Robert
Kee was born in 1919. After graduating from Magdalen
College, Oxford he joined the Royal
Air Force. During
the Second World War he was shot down over Germany
and spent four years in a Prisoner of War Camp.
After
the war Kee worked for Picture Post
(1948-51), The Observer
(1956-57),
The Sunday Times (1957-58)
and the BBC (1958-62).
As
well as the novels A Crowd is Not Company
(1947), The Impossible Shore (1949)
and A Sign of the Times (1955)
he has written several history books on Ireland including The
Green Flag (1972), Ireland: A
History (1980), Parnell and Irish
Nationalism (1993).
(1)
Robert
Kee, Picture
Post (3rd
July, 1948)
Although there are no official
figures, the coloured population of Great Britain is estimated by
both the Colonial Office and the League of Coloured People at about
25,000, including students. This total is distributed over the whole
of Britain, but there are two large concentrated communities: one
of about 7000 in the dock area of Cardiff round London Square, popularly
known as 'Tiger Bay', and the other of about 8000 in the shabby mid-nineteenth
century residential South End of Liverpool. It is most important to
remember that all colonial coloured people, of whatsoever origin or
class, have been brought up to think of Britain as 'The Mother Country'.
This is particularly true of the West Indians, who no longer have
the tribal associations and native language which can still provide
some fundamental security for the disillusioned African. The West
Indian disillusioned with Britain is deprived of all sense of security.
He becomes, quite understandably, the most sensitive and neurotic
member of the coloured community.
For Britain's colour problem
there are a few practical and remedial steps that can be taken. But
it can only be solved By a true integration of white and coloured
people in one society. And for that to take place there must be some
sort of revolution inside every individual mind - coloured and white
- where prejudices based on bitterness, ignorance or patronage have
been established.
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