrence; it could, if you like, be framed and understood, which, naturally enough, often made the problem appear to be much less intractable.

The International Book Fair, which took place from 1982 until 1995 was a perfect example of John La Rose’s vision as a determined frontline combatant and as both a keeper of the flame of the past and a respecter of history. At the International Book Fair new young publishers set up their stalls side by side with older more established ones. The venerable literary lions read together with the younger cubs who were just lolloping into view and hoping to establish themselves on the scene. And of course, the Book Fair gave John a space in which he could be furiously innovative. Music, Dance, Film all of these forms of artistic expression were encouraged, and they co-existed with Literature; the new, and often avant garde, was ordered to sit down and take a seat next to more traditional work. This well-orchestrated hybridity, this lack of fealty to traditional decorum, or to a conservative notion of form and order, is all part of the heritage of the people and the region that produced John La Rose; the Caribbean, that creolized and creolizing tract of the Americas where anything is possible because on closer inspection one soon realizes that most things have already occurred.

John La Rose wore many public hats in his life, and he wore them all with distinction. Activist, educator, publisher — he invigorated and motivated others, and was always keen that the potential of those around him should be realised. He was a man who had an unerring sense of knowing when to step forward out of the half-light and declare himself, and when to retreat and watch whatever it was that he had encouraged take its own shape and form. This is a great gift; to know how to lead, but to know also when to gracefully withdraw. John La Rose knew how to dance around celebrity and fame, and he had no desire to clasp either of these false totems to his bosom and take a quick whirl with them. When he moved, he did so stealthily and with purpose. But movement involves expending energy, and John paid a price for his constant attention to his many projects and ideas. He was a writer who in the end did not have much time to write. He was a writer who put effort behind the writing of others at the cost of his own work. He was a poet, a man of vision and insight, a sensitive man, who decided that rather than build the citadels around his own life that would be necessary for him to concentrate on his own work, he would give to others. And John sought to do this in the most practical way possible; in 1966, together with Sarah White, he created a publishing house. New Beacon Books, which was named after the famous Trinidadian magazine, The Beacon – which although it survived for only a few issues, between 1931 and 1932 – the magazine had a huge cultural impact on early twentieth century Caribbean intellectual thought. In 1967 John La Rose opened the New Beacon Bookshop as a specialist Caribbean book seller making available works in English, French and Spanish. As the enterprise developed, the bookshop began to include material from Africa, the United States, Britain and Europe. New Beacon Books, both the publishing house, and the bookshop eventually became the engine room which out of which was launched, the Caribbean Arts Movement, the Book Fair, the New Beacon Educational Trust, the George Padmore Institute, and many other initiatives.

But all of this activity, this energetic service, grew out of John La Rose’s feeling for literature, and his love of the word. For John La Rose it began with the word. And the words became a line, and the lines eventually declared themselves to be a poem. John was a poet, who while never turning his back on his calling, found a way to be true to it by being true to others. John published volumes of poetry by Mervyn Morris, James Berry and Lorna Goodison. He published novels by Erna Brodber and Andrew Salkey. Volumes of essays by Wilson Harris, Kamau Brathwaite and Ngugi wa Thiong’o. These were not reprints; he was the original publisher of works by these authors — authors who form the canonical bedrock of our literature. He made their books, and countless other key volumes of contemporary and historical significance, available to us for the first time. Our debt to New Beacon Books as readers, as scholars, as critics, as researchers is inestimable.

But a bookshop and a publishing house are not, and should not be, cold places which exist solely for the sake of commercial interaction. They should be places of intellectual energy and free-flowing ideas; the ideal bookshop should be a warm environment of creativity in itself, and this is what John sought to achieve with New Beacon Books. John La Rose established a space where readers and writers could come together and engage with each other, for he valued not only writers but he also cherished those who wished to read or listen to literature and he gave them the opportunity to meet the authors and to discuss the work. New Beacon Books threw its doors open to readers and writers alike. Today technology has affected the manner in which we are stimulated by literature, beginning with the very act of how we purchase a book. However, New Beacon Books endures, and its legacy lives on not only in its absolutely essential backlist, but New Beacon Books continues to publish important new work. Working together with the George Padmore Institute, the bookshop programmes lectures, readings, recordings, all of which serve to enhance the primacy of the word.

In 1982, John La Rose spoke eloquently to Errol Lloyd of the foundations that had been laid by C.L.R. James and others upon which he was building. He was referring to the book fair, and obviously before this to the publishing house, and the book shop. He was a quintessentially modest man who would never say this of himself, but in the second half of the twentieth century in Britain, no Caribbean migrant to this country did more to secure and expand the foundations of the work of the earlier generation of intellectuals, and build more securely upon them, than John La Rose. This brilliant man of steely determination could easily have made a career for himself in Westminster, or in the media, or in the academy, but he chose instead to give grassroots service. His passionate desire for socio-cultural change and justice, and the vision and leadership that he displayed, places him firmly in a very distinguished tradition. He understood that those who came before him – Padmore, James and others – had been correct to see the struggle for liberation in an international context, but he also understood the importance of not merely viewing the struggle through the narrow prism of race which, of course, enabled him to form powerful alliances where it often appeared that none existed.

John offered us his leadership during that turbulent period of British postwar history, as the Powellism of the late sixties gave way to the skinheads, bootboys and pakibashers of the seventies, the ugly emergence of the fascists and neo-Nazis of the National Front, the riots of Brixton, Notting Hill, Toxteth, Bristol, Leeds and other urban centres, the New Cross Massacre, Broadwater Farm, and many more violent and non-violent insurrections. John organized in the wake of these, and the many other, social upheavals that were tearing this country apart as the first generation of Caribbean migrants learned, like the rest of Britain, how to co-exist with the emergence of a second generation who were clearly not going to accept the same kind of treatment, disdain, and police-sanctioned violence which had been offered to their parents. While all of this was happening here, in Britain, and while similar disturbances and crises were plaguing continental Europe and the United States, the Caribbean, the Indian sub-continent, and Africa, John was always busy and productive working with a megaphone on the streets, and with pen and paper in his office, and creating a space for his comrades to articulate their passion and their frustration, particularly those who chose to do so with words.

Some years ago, New Beacon Books published a reprint of C.L.R. James’s 1936 novel, Minty Alley, James’s only novel. Those who have read this novel, and who know of James’s subsequent career in diverse fields, must have wondered what kind of a literary life James might have enjoyed had he locked the door to the other activities with which he occupied himself, and thrown away the key. However, James knew that a literary life is a particularly demanding mistress. She will not tolerate much in the way of philandering in other areas, and Minty Alley was his only novel. John La Rose also fully understood the demands of literature, and like C.L.R. James he made a choice to keep the door to full public activity propped wide open and to step through it with vigour knowing that this would prevent him from living the full literary life that was his for the taking. John La Rose was cognizant of the choice that he was making, and what it would mean in terms of his future life, but he made a decision to be creative in other areas of his life, not just literature. However, he always maintained a great respect for those who did let the door slam and who decided to focus largely on their writing. When he spoke of his great friend Andrew Salkey, on the day of his funeral, one can feel the respect and affection. ‘I’ll always remember Andrew,’ said John. ‘He was a friend, a close friend, and a comrade. He was a novelist, a poet, a playwright, an indefatigable anthologist, a fabulist, a children’s novelist, a film buff and a diarist. An extraordinary person, a great talent. I was with him in Havana when he wrote his Havana Journal; [and] we were together in Georgetown while he composed his Georgetown Journal.’ These are typically generous words, but as wonderful as Salkey’s books on Havana and Georgetown are, what one also longs for are John La Rose’s books about these journeys.

Much of the poetry that John did produce is tender, lyrical and speaks clearly to those words of Eric Williams. ‘History is the basic science.’ His poem ‘Not from Here’ which begins ‘You were not born here/My Child/Not Here’ is both a declaration of fact and a tender lament; a hard fist encased in the tenderest of crushed velvet gloves. He produced two volumes of poetry, the appropriately named Foundations (1966) and Eyelets of Truth Within Me (1992). His poetic gifts are an important part of his legacy, and his highly-developed writer’s sensibility accounts in part for his sure judgment as a publisher, his loyalty to the authors he took into his circle, and the great affection in which he is held by writers literally all over the world. Writers can be suspicious, competitive creatures, easily slighted, and quick to claim offence. Alliances can be tenuous, and friendships often built upon shifting sand. However, mention the name of John La Rose to any writer and their faces light up. He was above us. He understood. He enabled.

Some years ago I wrote an essay about C.L.R. James, the concluding few words of which I’ve always felt were equally applicable to this remarkable man who, like his fellow Trinidadian, strode onto an international stage and declared himself a man of the people, a man for all seasons, a man amongst men. John La Rose. ‘His view of the world was fundamentally generous. While he wished to impress his opinions upon his readers and his listeners, he respected individuals whom he disagreed with, and [he] saw virtue in work that ran counter to his political beliefs. He never lost sight of the autonomy of art and literature, and never sought to use either for crassly political purposes… He believed in ideas, but he had an even greater faith in people.’

(c) Caryl Phillips February 2007

www.carylphillips.com

Gus John

Personal Testimony of a Comrade

He was there …

Always there for me, he was!

When at Blackfriars in the 1960s I wrestled with the church in Latin America and South Africa, he was there …

When I struggled with Marx, Kierkegaard and Merleau-Ponty, he was there …

When I tried to get my head around ‘Being and Nothingness’, he was there …

When I morphed from Friar to Gravedigger, he was there …

When I would lose myself in New Beacon Books at 2 Albert Road, he was there …

When I walked down Minty Alley, he was there …

And ventured into the Palace of the Peacock, he was there …

When I searched for The Invisible Man, he was there …

When Things Fell Apart and I was No Longer at Ease, he was there …

When I met Yevgeny Yevtushenko, he was there …

And Christopher Okigbo … he was there …

When I saluted the Black Jacobins, he was there …

And when I heard The Man Died, he was there …

When the lawn mower won the fight and took half my foot as booty, he was there … **

When I limped up the aisle in plimsolls to wait for my bride, he was there …

When I stomped the streets of Handsworth with black youths, he was there …

And faced down the police in Moss Side, he was there …

When we hosted Amilcar Cabral’s visit, he was there …

When I started EFL Books in Manchester, he was there …

(And, yes, Education For Liberation,

not English as a Foreign Language …)

When at Keskidee, we declared that ‘Independent Parents Power and Independent Students Power is the key to change in education and schooling’, he was there …

When my Maoist professor insisted I either be a community activist or an academic, he was there …

When we freed George Lindo, he was there …

When news came that my father Wilfred had died, unable to get medical attention while Maurice Bishop was under house arrest, he was there …

And when I learnt that he had been buried by US marines during Reagan’s invasion of Grenada, he was there …

When I agonised about the fact that they would not even let my mother, his wife of fifty years, attend his funeral, he was there …

When Manchester City Council threatened to sue over the Burnage Report, he was there …

When they could do nothing about Murder in the Playground, he was there …

When the Islamic mafia in Manchester harassed me for preventing the deportation of women they had abused and dumped, he was there …

When the doctors said my son, at 16, might not last the night with his brain tumour, he was there …

And every day till he recovered, he was there …

When a big time crook in the Club of Dance and Self Defence vowed to break my neck and dance on my grave, he was there …

And when I took on William Stubbs and the ILEA for not standing up to him, he was there …

When I left 2 Albert Road for my interview in Hackney, he was there …

And when they rang and said, welcome to hell, you are our first Director of Education … he was sitting right there …

When that headteacher in Hackney upbraided the bard for not writing ‘Rhonda and Juliet’, he was there …

And dissed Prokofiev for colluding with Will’, he was there …

When the Southall Black Sisters dumped me for being a Caribbean homophobe, he was there …

When I left Hackney, he was there …

When they made me Doctor of Education, he was there …

When Tony Blair offered to appoint me CBE, Commander of the Order of the British Empire … he was there …

And when I told Mr Blair to stuff his empire and all its trappings … he was there …

When I was struggling with what I should do at his funeral, he was right there …

And now ... when at dawn I greet Egun and speak to the Ancestors, he is there …

With Wilfred and Agnes and the rest of them … he is there …

At the GPI, he is there …

At New Beacon, he is there …

At Albert Road, he is there …

In our hearts, he is there …

He is here …

Always here with us, he is!

Notes to accompany ‘Personal Testimony of a Comrade’

Blackfriars:

Gus John was a Dominican friar at Blackfriars, Oxford, between 1965 and 1967, studying Theology and training to become a Roman Catholic priest. He studied, among other things, philosophy, existentialism and Marxism and was a member of a Christian-Marxist study group concerned about the role of the R C Church in Latin America, the Caribbean and South Africa.

Fight with a lawnmower

Having left the Dominican Order in 1967, Gus worked as a gravedigger in Chiswick cemetery (where Carl Kirton, sound recordist of all of the Bookfair events is now buried) until September 1968 and had numerous conversations with John at community events and public meetings during that period. John introduced Gus to the writings of C.L.R. James, Eric Williams, Alfred Mendes and a host of other African heritage writers. While working as a gravedigger, Gus was using a high powered, petrol-driven lawnmower, moving backwards. He stumbled on a grave stone, drawing the lawnmower onto his left foot. He straightened himself up to find that half his foot had gone. John visited him regularly and was a tremendous source of support while Gus recovered.

Limping up the aisle

In August 1968, Gus married Jill, his first wife, while still recovering from his injury. Her parents were both from St Lucia, living at 18 Delhi St, Kings Cross, not far from the Keskidee Centre. John and Sarah attended his wedding at the headquarters of the Dominican Order at Haverstock Hill, Chalk Farm. Jill and Gus were both youth workers at the Priory Youth Club at Haverstock Hill. Both were folksingers.

Hosting Amilcar Cabral’s visit

Amilcar Cabral was the revolutionary leader of the PAIGC, the movement for the liberation of Guinea Bissau and the Cape Verde Islands from Portuguese colonial rule. He visited Britain in the early 1970s and spoke at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester at an event organised by, among others, Gus John, Ron Phillips (brother of Mike and Trevor Phillips) and members of the organisation Gus and Ron had formed in Manchester in 1972. John provided logistical advice on the arrangement of that visit.

EFL Books

Gus became Chair of the Black Parents Movement, Manchester in 1975, soon after the famous Keskidee conference organised by the BPM, London. John and Sarah encouraged and supported the development of the EFL Bookservice, which later became one of the organisers of the International Book Fair of Radical Black and Third World Books, as recorded in A Meeting of the Continents.

The Maoist Professor

Gus was a Lecturer in Social Policy and Applied Social Studies at the University of Bradford (1977/79) while the campaign by the Alliance of organisations John led to free George Lindo was at its peak. Gus was a fully active member of that campaign and a member of Bradford Black, the sister organisation of Race Today. It was when Gus failed to attend a departmental meeting and went instead to attend the Crown Court as an expert witness during George Lindo’s appeal hearing that he returned to a rather irate memo from his professor. The professor in question was the Maoist Hilary Rose, a women’s rights activist. (George Lindo was a Jamaican worker in Bradford who had been framed by the West Yorkshire Police for the crime of holding up the proprietor of a betting shop at knifepoint).

Death of Wilfred John, Gus’ father

Wilfred had been in perfect health until, in October 1983, he ruptured himself while moving a trunk containing part of Gus’ library which he had shipped from Manchester to Grenada. With tensions mounting during Maurice Bishop’s house arrest and people’s movements restricted, no doctor was able to travel to Wilfred and Agnes’ home, nor were they able to go to a health centre or hospital to get medical help. Wilfred stayed at home and suffered a painful death from a strangulated hernia. The day after he died, there was the massacre of Bishop and his Cabinet, followed by the US invasion. One of the first things the US invaders did was to destroy the electricity generating plant. Thereafter, truckloads of US marines were despatched to take bodies from the hospital morgue and funeral homes and go and bury them in the St George’s cemetery. It was after the invasion had ended that Agnes was told where the marines had buried her husband. Four months after his unnecessary death, Wilfred and Agnes were to have celebrated their 50^th wedding anniversary. Gus was truly traumatised by that turn of events and angry at the way Maurice Bishop had met his death and at the thought that that had brought the situation in which Reagan’s marines had had the temerity to bury his father. John had known both of Gus’ parents very well prior to their return to Grenada in 1973. He and Sarah were therefore an enormous source of strength to Gus during that whole period.

The Islamic Mafia

Successive strands of immigration law have privileged Asian men over Asian women, with the latter coming to the UK as brides to marry resident men. Gus and the Black Parents Movement (BPM) in Manchester took a stand in support of three such women who had been reported to the Home Office by their husbands as being here illegally, because having abused them those men were no longer prepared to have those women as part of their extended family. Gus wrote repeatedly to Timothy Raison, then Secretary of State for Home Affairs, successfully stating why the women should be given exceptional leave to remain in this country. John and the BPM in London provided constant support to the anti-deportation campaign and to Gus in the face of the onslaught from the Islamic mafia.

16 Year Old Sido John

Sido, Gus’s first son, developed a number of abscesses beneath his skull when he was just 16. Gus took him to the hospital and was told they needed to operate immediately and that there was only a 50% chance that he would survive. He eventually had four operations on his brain within 48 hours ... but survived with minimum brain damage. Gus was totally devastated. Jill was in Wisconsin USA burying her father. John and Sarah were a tower of strength to Gus during that entire period. Sido eventually recovered with no greater impairment than a limp. He also needed to learn to write with his left hand. He continued his ‘A’ level studies and then went on to become a medical doctor.

Club of Dance and Self Defence

The Club of Dance and Self Defence (CDSD) was being run as a commercial enterprise within an adult education facility funded by the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) in Paragon Road, Southwark, near Elephant and Castle. The CDSD was really an extortionist racket. The players involved were illegally subletting the premises (an old ILEA school on four floors) to various community organisations and sole traders and were using strong arm tactics to intimidate and bully ‘tenants’ to pay up. As Assistant Education Officer and Head of Community Education, Gus discovered that this practice had been going on for many years with the full knowledge of the ILEA. He also discovered that the ILEA had taken no action out of fear of being accused of racism by the CDSD. Gus decided to hold the CDSD to account and they saw him as upsetting the apple cart. His car was vandalised and the ringleader in CDSD, a black man from St Lucia and a black belt at karate, threatened Gus that if he didn’t lay off, he would give him a karate chop, break his neck and dance on his grave. Gus tackled the Education Officer, William Stubbs and the elected politicians in the ILEA and provoked a crisis. John La Rose was instrumental in giving Gus a listening ear and much needed moral and political support in dealing with the ILEA.

That headteacher in Hackney

Early in 1994, Jane Brown, headteacher of Kingsmead Primary School, refused permission for her school to take part in a project sponsored by the Royal Opera House. In this project, members of the Royal Ballet would work with Hackney school children on a drama and dance project based upon Romeo and Juliet and the Prokofiev score for that ballet for a gala performance at the ROH. A number of other Hackney schools took on the project and completed it with dazzling results. Brown refused on the grounds that Romeo and Juliet was promoting heterosexism. This information was leaked to members of the media and the predictable response was front page stories of a politically correct headteacher in a loony left Council seeing heterosexuality as abnormal. The media descended upon the Education Directorate in Hackney and Gus was thrust into the front line while Hackney Town Hall took cover. As the media delved into Jane Brown’s background, it emerged that she was in a relationship with the Chair of Governors of her school, a relationship which allegedly pre-dated her appointment as headteacher. Insofar as that Chair of Governors had been involved in the recruitment and selection of the headteacher, Gus set up an inquiry in order to satisfy himself, other candidates for that post and the general public that that was not a case where nepotism prevailed and where the successful applicant, i.e. Jane Brown, had had an unfair advantage over other applicants by reason of her involvement with the Chair of Governors.

Gus’ decision to launch the investigation was roundly criticised by lesbians and gays from across the country. He was accused of ‘outing Jane Brown’ and there was a letter writing campaign across Britain and beyond. The Southall Black Sisters whom Gus and John and the movement had supported through many crises entered the fray and publicly supported the view that Gus was homophobic and was persecuting Jane Brown because she was a lesbian.

This was by far the most difficult of a host of issues Gus had to contend with in Hackney, and dealing with it was only possible because of the ‘war council’ that met at 2 Albert Road most evenings, with John providing strategic leadership.

The CBE

Tony Blair’s office wrote to Gus in the autumn of 1999 to announce Blair’s intention of having the Queen make Gus a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the New Year Honours of 2000. As with most other matters of this kind, Gus shared with John his response to Blair by way of refusal, and John made some crucial suggestions with respect to the messages we wished that response to convey to the Prime Minister.

(c) Gus John 1 February 2007