Dark days in the Dale

One of the great books to have come out of the British-West Indian encounter is Journey to an Illusion by the Jamaican journalist (and former London bus conductor) Donald Hinds. Published in 1966, the book is made up of a series of interviews with Jamaicans and other West Indians resident in Britain. Throughout, Hinds is haunted by the ‘race disturbances’ that swept Britain in 1958. Tensions erupted first in Nottingham then, more grievously, in west London. White youths (‘Teddy Boys’ to the tabloid press) beat up blacks and Asians in Shepherd’s Bush and the area then known as Notting Dale between the factories of Wood Lane and the newly claimed middle-class streets of Notting Hill Gate. Sir Oswald Mosley’s Union Party rallied support for the ‘Keep Britain White’ cause. So began four days of the worst rioting the United Kingdom had ever seen.