Foreigners (19 page)

The history of Leeds begins with the river; without the
river Leeds would never have come into being. Thirty miles
to the north-west of the present-day city, a thin trickle of
water dribbles through the massive limestone cliff of
Malham Cove, which is part of the brooding Pennine range
that forms the knobbly spine running up the middle of
England. The thin trickle of water falls and becomes a
stream, and soon after the stream bursts and becomes a
river named Aire. The river flows quickly, to the south and
to the east through the Aire Valley and in the direction
of the much mightier River Humber. When the Romans
laid out a road from York (Eboracum) in the east to
Manchester (Mancunium) in the west the River Aire was
an obstacle that had to be crossed. Eventually the Romans
decided that the road should cross the River Aire at a
place near the present-day Leeds Bridge.

For 400 years the Romans occupied Britain, subduing
sporadic uprisings, civilising the local people, and educating
them in the ways of bathing, heating, and construction.
However, before the coming of the Romans, tribal Celtic
people had cleared the lush woodland of the Aire Valley.
Having done so they grew oats and barley, and raised sheep,
pigs, and cattle on both banks of the River Aire. They
lived in circular stone huts, and ground their corn and
flour in handmade pottery. Although their 'civilisation'
progressed from stone to bronze, and then from bronze
to iron, this evolution could not disguise their essential
warlike tribal nature. They built ramparts and defences
against each other, and they fought with habitual ferocity,
slaughtering families and livestock. However, when the
Romans arrived, under the command of Julius Caesar, and
began their regimented, disciplined march through the
foggy island, the tribal people soon capitulated. The Aire
Valley, and the people contained therein, submitted to the
iron-fisted authority of Roman rule, but the invaders knew
that in order to ensure no further nonsense from these
Britons it would be necessary to build roads along which
Roman troops could quickly move through this uncultured
land. And so Leeds was born, for one such road crossed
the River Aire.

Roman Leeds (Loidis) is memorialised only by occasional
discoveries of shards of pottery, or old coins. Roman
Britain soon became Christian Britain, and although the
Romans continued to rule they were forever battling
marauding Pagan tribes who were determined to overthrow
them. In AD 410 the Eternal City of Rome was herself
sacked, and Anglo-Saxon tribes seized this opportunity
and invaded the island of Britain. Eventually, the exhausted
Romans let it be known that it was the duty of the Britons
to protect their own land, including the river settlement
of Loidis, and thereafter the Dark Ages descended upon
Britain as the Saxons and the Jutes and the Angles swarmed
across the chaotic land. Pagan tribal kings killed Christian
tribal kings who in turn killed pagan tribal kings. Leeds
was a Christian region which possessed a ninth-century
church of some size and importance, and when the Vikings
eventually invaded Anglican Britain, and set up their capital
at York, they were aware of the important township to
the west over which they immediately proceeded to exercise
their Danish law. Leeds was growing in size, and
although much of the land beyond the manorial settlement
remained heavily wooded, there were some clearings
that included, north of the river, such villages as Headingley,
Seacroft, and Alwoodley, and south of the river the villages
of Armley, Bramley, and Beeston.

The settlement of Leeds suffered the misery of being
visited by the plagues that swept Britain in 987, in 1001,
and again in 1046, and the population of the township
was decimated. In 1066, the Normans, under the command
of Duke William of Normandy, crossed the Channel,
killed the new English king and imposed their Gallic rule,
but the north of England objected and rebelled. Three
years later, in 1069, a frustrated William led his army on
a mission to sack, destroy, and forever subdue the northern
population, a campaign of action which became known as
the Harrying of the North. Almost half of Yorkshire's
1,900 settlements were totally destroyed, and a significant
number were cripplingly damaged, but Leeds was spared
the might of the Norman hammer. The evidence of her
good fortune is made clear in the Doomsday Book of 1086
which recounts that, during this period, the value of the
township of Leeds, with a population of approximately
200, actually increased.

The township's simple structures were dominated by the
manor house, the parish church, and the mill, and agriculture
was the means by which most people made their
living. The tilling of the soil, and the breeding and slaughter
of beasts, took place in accordance with the changing
seasons. Norman Leeds, like other settlements in the
kingdom, developed a cyclical pattern of life. Nestled in
the Aire Valley, and located at an important river crossing,
under Norman rule Leeds quickly began to develop and
dominate the surrounding villages both economically and
in terms of the grandeur of her vision. Throughout the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries, as Norman England gradually
gave way to medieval England, the township by the
river crossing continued to grow. It adhered to a model
of feudalism in which land was held by the king, who
stood at the apex of the system, with barons and noblemen,
down to the peasants, ranged beneath him in an orderly
fashion. All offered the king some form of service in
exchange for their right to occupy their particular station
in society.

Medieval life centred around the manor house, with its
communal oven, and there was a tightly organised taxation
structure so that all monies flowed back towards the lord
of the manor, who owed his allegiance directly to the king.
However, the manorial township of Leeds, whose manor
house was located near Kirkgate, was not generating enough
money to satisfy the lord of the manor so an extension
of the town, centring on Briggate, was established. In this
new town the freeholder of the land had no political rights,
but they were permitted to build workshops and establish
crafts and industries which, it was hoped, would eventually
generate more income for the lord. By the fourteenth
century the new town and the old manorial township had
fused as one, and the influence of the old system was
declining as the actual manor house itself began to fall
into disrepair. Profits from usage of the land began to fall
sharply, and it was becoming clear to residents and visitors
alike that Leeds was an increasingly dilapidated town.
This situation was made worse by the arrival, in July 1348,
of the bubonic plague. However, compared to the damage
visited upon other English towns, Leeds escaped quite
lightly.

After the plague, Leeds sought to arrest its decline and
develop an industrial base. Blacksmiths were encouraged,
coal mines were sunk, mills for the grinding of corn were
constructed, but most notably, the woollen industry began
now to dominate the economy. Having an advantageous
position on a river, and a major road connection, the
burgeoning woollen textile industry was able to rapidly
develop. The wool was delivered by local farmers and then
sorted into proper grades, washed, and the matted fibres
straightened. The straightened wool fibres were then spun
into thread, and the threads woven into one continuous
cloth. The cloth was wetted so that it would shrink, and
then trampled upon so that the fibres would mat together.
Thereafter, the wet cloth was placed on frames and
stretched, then dyed and finished, which often meant raising
the pile by brushing it. Leeds cloth was known as 'northern
dozens', and cut to about four metres. It was taken to the
Monday market in Leeds where this quality product soon
developed a national reputation. Leeds men were known
to be well-dressed individuals in good wool cloth, and the
townspeople, including those who in the future would dress
in long black coats and stand at the bottom of Button
Hill, were smartly attired. The sheer quality of the cloth
on the back of the town's population would ensure that
this small northern town began now to swell in size, wealth,
and renown.

And after twenty-eight days of darkness they released you,
David. No longer a stowaway. No longer a prisoner. You
had endured your punishment and you were free in your
new city, and surrounded by strange white faces. It was
nearly winter. You were cold, but you were determined,
and you found yourself a place to sleep. Beyond Woodhouse
Moor and behind the university. 209 Belle Vue Road, a
tall three-storey terraced brick house, handsome in its
proportions, easily divisible into living units. A room in a
house. A room in an overcrowded house full of working
men, but none of them African. Lonely David, all by yourself.
And at night when you lay on your single mattress
and listened to the sound of doors banging and voices
being raised, and lovers calling out to each other with
passionate indifference, you understood that you were in
a new country. You curled your small shivering body tightly
into a ball in an attempt to trap some heat and survive
the night. And in the morning you took the bus to the
central bus station, and then walked over Crown Point
Bridge to the far bank of the River Aire and past the
factory that made engines for trains that would soon be
dispatched to India and other far-flung corners of the
empire. You followed the hundreds of workers who flowed
down Black Bull Street and in the direction of the bleak
factories that choked the lanes and alleyways between
Hunslet Road and the River Aire, and you walked briskly
towards your job at West Yorkshire Foundries. You generally
had to have some sort of skill to find employment in
Hunslet, particularly if you worked at West Yorkshire
Foundries for this was a place that made mouldings, but
only for top-of-the-line cars. Smart cars, like Triumph.
However, in this factory there was some low-skilled work,
and they employed you, David. And then, at the end of
the day, you would hear the hooter and walk out on to
the windswept streets where you crossed paths with those
flooding in to do the night shift. Up above your head, you
could see the chimneys which continued to pump out soot
and smoke into the grey sky. Aside from the one row of
back-to-back houses on Sayer Road (whose occupants were
always the last to arrive at work for they would not roll
out of bed until they heard the hooter) you passed nothing
but factories on your walk back to and over Crown Point
Bridge. Row upon row of factories. Once you reached the
bus station you'd wait for the bus that would take you
home. To 209 Belle Vue Road and your room in a house
full of foreigners with their strange food, and their strange
music. The English you were already used to, for they were
a part of your world in Nigeria, but many nations lived
in this noisy house. If it was not a night when you had
to attend college you might walk up the hill and then
across Woodhouse Moor towards Chapeltown and the pubs
that would accept you; pubs in which you might reasonably
expect to find those in whose company you might
pass some time. And once there, in a pub, you would stand
with your half of beer (because you were not much of a
drinker) and listen to the talk and the laughter until the
man behind the bar rang the bell ('Time, ladies and
gentlemen, please'). Because everybody was grateful to the
man for not running a pub that operated a colour bar all
drinks would be drunk quickly and then, as a group, everybody
would leave the pub and you would turn to the right
by yourself and begin the long trek back across Woodhouse
Moor, which often involved enduring the hostility of young
louts who idled on benches, or beneath trees, smoking
cigarettes and eager to embrace trouble. But you ignored
them and pressed calmly on your way, although sometimes
you were forced to flee in your suit and collar and tie, but
being young and fit you were able to fly away from your
enemies and go home to 209 Belle Vue Road and pass
quickly up the stairs to your room. And then you disappeared,
David. And then you just disappeared.

I first saw him in the Cambridge pub on North Street.
He was part of a group of coloureds who were drinking.
Mainly Africans, I think. I noticed him because he was so
smartly dressed. This must have been about 1950 or 1951.
The Cambridge didn't have a colour bar, unlike most of
the other pubs in Leeds. Most of them had big signs in
the window that read 'No Coloureds, No Dogs, No
Gypsies', that sort of thing. Either that, or they'd have a
quota which meant they'd only let a certain number in so
as not to 'spoil' the English atmosphere. Nightclubs nearly
always had a quota, apart from the Mecca Ballroom in
town where anybody could go and dance. But in most cases
pubs just preferred to have an outright bar on coloureds.
The Cambridge on North Street was different, and they
didn't give anybody any hassle. That's where I first saw
him. The pubs closed at 10:30 p.m. in those days, and when
we all came out of the pub everybody turned to the left.
David was the only one who turned to the right and he
began to walk off by himself. I asked one of the others
where he was going to, and they said that he lived over by
the university so I assumed that he must have been a student.
In those days there were two groups of Africans in Leeds.
The first group were the students, and most of them lived
around the university area. The second group were the
working Africans and they mainly centred around the
Chapeltown area. In fact, some of the workers also studied
at night. During the day they might be employed in some
form of engineering, but at nights they would study. But,
you know, as time went by a lot of them stopped studying
and they just concentrated on making money. But there
were always the two groups, the workers and the students.
The two groups would often converse together in the pubs
without any problems, but when we all left the pub they
would go their separate ways. On this particular night, the
first night that I met him, the working group turned left
towards Spencer Place, which was the neighbourhood that
they all lived in. David turned right.