Loving the Lysaght

Report by Diana Gonzalez - Garcia

Black History Month 2019 at the Lysaght Institute

On 26 of October 2019 the Lysaght Institute hosted an events to celebrate Black History Month in Newport. Grassroot communities from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic groups (BAME) and backgrounds came together to listen to presentations, music, community performances and to taste delicious African Caribbean food as history makers and custodians of the future.

Videos – Black History Month Celebration event 2020 at Lysaght InstituteVideos – Black

The event was an opportunity for the ‘Loving the Lysaght’ project to gather stories from a BAME perspective about relationships with the Lysaght Institute

Impressions from the BAME Communities

After listening to different people during the Black History Month event, there was one recurring theme: the racist prejudice that this community felt back in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s.

One of the stories from a woman in her 60s was that they were not welcome to attend the parties in the Lysaght Institute. She remembered that ‘not many black people were invited to come along, as the parties and events were mainly for white people’. For this reason, she insisted that she didn’t have much to say about Lysaght Institute.

Another story from a man was about his experience playing in a band for Lysaght events in the 60’s. He couldn’t dance with white women as it wasn’t seen right by the people in the room. He said,’ the only way a black guy could dance with white ladies was if he was working at the Orbs’. However, he remembered that not many black people worked in the steelwork for those days. He shared his own story about a job opportunity at the Orb where he had an interview and it went so well that he thought the job was for him. When he finished the interview, that same day he met with a friend to share his satisfaction of how well it went. His friend disappointed him when affirming the fact that no matter how good you were for the role, the Orb were not employing black people. He confirmed that he was not offered the job.

Interview with Roy Grant (Chairperson Age Alive)

Roy is the Chair of Age Alive in Newport. He has lived in Newport since 1962. He came from Jamaica as a young apprentice engineer.

Here’s Roys Story

Roy arrived in Birmingham first, however he was worn down by the racist prejudice against him. He told us that in the 60s Black people were often poor people and access to university was too expensive. He said that engineering firms in Birmingham didn’t want to hire Black people due to this stigma. For an applicant to get a job they had to know someone or be part of a family that was already working in the field. Consequently, Roy said that ‘as an outsider it was even more difficult to get a job’.

Audio interview -Roy Grant

Roy moved to Newport, where he could continue his apprenticeship as a tool maker engineer. He was given a job to develop the cutting tool for tufted and non-woollen carpets. Roy and his team had a contract with ICI to cut nylon. In his engineering team they used to make lot of cutting tools for the Orb Steelworks or Lysaght as these were doing their own rulers for steel.

When Roy arrived in Newport, there were not places to go out as a Black person. From that prospective, as a young man in his 20s years old, it was the beginning of The Big 3: Popular bands as The Beatles, Manfred Mann's Earth Band man, The Shadows and The Hayes. Local and national groups used to tour the clubs in Newport such as Lysaght, the British Railway Club that used to be in Malpas road and Abergavenny tunnel.

Roy used to see the groups playing around the clubs, but to get access in the clubs on those early days as a black person, if you weren’t part of a click or a gang then you would have been thrown out. Later in 1961, Roy and his friends used to go to a place in town called The Majestic (This is Argos nowadays). He was so into the Twist and Rock & Roll that he took part in a competition program for HTV Wales, the television company for Wales at the time, but to his surprise he was granted the second position.

It was in the British Railway Club that a few younger Black men could be found. In those days he said that Lysaght was mainly for ballroom dancing, He said there were not many Rock and Roll or Twist bands. He said that most of the Black people during the time were not that into ballroom dancing. However, if a Black man was going out with a group of white people to a Ballroom dance, then he might have gone to the Lysaghts..

“I don’t know exactly, but I think Lysaght was a conservative club. In the old days, if you were black, unless you have a very good friend, who was a conservative, you couldn’t go to a conservative club as you wish. You were

not allowed; they were very prejudice in a conservative club. But you could go into any labour club, they would let you in, don’t give a monkey, as long as you were spending your money”.

“I wouldn’t go to clubs on my own, I went there with a group of people from my work, women and men, so I would dance among the women who I know, so I didn’t have to dance with a strange person who her husband said. ‘ you cannot dance with my wife”.

Roy Grant

Black women didn’t go to clubs. Instead, they used to go from house to house for partying. Instead, black women and their kids used to visit each other houses to eat and share time together. The kids usually went upstairs to play while the women were downstairs having a good evening.

Another memory from Roy is the bowling ground behind The Lysaght Institute. There used to be a bowling green, taken by a warehouse recently, but it used to be part of Lysaght. Roy used to go with a friend who worked for British Telecom (BT) to play bowling at the Lysaght club for BT.

Black History Month Celebrations at the Lysaght Institute

Roy continued to describe how he felt throughout the 80’s and during the Black History Month celebrations. ‘Although the feeling at Lysaght for black people was not uneasy, they didn’t feel comfortable’. He continued to recall his personal experiences, and said ‘I remembered when we used to have a black history month event over there, sometimes you had so much people to serve upstairs so you had to come downstairs… if you had to go around to the other side to the bar, the members bar, they just look at you as if you fell from the sky… yeah they were very prejudice”.

Roy Grant