DAVID OLUSOGA: Hello, and welcome to The National Trust
Podcast. I'm David Olusoga, a historian and broadcaster. Some
of our most fascinating stories are unmarked in the landscape.
One such secret story can be found in an unassuming building
which lies nestled in Exmoor National Park. Today, Holnicote
House is a hotel, but during the Second World War, it was used as
a home for children,
Children who had been born to white British mothers and black
American GI fathers. Children who had been given up and placed
into care.
Today, we'll be unearthing the story of Britain's
so-called'Brown Babies' and revealing a forgotten part of
our history that is still affecting families today.
ANN: Mam and dad came here, the couple that adopted me, they
came. Now they saw me in that photograph in the newspaper, and
they picked out which child they wanted. My mother wanted, she
was desperate for a girl.
And then they asked me would I like to go with them, and I said
to the lady, I like you, yes, yes, I like you. And the matron
took me upstairs and explained, now this lady and gentleman were
going to give me a home. And my concern was... What about the
ones here? Where are they going? No, you're going on your own and
you'll be fine.
DAVID OLUSOGA: And you still feel, both of you, all these
decades later, a sense of coming home.
ANN: Absolutely.
CAROL: Now I belong here. This is my home.
DAVID OLUSOGA: The Holnicote Estate is best known as a
walker's paradise with over 12,000 acres of patchwork
landscape and walkways, all looked after by the National
Trust. It includes a wooded nature reserve, high rugged
moorlands and quintessentially English hamlets, as well as
miles of sandy and shingle coastline.
Nestling in this stunning landscape is Holnicote House
Hotel. Walking past, you would have no clue about the hidden
history of this hotel. There are no signs or exhibitions to hint
at this story. But during the Second World War, Holnicote
House played a unique role. It served as a children's home for
children born to black GIs and white British mothers.
We're here inside Holnicote House, and I'm here with Lucy
Bland, the author of a book called Britain's'Brown Babies',
that, through interviews, tells this rather forgotten story.
LUCY BLAND: That's right. So the term'Brown Babies' might seem a
strange one, but this was the term given by the African
American press to the children born to black GIs, and initially
British women, but then during the years of occupation in
Germany and Austria, to those children as well.
DAVID OLUSOGA: This story of the'Brown Babies' in Britain is
part of a bigger history of what happened socially when America
enters the war in 1941.
LUCY BLAND: So they start arriving in 1942. We're not sure
quite the numbers of black GIs, but passing through those three
years to the end of the war, probably at least 240,000.
Significant numbers. And this is despite various directives from
the government that they really didn't want these
interrelationships. Didn't want actually to have black GIs.
DAVID OLUSOGA: Because the American army was able to
segregate its bases. It was able to run a segregated army, but
they couldn't impose that sort of segregation on the people of
Britain. And so you do have this moment when British populations
suddenly encounter very large numbers of African Americans,
which, for the most part, is very positive.
LUCY BLAND: And they inevitably started to meet local women.
It's thought to be a step too far. I'll accept them as my
brothers, but not my brothers-in-law.
DAVID OLUSOGA: Millions of women have been separated from their
boyfriends, from their husbands, on an island in which millions
of men from all over the world, with money, with dashing
uniforms, suddenly arrive with people having very little money,
the threat of losing partners in the war and living for now.
LUCY BLAND: The women who went on and had children with black
GIs were treated often very, very badly. Often they're quite
young, they're living at home. Their families often reject them
and certainly say, get rid of this child. They're sent to
mother and baby homes.
There they're really pressurised to give the child up. And if
they were married and the man comes back, he might pressurise
her to give up the child. So it was incredibly hard, but I think
just over half of the mothers, or possibly the grandmothers,
did keep the child, despite all this.
DAVID OLUSOGA: Ideas around relationships and marriage and
sex, under the incredible pressures of the Second World
War, broke down in all sorts of ways. So it is not anything
exceptional that people had affairs with black GIs. And so
adding race into that just meant that the children who were the
product of those relationships were visible.
LUCY BLAND: That's right. I mean, there was a stigma of
illegitimacy, but then the stigma of being mixed race on
top of that was a huge stigma for them.
DAVID OLUSOGA: This place, Holnicote House, it's part of a
whole infrastructure that's there to facilitate these
children being taken from their mothers.
LUCY BLAND: Yeah, I think that's right. And there were various
charities that obviously wanted to so-called help these
children. So Honeycutt House is this absolutely beautiful House
in Somerset. And. It was under the ownership of the Acklands.
And in 1942-43, it was requisitioned by Somerset County
Council for evacuees. And so then they start filling it with
children who are being born locally to black GIs. Since
then, it's been a hotel for walking holidays. So it's kept
going as this wonderful place to be.
DAVID OLUSOGA: I'm here with Anne Evans and Carol Edwards,
childhood friends, to revisit their story here at Holnicote
House. And to shine a light on a hidden part of British history.
Carol, you look very emotional.
CAROL: Yes, I do. I've felt a lot of emotion coming back to my
beginnings.
DAVID OLUSOGA: To your beginnings?
CAROL: It's my third visit to the place in what?
70 odd years and it just brings back so many happy memories
DAVID OLUSOGA: And where you two met a long time ago. And this
room in particular this is the lounge now the house is a hotel.
This was a place that you played?
ANN: This is the playroom yes. And we had the doll and the crib
and the other toys. It wouldn't be just us two maybe someone
else would join in because all the toys there belonged to
everyone
CAROL: Yeah nothing was mine all yours it was ours.
DAVID OLUSOGA: Seven decades later you both feel that you
were you were shaped by your very early years
CAROL: Absolutely
DAVID OLUSOGA: And how old were you when you arrived Ann?
ANN: I was three days old when I got you and I was four and
eleven months when I went from here.
DAVID OLUSOGA: And how about you, Carol?
CAROL: I arrived here when I was about two and a half weeks and I
left probably about the same time as that. I think we all
left almost all together, didn't we? You're five, yeah. Yeah.
ANN: You moved on to a different place when you came to five, but
I was adopted, so...
DAVID OLUSOGA: How about you, Carol?
CAROL: I went from here to Wellington.
DAVID OLUSOGA: Which was another children's home.
CAROL: Yeah, yeah.
DAVID OLUSOGA: Again at Somerset?
CAROL: Yeah, and I was there until I was about 12. Yeah, I
liked it a lot. I was happy there.
But there's no place like home.
DAVID OLUSOGA: You describe the children here as a happy bunch.
CAROL: We were happy.
DAVID OLUSOGA: Here's a photograph. I think it's a
testimony to that. When I look at this picture, I see children
who look really close. You're all touching each other. You're
hugging each other. There's hands on shoulders. Can you tell
me?
CAROL: That's Leon, my boyfriend. I was going to marry
him at that age, I tell you.
DAVID OLUSOGA: And where were you, Carol?
CAROL: That one. That's me. That's Deborah.
DAVID OLUSOGA: Where were you at?
ANN: In the front.
DAVID OLUSOGA: There you are.
CAROL: She's always in the front.
ANN: About three, I think, when I was taken.
DAVID OLUSOGA: I thought that was you when I saw this picture.
The gang.
CAROL: Yeah.
DAVID OLUSOGA: And the nurses, I mean, these are nursery nurses.
Yeah, nursery nurses. I mean, they were probably teenagers.
CHAMION CABALLERO: They were 17 and 18, that's all they were.
But no, they were lovely.
DAVID OLUSOGA: Do you think you were insulated from the racism
of Britain in the 40s and 50s by being here with these very kind
young nurses.
ANN: Yes, I think we were.
DAVID OLUSOGA: And it does explain this happy little gang
of kids on the lawn 70 years ago.
CAROL: Yeah. Yeah, we were happy, we were healthy and we
were loved.
DAVID OLUSOGA: Should we have a look at some other rooms where
you might have other memories?
ANN: Yes, yes, by all means. Do you want to go to the potty
room, Carol?
CAROL: I want to see the potty room.
DAVID OLUSOGA: You lead the way.
ANN: No it wasn't in there... it isn't that one
CAROL: We've lost the potty room
See, I can remember all these brown doors.
DAVID OLUSOGA: Shall we try down here?
Do you remember these tiles, this pattern?
ANN: I would think this is more or less where it was.
DAVID OLUSOGA: And this was the potty room is that right?
ANN: And that was it, yeah. And you'd take the pots out of
there, and we'd all line up there.
CAROL: Yeah.
ANN: Bums on each pot. Yeah. And Leon then would be the leader.
We're going to play trains.
DAVID OLUSOGA: Should we go and look at some other rooms and see
if they bring up other memories?
CAROL: Yes. Okay.
Ah, yes. Here we go.
DAVID OLUSOGA: So what was this room?
CAROL: Piano room.
DAVID OLUSOGA: Piano room. Hence the piano.
CAROL: Let's give it a little tinkle. Look at the state of
these keys. Yes. Do you remember that one? Do you know why that's
white? It's been replaced because that's the one you broke
your teeth on.
DAVID OLUSOGA: This key in the piano?
CAROL: It had to be replaced because you used to chew them.
ANN: Yeah, I was chewing them, yeah.
DAVID OLUSOGA: And this is a big room.
CAROL: It's lovely.
DAVID OLUSOGA: I can imagine all the children in that photograph.
All of you running around.
CAROL: And the noise bouncing off the walls.
ANN: And one of the nurses would play the piano for us all to
sing Christmas carols.
DAVID OLUSOGA: So your first Christmas is...
ANN: Was spent here, yeah.
DAVID OLUSOGA: And out there, it's a view into the front
garden.
So this is now out in the garden. It is absolutely
beautiful.
CAROL: Yeah. Same old trees.
DAVID OLUSOGA: A lot bigger.
CAROL: A lot bigger, yeah.
DAVID OLUSOGA: Shall we head down?
CAROL: Yeah, yeah.
Living here, it was like every day was a summer's day, wasn't
it Ann? We'd get up, get dressed, wash, have our
breakfast, to the potty room, outside, until the sun went
down.
ANN: Go for a walk then
CAROL: Go for a walk, lots of walks, didn't we?
That's why I'm so short.
DAVID OLUSOGA: So you were taken out of here on walks in the
countryside?
ANN: Yeah, all over the place.
CAROL: Walked almost every day, didn't we?
DAVID OLUSOGA: And so the reasons why you were brought
here were to do with racial attitudes in society, but for
the years you were here this was a sanctuary from those
attitudes.
CAROL: Absolutely.
ANN: When I was in South Wales I was told on a regular basis to
get back where I belonged, as they didn't want me in
Cwmtillery, and I kept saying I'm not going anywhere, I live
here.
DAVID OLUSOGA: And up until that point, because you'd been here
at Holnicote, you'd not experienced this?
ANN: No, never. Didn't even know what they were on about. I'd got
into the family well. I had four older brothers and I acquired a
grandmother and a grandfather who were lovely. They were
lovely people. And my grandmother, I got very close to
my grandmother. And she would row with anyone who had a mind
to say anything to me. She'd row with them.
DAVID OLUSOGA: You mean anything racist?
ANN: Yeah.
CAROL: Unlike Anne and some of the other children, I didn't get
any sort of racial abuse. I was about maybe 15, 16. That's when
I realised I was different. And the only reason I came to that
conclusion was through music.
I thought, right, I'm going to save up and get a record player.
Meanwhile, I buy some records. The first one I got was Shirley
Bassey. Still got it to this day. It's called In the Still Of
The Night. It cost me 19 shillings and 11 pence, which is
a penny short of a pound in today's money. Still got it,
still play it.
SPK_5: And I can remember hearing Shirley Bassey. I
thought, wow, what a voice. And then I got into Sarah Vaughan
and Billy Eckstein and Ella Fitzgerald. And I looked at the
covers and I thought, hang on a minute. Because they were all
black. And I'm thinking, they look like me. And from that day
on, I've been black and proud.
DAVID OLUSOGA: As you moved on through life, what did it make
you think about your own childhood and how you'd been
brought up?
ANN: When I decided to look for my biological mother, I went
around to my four brothers to pass it with them, because as
long as mam and dad were still alive, I wouldn't have looked.
DAVID OLUSOGA: And where did that search take you?
ANN: Well, it took me to find my mother, eventually, who really
didn't want to know anyway. It was just a mistake. I had too
much to drink. And I said, well, look, all I want from you is the
name of my father. And she gave me that, and I said, and from
then on, I shan't bother you anymore. I got too much to lose.
CAROL: My father was always in touch with me through his niece.
At one point, he tried to get custody of me, going through the
local authorities. And at that point, I was still at school. I
was about 14, 15. And the authorities saying that Carol's
happy where she is. Because he wanted me to go out there.
DAVID OLUSOGA: To the United States.
CAROL: To live, yeah. And they said, no, it wouldn't be... It
wouldn't be fair to me to send me off to a different country,
into a different family where people are a lot blacker than
me. So, no, he gave up in the end.
DAVID OLUSOGA: Even though your father was trying to reunite
with you, the authorities got in the way and felt that way.
CAROL: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I don't think I would have
gone anyway, David. No
DAVID OLUSOGA: I just wanted to ask you about what happened
after you became adults and went on to have families of your own.
ANN: When I was very young when I met my husband, I was 15 and
we'd only been going out about 12 months I think and he said,
I'm going to marry you. He was white. And I said, I don't think
your mother likes me. Don't matter what she likes, he said,
I'm going to marry you. And three years later we got married
and we lasted for 60, nearly 61 years which he passed six weeks
ago. And we had four children, two boys and two girls.
My children experienced a bit of racism, but of course I tried to
explain to them I may have been overprotective, which, you know,
as far as some people were concerned, but as far as I was
concerned, that was my duty as a mother. I was to protect my
children.
DAVID OLUSOGA: Do you think there's anything that you guys
had, because you're such a close-knit group of children,
that is kind of special, sort of almost, that other children
don't have?
ANN: But I think and that's why. Because it was so special. It
doesn't matter how old we are, we've still got that connection.
DAVID OLUSOGA: And it must be special to look at that
photograph of that little group of children.
ANN: Well, it'll always remain special, I think.
SPK_5: Just to say there wasn't more children in that photo.
It's just a handful, isn't it? I counted the number of heads I
saw in this Christmas photo and I counted at least 30 heads.
There might have been a few more, I don't know.
ANN: And I still try and keep in contact with Carol and Deborah
and now we have found another two children that was in the
home with us and in contact with them all. And I hope I'm able to
keep that up until we all drop off our perch one by one.
DAVID OLUSOGA: I've just left Anne and Carol and I've come to
find out more about the modern legacy of this history with
Chamion Caballero. Hi there
CHAMION CABALLERO: Hi David.
DAVID OLUSOGA: So this is a history that for all sorts of
reasons was brushed under the carpet. But that's been
changing, and it's been changing even faster because of modern
technology.
CHAMION CABALLERO: That's right. I'm the director of The Mixed
Museum. We're an online museum and archive sharing and
preserving the history of racial mixing in Britain. And one of
the questions we get asked the most often is, can you help me
find my black GI relatives? We usually pass those inquiries on
to a wonderful organisation called GI Trace and they help
the children of GIs find their families using DNA testing.
What is possible now is through the science of DNA testing,
answers can be found that were much more difficult to find
before. When we receive inquiries, some of those come
from what we call the original'Brown Babies', but
increasingly we're getting inquiries from their children
and their grandchildren.
DAVID OLUSOGA: Those journeys to find lost fathers in this case,
irrespective of whether it's'Brown Babies' in the 1940s
or any other form of family separation, they can be very
challenging and the outcomes are not always what people want. How
do you manage those realities?
CHAMION CABALLERO: What we're finding is really helpful is the
connecting of the people who have gone through this process
to share their stories with each other.
DAVID OLUSOGA: With one another.
CHAMION CABALLERO: That's right.
DAVID OLUSOGA: So even if it doesn't work out, even if the
trace leads to a dead end or someone who doesn't want to
speak, you've at least joined a community.
CHAMION CABALLERO: Absolutely. Before we could get to talking
about the science of DNA testing, we actually had to let
people tell their stories. We really had to let people tell
their stories because so many people grew up isolated, not
meeting anybody else who looked like them. And so finding that
they felt themselves outsiders. Even where they knew that they
had black heritage, that heritage wasn't connected to the
post-Windrush migration.
So people would assume that people were of African Caribbean
descent, of African descent, but actually their heritage is
African American, very different history, particularly the
legislation against interracial marriage. So our current
project, we currently have a group of around 30'Brown Babies'
families members who have come together to explore the role of
DNA testing in their lives.
DAVID OLUSOGA: It is remarkable, isn't it, that eight decades
after the end of the war, that there are still people
contacting organisations like yours saying, I think, I think I
might be descended from a black GI.
CHAMION CABALLERO: Yes. One person told me that she's in her
80s and people have said to her, you haven't found your dad.
You've had a happy life. Does it matter? And she said, it
matters. It will always matter. And I won't stop searching until
the end.
DAVID OLUSOGA: And it's a search for knowledge.
CHAMION CABALLERO: It's a search for knowledge.
DAVID OLUSOGA: And identity.
CHAMION CABALLERO: And identity, very much so, of who you are.
It's been really important actually that the children and
grandchildren of the'Brown Babies' have started to become
involved in this process. They are giving their mothers and
fathers the confidence to speak out about subjects that have
previously been shrouded in secrecy and shame. They're
telling them that it's okay to talk about this. In fact, it's
really important to talk about this. And by talking about it,
you open up this history and you help preserve it for other
people.
DAVID OLUSOGA: So we are out in the garden, sat at a table in
front of Holnicote House, Anne and Carol. You still feel, both
of you, all these decades later, a sense of coming home?
CAROL: Absolutely.
DAVID OLUSOGA: You're here to keep alive the memory of a
strange and remarkable chapter in the long history of this
house. And when you walk around on this lawn and you walk
between those rooms...
CAROL: I can hear children laughing. And do you know what?
I can never ever remember children crying. Can you?
ANN: No, no.
CAROL: Except when you hit them. Do you remember when you used to
hit them? They used to cry then, didn't they?
ANN: It was her it was, and she's blaming me.
DAVID OLUSOGA: I think it's an untold chapter to this story
about Ann's naughtiness.
Thank you for listening to this episode of the National Trust
Podcast. If you'd like to discover more about the story of
Britain's'Brown Babies' and explore more first-hand
interviews, you could start with Lucy Bland's book,
Britain's'Brown Babies', or head to The Mixed Museum at
mixedmuseum.org.uk.
If this podcast has resonated with you and you'd like to
explore your family's connections to the GIs of the
Second World War, you can connect with our experts and
explore The Mixed Museum and GI Trace. And you can keep up with
all episodes of the National Trust Podcast by following us on
your favourite podcast app. That's all from me, David
Olusoga. Goodbye.