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Jessamy: Hello and welcome to a special episode of the Lancet Voice for Black History Month here in the UK. I'm Jessamy Bagonall.
Gavin: And I'm Gavin Cleaver. We've got a packed show today, and we're also joined on hosting and discussion duties by two of the founding members of the Lancet's group for racial equality, Senior Executive Editor at the Lancet, Dr Pamela Das, and Senior Editor at the Lancet Global Health, Mandeep Aujla.
First, for this Black History Month podcast, Jessamy and I spoke with Dr. Kevin Fenton, who's the Director of PHE London and an important figure in the capital's COVID response. Okay, Kevin Fenton, thank you so much for joining us today on this Black History Month podcast. There's a profile of you in this week's issue of The Lancet as well, but we thought it would be great to flash that out by by having a bit of a chat with you.
And so thank you so much for joining us.
Kevin: Great. Thank you. It really is a pleasure to be here with you and such a, an honor to be featured in this edition for Black History Month, which is such an important time of reflection of also thinking to the future as well. So this is an excellent opportunity to continue the conversation.
Jessamy: Kevin, you've had such an amazing and varied career and I was reading your profile before this interview. You did your PhD on the variation of STIs across racial and ethnic groups, which I believe was stimulated by your experience of HIV and AIDS. I just wondered whether you might tell us about that time in your life.
And then, after that, there's there's been a lot of parallels drawn between HIV and COVID 19. And I wondered what your reflections were on it.
Kevin: Yeah when I arrived in the UK, when I came back to the UK in the early 1990s and completed my master's degree in public health, I wanted to continue my post grad training in public health.
But I had a love for academia and academic research. And one of the first opportunities I had was to work with Professor Dame Anne Johnson. at the University College London at UCL and with Dayman, I was able to do my PhD, which as you say, we looked at the realities and contexts and drivers of variations in rates of HIV and STIs across racial and ethnic groups in the UK.
And this was important at that time for a number of reasons. It was a time before the availability of highly effective antiretroviral therapies. It was a time when we were seeing increases in HIV rates among especially black Africans, many of whom had migrated to here. From Sub Saharan Africa and who were either diagnosed with HIV or acquired their infection here in the United Kingdom.
And it was also time when we were grappling with high rates of bacterial STIs among some minority groups which had been described for decades previously. I was really keen to Take my initial training and to ask why are we seeing these differences and why for some communities, these disproportionate rates were being described year on year and yet our prevention and treatment efforts were not getting ahead of the epidemic curves.
And what were the implications for emerging communities such as Britain's black African communities when it came to understanding the impact on these diseases and the role that their social, cultural, behavioral context would play on the epidemiology. So it was a really interesting piece of work that really looked at both the epidemiological data, we looked at qualitative research as well to try and understand the context.
So I think from that experience it provided my first entry into research on health inequalities on policy for tackling inequalities. And it also provided me with tools which I subsequently used in my work in the U. S. When I became the chief of the syphilis elimination effort to help to bring that lens of health equity to our work on programming.
And then in my subsequent work globally, working on HIV, and even when I returned to the UK to focus on non communicable diseases as PHE's national director for health and well being. So that early academic work, I think. set the foundation not only for my academic training and expertise in addressing and understanding inequalities, but it also fundamentally shaped the passion that I bring to my public health practice in looking at things through a lens of equity.
Jessamy: Yeah, that's brilliant. And what a crucial sort of foundation really for what we're experiencing. Now, and I just wondered whether you had any insight, about those parallels between HIV and COVID 19.
Kevin: Absolutely, as an infectious disease epidemiologist, and as a public health specialist, and as a public health leader somebody who's done more than two decades of working in HIV, you can't but help to drive the parallels.
between the two infectious diseases. On the one hand, we're bringing all of the tools and learning that we have about how do you manage an infectious disease and how do you drive rates of infection down in the absence of an effective vaccine or effective cure and the role that behavioral, sociological, political, structural factors play in helping you to control an epidemic in addition to mobilization of the communities.
And in many sense, It reminds me of the very early days of the HIV pandemic, when all we had were the tools of community engagement, education promoting behavioral change, but also in the early days of HIV addressing stigma, discrimination, fear, which are a key part of how people and communities are responding to COVID today.
Similarly, as we think about the tools which are required for effective control of the COVID epidemic, I hearken back to our learning from HIV, where we learned about the importance of using a combination prevention approach. Recognizing that no single measure is going to be enough to control HIV and the spread in a community, but you need to think about ways in which you are educating and building awareness, the ways in which you promote basic prevention measures, and then how you layer onto that.
the sort of biomedical approaches for HIV, which are helpful in reducing transmission. So a clear part of the learning for COVID is ensuring that we're maximizing the use of every tool. A third key lesson is really understanding that infectious diseases are not randomly distributed in the population, but they do both.
cause inequalities and they can exacerbate inequalities. And we saw this with HIV and we've seen it with STIs and we certainly have seen it with COVID as well. And these inequalities are not just by race, ethnicity, but they are seen by gender, by geographic area of residence. by socioeconomic deprivation and by the prevalence of risk factors, including poorly controlled non communicable diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, et cetera.
So we know those factors drive inequalities and therefore I think the lesson from HIV is being not only mindful about the likelihood of. COVID also driving inequalities, but with the knowledge that we have to be armed and forewarned and forearmed in terms of getting ahead of the curve, which involves engaging communities, delivering culturally competent interventions, ensuring that you're focusing on issues such as stigma and trust.
Because that will determine how communities engage with messages and how communities who are at risk will be willing to take up some of the prevention messages which are necessary. A lot of learning from HIV that we bring into COVID and we're seeing this across the world as HIV leaders are comparing and contrasting.
Staying and thinking about how we bring the learning from one pandemic to another, but also keeping our eye on the prize for both, because there's now emerging evidence that as a result of COVID, that in many areas across the world, we're seeing a resurgence in HIV as treatment services, as preventive services for HIV take a hit.
And so therefore we need to manage both and learn from each other.
Jessamy: Yeah. And, you talked a lot about. inequalities there and I just wonder you, you were saying that you went on to take this sort of chief role in CDC as chief of the national syphilis elimination effort and you did a lot of work about inequalities there.
And we're running up to the sort of the election. I just wondered whether you could tell us about that work and also what's happened to inequalities over the last 15 years in the U. S.
Kevin: So I arrived in the United States for my CDC career at a really interesting time. It was the last four years of the Bush presidency and the first four years of the Obama presidency.
So I had the privilege of serving under two different administrations who had, I think, very different approaches to both understanding and responding to the epidemic. And I think my role, both as the Chief of the Syphilis Elimination Effort, and then when I was promoted to become the National Director for HIV and HIV AIDS.
viral hepatitis STD and TB prevention at the CDC meant ensuring that we were working together to deliver the evidence to inform policy actions and then to identify areas where we could make the greatest difference on arresting these epidemics. In the country. In my eight years as national center director at the CDC, a key part of this was looking at the emerging WHO framework on social determinants of health, and working both with CDC as well as national and state partners to integrate the learning of the social determinants of health to help us to understand how we could do better in tackling the significant variations that we saw for those infectious diseases in the U.
S. We also used a number of approaches given the inequalities to not only ensure we were delivering high quality prevention programs but to really began to deliver. targeted interventions with communities in order to address these inequalities. With the syphilis elimination effort, working together with Black community leaders, working together with LGBTQI leaders, because of the high rates that we saw among, especially, again, bisexual men in driving the resurgence of syphilis at that time, for our work on HIV.
Novel work in our Act Against AIDS initiative, which was the first targeted initiative for African Americans on addressing HIV, which really drove to the heart of the factors which were driving the epidemic and the need for a broader coalition of communities to come together to work with us to to control the epidemic.
And again, that thinking was also used in our work with tackling viral hepatitis. And we were able to develop the first national strategy to eliminate viral hepatitis in the United States. And that really led to our work with Asian Pacific Islander communities as well as older populations because of the concentration of the epidemic.
So we used a number of their approaches, which were built upon principles of equity, but integrated that with what CDC does really well, which is equity. evidence based policymaking, delivering high quality prevention programs and evaluating their impact and combining that new approach to help to tackle some of the inequalities that we've seen.
What has happened subsequently? That there, you've seen so much happening in the U. S. both politically and socially in terms of the context within which these epidemics are occurring. And I think the U. S. is certainly at a really interesting time now, where as choices are made at the election, which will determine the path for not only the response to COVID, but I'm sure for the other infectious diseases as well.
To
Gavin: bring us
Kevin: a bit
Gavin: more up to date, you've been working at PHE. London and this year you led the review, PHE's review of the impact of COVID 19 on BAME groups. Tell us a little bit about the experience of leading that review and how serious, of course, the impact has been.
Kevin: It was a real privilege to have been asked to lead that review.
It was an important time in the epidemic because we're still in the middle of the first wave when we were asked to look at the disproportionality and risks and outcomes of COVID. I had only started in the job on the first of April. I was asked to lead this work nearly two to three weeks into my, in my new role, three weeks into my new role as a regional director for London.
And it was a time when I think there was a lot of concern and fear and anxiety within the community because visually on television you were seeing reports. of people who were negatively impacted by the disease and of people who were dying from the disease. And the images, for example, of healthcare workers at the time really visually could see that disproportional representation of BME individuals as those stories were being told and shared.
So there was something about the zeitgeist, the national mood at the time of deep concern about the impact of this first wave, the fear and anxiety as we were in the midst of it. of a lockdown at that time because it was still in, in April May when we were doing the work about how were we going to protect these communities and what lessons should we be learning to take this work forward.
So that provides a bit of the context in which the work was done. We brought together a fantastic team of PHE scientists who did. Both phenomenal work on looking at the epidemiological data that we had available to us at the time to begin to provide a sort of objective national picture on what our surveillance data could tell us about the likelihood of being diagnosed with COVID, the likelihood of progressing to severe disease and of dying with the disease.
at that time. And then we also worked with our scientists to combine the epidemiological work with a deeper insight through an extensive stakeholder engagement exercise. So over a six week period, we were able to engage more than 4, 000 individuals. colleagues working nationally, regionally, locally in government, those working in royal colleges people working in the faith communities, local government, people and colleagues in the devolved nations, community organizations from all over the country.
And the idea here was both to inform people of the work that we were doing in PHE, but to provide a safe space. for people to reflect on their experience on the epidemic, to share what they were learning from their own communities and sectors, and to begin to think about what would a change in our response look like to protect communities moving forward.
So the work resulted in two reports which were published and clearly there was a lot of interest in both the findings of the epidemiological as well as the scientific. Stakeholder engagement report, and there were seven recommendations which arose from this work, and those recommendations were really focused to guide the system and system actors to focus on some of the most impactful things that could be done as we emerged from the first wave of the pandemic, and as we prepared for potentially second Subsequent waves in the future, so there were focused recommendations which were able to guide where we needed to intervene in order to limit the impact on BME communities.
And, many of the recommendations were absolutely clear. We needed better data to understand the impacts of the epidemic and how our prevention programs were being delivered. We needed more culturally competent messaging using channels and messengers that resonate. to community organizations. We needed organizations to really take a look at how they were delivering their programs and ensuring that they were accountable and the quality of their programs to address inequalities were robust.
And of course, we needed better data on testing and contact tracing so we could really understand how these interventions were being applied to. Especially minority communities to ensure that we were able to track the interventions. And then finally, we also really wanted to say that as we emerged from wave one and we started the process of recovery that we looked at recovery through an equity lens because the impacts of lockdown and the first wave of the pandemic.
were unequal, and for many communities, they would have fallen further behind. So as we are looking at recovery and as we're preparing for a second wave, to be deliberate in thinking of equity in our approaches. So those recommendations were as true yesterday as they are today. And in fact, they really have guided a lot of the work we've done in PHE, system partners, including the NHS.
have certainly moved forward in thinking about what the NHS does in terms of protecting its staff and their local communities. And PHE has been working with local authorities and local authorities across the country have been doing phenomenal work in both implementing these recommendations, but also looking at their programming on addressing inequalities.
So our hope is that as we are now in the second wave and as we prepare for any further escalation of the epidemic, now that we know better, we are doing better. And part of that doing better is that we're engaging with our communities, really looking at our data, ensuring that we're protecting the most vulnerable and ensuring that we're Maintaining that sort of rigor in responding in ways more effectively and earlier to prevent that disproportionality again this time around.
Gavin: Yeah. So after you go into that in a little bit more detail, how important is this current moment and the kind of, post pandemic rebuilding effort to ensure an equitable United Kingdom in the future?
Kevin: We're now grappling with the reemergence of the infection and ensuring that we mitigate harms in this second wave.
And what is absolutely clear is that the epidemic is evolving differently in different parts of the country. So we see the real escalation of the epidemic, which has been described in the Northwest. of the country, London has perhaps an immediate intermediate pattern where we're not seeing the sort of exponential rise at this time in part because we were so severely affected in wave one of the epidemic, but we are being very vigilant in the city and are working with political leaders to ensure that we are proactive.
In both protecting Londoners, but also engaging with businesses and other leaders across the city to ensure that we protect the economy as much as we can. So we're seeing different patterns of the reemergence of the disease across the country. And I think that sort of leads us into three key areas.
The first is the importance of a more local response that is going to be required, one that fully engages our local partners and local authorities. players working at the regional level to understand what works best for those regions when it comes to controlling their epidemic, building upon the assets that they have and ensuring that they're aligned closely with national efforts.
Second, I think it really then speaks to if you have a disproportionate impact geographically. How do you mitigate those impacts economically and socially? All of these interventions represent a trade off between your desire to control the infectious disease, the spread of the infectious disease, but also the limitations that it places on society.
Your ability to mix socially the kinds of businesses which are viable under these restrictions the impacts that it's likely to have on individuals. Whether on your physical or mental health and being and, of course, the sustainability of the NHS. So that balance is one that we have to tread very carefully at any given time, and it's never easy.
None of these decisions to escalate are taken without understanding the The potential harms, but also the potential opportunities, and I think moving forward as we move beyond the second wave will be have to think through at a regional level what it means for restarting economies, reengaging and supporting communities and rebuilding and building that better as we emerge from that as well.
And then finally, I think, as we are in this second wave, we are armed with better knowledge, better capabilities, and better awareness in terms of how to manage the infection and its impact. So we now have better treatments, we understand now how to manage people with severe disease, we are likely to have a vaccine available in short order, and we begin thinking about the implementation of the vaccine.
vaccine and how we protect those in greatest need, but also think about the population expansion scale up of that approach. So as we are moving through the second wave, the contexts are going to be very different to where we were in wave one. And I think this means we need to take the public along with us.
We need to work seamlessly and effectively from national, regional to local. We need to thirdly support local knowledge and understanding of communities because that link with local communities, that trust with local communities is going to be extremely important as we move through this second wave.
And as we emerge from this, to ensure that as we were rebuilding that sense of community of place based approaches to building resilience and recovery are a core part of the work that needs to be done. So I think there are many implications from this work as we are emerging in the second wave that I think will fundamentally shift our approach to both public health in this country, but hopefully the ways in which we engage and work from national to local.
Yeah,
Gavin: so you mentioned public trust there and it does seem that in some countries It's been a struggle, as you mentioned, to take the public with you in some cases. So what are your thoughts on the kind of maintaining public trust in public
Kevin: health
Gavin: going forward?
Kevin: So I think, this pandemic is a once in a lifetime event, hopefully.
We we're learning so much now, both in terms of our response to emergencies and planning for emergencies. to pandemics. We're learning more about information and how information flows, especially in this digital age. We're learning about the importance of trust and the compact that we have as public servants between how we serve the public, how we engage the public.
We're learning more about how we communicate and communicate effectively, both with each other as well as public servants with the people and the communities we serve. And trust is certainly, and trust in government is certainly going to be a key part of how we move forward in all of this. Clear lessons from the first wave and certainly in the second wave is the importance of clear and consistent communication so that people understand both where we are in the epidemic, why we're being asked to do the things that we're doing and where possible for evidence on the effectiveness of the sacrifices that people are making, that they can begin to see that.
being played out. We also are learning about the importance of transparency in all of this. Transparency in decision making, transparency and equity in how decisions are made and applied, whether at the national or sub regional level, and I think there are many lessons. There for all of us. And then finally, we're hearing about the importance and learning about the importance of capturing the voices of a diverse range of players and partners to truly understand the impacts and the solutions to this epidemic, that a recognition that local partners must be working in partnership with regional and national partners, that local communities have an equally important voice in helping us to understand how messages and how interventions are landed and are going to be successful, especially with the most vulnerable.
So it's not that we didn't know these lessons before. We've been, these are core tenets of public health practice. I think the pandemic has certainly brought it to a fore, the lessons that we will continue to learn. And. I can see evidence of us improving almost on a daily basis as these lessons are learned and shared and practices reviewed and policies developed and it will require us to continue to be agile and to continue to be honest that there are times when we will get things right and there are times when things won't go as we had planned, but we are all working towards the same vision and we're all working and have the same hopes and I think that is part of the honesty that we will need to be successful as we emerge through this second wave and beyond.
Gavin: So it was wonderful to speak with Kevin, what an inspiring figure, and I'm joined by Dr. Pamela Das Senior Executive Editor at The Lancet, and Pam has written the profile of Kevin that's in this week's issue of The Lancet. So Jessamy, Pam, Kevin does have a lot to say. He's been so important to London during this pandemic.
Jessamy: But also he does seem to have just a clear vision, a really, just one of those people that has a very strong academic understanding of the research and kind of the relationships between different aspects of public health, which gives him, a vision for what is happening and what needs to happen, which I think is well.
rare based on what on all of the events,
Pam: yeah, I absolutely agree. He is really exceptional. He seems to be an expert in every area from community engagement to, knowing the latest research and how that's going to change practice. He must have such a sharp mind and and be also very politically astute.
One thing I wasn't able to really get into with him, but maybe he was very careful. He's obviously had to work in some very difficult areas over the years, e cigarettes being one. But it's, I think, that also shows. what kind of character he is to balance that, that political with the science and be quite astute in in, in what he does.
Yeah, a remarkable very remarkable.
Gavin: One of the truly great black figures in medicine in the UK over the last century was Dr. Harold Moody, a figure whose life is underrepresented in the history books. I spoke with historian Stephen Bourne to find out more about Dr. Moody, his life, and his legacy. Stephen Bourne, thank you so much for joining us today here on the Lancet Voice.
You've written a book about Dr. Harold Moody. So perhaps, we're doing this for Black History Month talking about the history of black people in the UK, especially in the medical field, of course. Tell us a little bit about what makes Dr. Moody such an important figure.
Stephen: I would put Dr.
Harold Moody up there in the top 10, the top five. He's probably one of the most ignored and overlooked historical figures, black or white in this country. And it, he was in fact described many years ago by the black historian Edward Scobie, who wrote a very early book about black people in Britain called Black Britannia in 1972.
I've had a copy for many years, but he was the one that actually described Dr. Harold Moody as Britain's Dr. Martin Luther King. And that is something that I would agree with. And yet, it's Dr. Martin Luther King, who is embedded and has been embedded in our school curriculum for many years. Dr.
Harold Moody doesn't even get a mention. So I've worked hard at local level, community level, because I live in the same, grew up in Peckham, where Dr Howard Moody was based, And I'm also, part of that local community. I've tried very hard to raise his profile, but we can come back to that later on if you like.
But yeah, in my estimation, he is very important.
Gavin: So maybe you could give us like a quick potted history, of Dr. Harold Moody's work in the UK and what makes him so important.
Stephen: Yes, he was born in Jamaica, Kingston, Jamaica. in 1882. He had, he was one of six children. His mother wanted all of her children to have an education and to go far, which they all did.
Harold traveled to England in 1904, in the Edwardian period, to study medicine, to train as a doctor at King's College. which was then in Lincoln's Field before it moved to South London. And he qualified, but had difficulty, because of race, the racism of the times, had difficulty in finding a place. in a hospital.
So he set up his own practice in Queens Road Peckham. Actually it was Kings Road first and then across the road he moved his family, once he'd married and had a family of his own, across the road to Queens Road Peckham, which is where he had his surgery. From 1913 onwards, he was a very popular GP, greatly loved and respected in the local community of Peckham and the Old Kent Road.
The working class patients that came to him loved him. There are some testimonies that have survived from some of his patients and they would describe him as very respectable, very well dressed very warm, very friendly. He was very good with children particularly and he wouldn't charge poor families for his help, particularly if it involved children.
And this, of course, was all before, long before the NHS in 1948. During the First World War, Black soldiers who joined to fight with the British, got to hear about him. Not all of them, but some got to hear about him. And if they had problems, on the front line or in the army, they would contact him. And that was really the kind of beginnings of his work as a campaigner, as an activist, which much later in 1931 led to him being the founder of The League of Coloured Peoples, which was based at his home in Queens Road, I mean his home in Queens Road was also his surgery, but it also became the base of the League of Coloured Peoples, which was one of the first black led organisations.
set up in this country, by no means the first, but one of the first to really have an impact and to have an influence. And he was the president until he died after the war. And so by the time of the second world war, when the second world war broke out in 1939, he was established. He was known to the government, to the Ministry of Defence, to the Colonial Office particularly.
He would write letters to the Times newspaper. So he would go out of his way, in addition to being a full time GP, to help any black person in need. People would go to him for help, advice, support, whether they had issues with housing or employment. And his influence was great enough so that in the Second World War, when his son, Joe Moody, who'd been educated in a public school was officer material for the army.
When he, when Joe applied to join the army as an officer to train as an officer, they turned him down saying that the actual wording was we cannot have officers of non European descent. In other words, black men were discriminated against. So of course, Dr. Moody waded in. For that particular color bar, as it was known then, and won his argument that his son was admitted into the army in 1940.
But unfortunately, the army, the military and the government said to Dr. Moody, we will lift this ban on black men in the army. for the duration of the war, but Moody fought tooth and nail for that ban to be lifted forever, and I think by the end of the war it had been, because I don't think they ever reinstated it.
So he was very influential in many ways.
Gavin: So you've written a book as well about Black Britain in wartime that I think features Dr. Harold Moody. So tell us a little bit about that and some of the takeaways, from researching that book.
Stephen: I've written a book which was recently published called Under Fire, Black Britain in Wartime 1939 45.
And that is a chronology of the Second World War, but from a kind of Black British perspective. So I start In 1939, the outbreak of war, the colour bars, it was the London Blitz. And, Howard Moody, Dr. Howard Moody is a presence throughout the book. So there's a chapter about him at the beginning of the book because of his leadership of the black community at that time.
And then I come back to him throughout the war, so to speak, and then end with a lengthy quote from a broadcast, the script of a broadcast that he did for the BBC radio in 1945. For VE Day, talking about the contribution, the men and women of colour from across the, what was then the British Empire and looking forward to the future.
He made this broadcast in a BBC Empire Service series called Calling the West Indies. So this would have been heard not in Britain, but across the Caribbean. And he'd made earlier broadcasts in this program as well, so he was reaching out to his brothers and sisters, if you like, in Jamaica, where he had come from, and Barbados and Trinidad, across the Caribbean by making broadcasts.
So he was known at the BBC, and in fact in 1940, when a BBC broadcaster, this is radio, used the N word, Howard Moody wrote to the Director General and was given a full apology. Which is interesting when you think how The BBC fudged it this year when somebody used the n word on a BBC television programme.
The BBC kind of stalled. But in 1940, they did apologise to Dr Moody, who then published this in the League of Coloured People's newsletter. which was published
Gavin: throughout the war. You mentioned the League of Coloured Peoples. What's the importance of them? What are some of their successes?
Stephen: They're very important because they were an action group that was made up of a lot of kind of distinguished, if you like, or eminent black people in Britain.
Including Dr. Cecil Belfield Clark, who was from Barbados and had a, like Dr. Moody, a surgery in Newington, near the Elephant Castle. And he worked there from, had that surgery for 45 years, can you imagine? 1920 to 1965 when he retired. He kept that surgery open all through the Blitz. That story's in the book, Undefined, as well.
Incredible. And there were others George Arthur Roberts, who was a Trinidadian, who volunteered for the British Army in World War I, but settled in Camberwell after the first world war and became active in the league from its inception in 1931 and then during the second world war george arthur roberts joined because he was too old for active service he joined the London Fire Brigade and served as a fire officer all through the war, and Stella Thomas from West Africa, who became one of the first black women magistrates in West Africa.
There were intellectuals, there were people from the arts, like Robert Adams, an actor from Guyana. who were the founder members, and most of them stayed with it throughout the 1930s, but they were very influential. They were like a influential pressure group, if you like.
Gavin: How important do you think an understanding of Dr.
Moody's legacy is to the current moment, given we've had such a major year for kind of this understanding of race relations?
Stephen: I cannot endorse him enough as an important British historical figure. He really is very important and we do need to understand his life and his legacy much better than we do. It shocks me that in spite of my own efforts to raise his profile, he's still not taught in schools.
It needs to change. Hopefully it will change with the Black Lives Matter campaign. He is included, thankfully, in Patrick Vernon and Angelina Osborne's new book, Hundred Great Black Britons, as one of the top hundred. Along with Mary Seacole and many others. Others, to be exact. That's good.
That places him correctly where he should be. But we cannot underestimate his legacy. He was, like Dr. Martin Luther King in America, considered by some more radical black people in Britain in the 1930s as A bit of an Uncle Tom, someone who was too friendly with the English, but that was his way of doing it.
devout Christian. He would go to the Campbell Green Congregational Church in Wren Road, opposite Campbell Green Park, and preach every Sunday. So he had a kind of Christian ideology, a Christian outlook, that was a faith that meant a lot to him. But maybe because he died too soon, that legacy got forgotten very quickly.
He went on a tour of the Caribbean and America. in the winter of 46, 47. This is a man who is over 60, but his plan was to raise funds for a colonial centre for African and Caribbean people in London. And he couldn't get very much. Very few would support him. He burned himself out so that by the time he returned home in the spring of 1947, he was a dying man.
He had influenza. It killed him in April 1947, but his funeral in May 1947 at the Camberwell Green Congregational Church. Thousands attended, apparently, according to the newspaper reports. He was as I say, greatly loved, but so quickly forgotten. And so I, the more I found out about him, and realized there was very little in the public domain about him.
the more I wanted to do something. So one of the things I did, for example, apart from putting him in my book, Under Fire, about 13 years ago, I was friends with his niece, Cynthia Moody. Cynthia was lovely and Cynthia was the custodian of Harold's brother's artwork, Ronald Moody. Ronald Moody was Harold's younger brother, who was a sculptor.
Cut a long story short, Cynthia contacted me and said that Ronald's bronze portrait of Harold Moody had come up for auction in New Zealand. What do you think? So I went straight to Southwark Arts and asked them to bid for it. And it actually, I don't think they paid very, a huge amount for it. It was doable, thank goodness.
And so the bronze portrait came back where it should have been. Because it mysteriously vanished in the 1960s and then suddenly turns up in New Zealand, but we won't go into that. And I said to Southwark Council, now that we have this bronze portrait of Harold back, Please don't put it in a cupboard in a backstreet somewhere in one of your offices.
Let's have it on full display in Peckham Library, which is very close to where Queen's Road is and where he lived and worked. And so that is now, thanks to myself and Cynthia Moody now displayed. And what Cynthia did, she pointed out to the National Portrait Gallery, who also have a bronze portrait of Howard Moody by Ronald Moody, his brother, but the the National Portrait Gallery of the understanding But they had the first copy and Cynthia said no, Southwark, Peckham Library in Southwark have the first copy, you have the second copy.
There is a difference between first and, I don't understand art, but apparently we have the more important copy, as Cynthia pointed out, because she knows, she's the custodian of Peckham. Ronald's artwork and she knew this. So the National Portrait Gallery were a bit miffed, I think.
Gavin: It's been a pleasure to chat about Dr.
Moody's life with you, Stephen, and hopefully, hopefully people listening to this podcast will, um, will take an interest in Dr. Moody's life. So it can become more widely known because Yes, when I was looking into it I was amazed how few resources there were to learn about Dr.
Moody relative to the importance of his life.
Stephen: I would highly recommend Under Fire, my book, not because it's my book yes, because it's my book. I'm a shameless book plugger, I never used to be when I started writing books 30 years ago. I didn't realize that I would have to be very bold and start waving them in the air and plugging them.
So yes, I would start with Undefined because it gives you a good snapshot of his life in the Second World War. And then there will be references in the book to other sources, not just mine. But hopefully there will be more about him in the future. Let's keep our fingers crossed, not just by me, but by other people.
And let's hope that. He is taught in schools alongside Dr. Martin Luther King. So I think they make a very interesting comparison. Absolutely.
Gavin: Stephen Bourne, thank you so much for speaking with me today. Thank you. So I really enjoyed speaking with Stephen. He's quite a character. And it's wonderful to have this kind of repository of knowledge about the life of Dr.
Moody.
Pam: What I really struck me in the podcasts was the similarities between Harold Moody and Fenton as people and their backgrounds so similar, both. humble Christian backgrounds, clearly both high academic achievers, kind, compassionate, respectful, very well liked wherever they go and a sort of way of working for the communities they chose to serve by working with them.
I just find that really inspiring. It's so great to highlight the achievements of these individuals to health and society more broadly. That's the great thing about Black History Month. It really is a celebration of their contribution. To me they they were all heroes or were sorry, Kevin still is heroes of their time.
I think, Harold's and Mary during the war and during those very difficult times in the last century. And then Kevin. being faced with his second pandemic, not just one, but two and being really on the front lines of that. It just shows, their courage and an innovative leadership, I think despite those challenges of discrimination and prejudice that they were all clearly up against.
Gavin: Finally, then I spoke with Trevor Sterling, who is the chair of the Mary C. Cole Trust. About the work that the Mary C. Cole Trust does and about how they carry on Mary C. Cole's legacy. Travis, thank you so much for joining me today.
Trevor: An absolute pleasure. Thank you for the invitation.
Gavin: No problem at all. So perhaps we could kick off by you just telling us a little bit about the kind of the work of the Trust.
Like what are some of your aims and goals and what do you do?
Trevor: So the Mary Seacole Trust it's initial guise was the Mary Seacole Memorial Statue of Appeal. And it was responsible for the erection of a statue of Mary Seacole back in 2016 following a 14 year campaign to raise the funds.
And the statue of Mary was to become the first bronze statue of a named black female anywhere in this country. We were determined that would be a springboard and certainly not the end of the journey, and therefore we subsequently changed the name of the charity to the Mary Seacole Trust, and we created a broader set of legacy projects one of which is education, for example, so we work with the Florence Nightingale Museum and they now have a permanent installation and exhibition.
of Mary Seacole, which we funded we run a competition with schools, which we're particularly excited about. It's going into its third year, where we ask young people to identify their modern day Mary having identified Mary's various attributes. And we have a diversity and leadership program, but above all we not only spend time promoting Mary and indeed promoting.
Issues and challenges around social injustice but we maintain Mary's beautiful statue, which is at St. Thomas's hospital. So lots of work with young people. Very much we, we do work with at leadership level. So that's the sort of the top of the sort of challenge pyramid, if you like.
But at the bottom the next generation coming through. It's important that we inspire them if we're going to improve the future. Working with the leaders as well as working with young people using Mary as a role model.
Gavin: So tell us a little bit about your background and I guess how you came to the Mary C.
Cole Trust and the statue.
Trevor: I'm a lawyer. I am involved with major trauma. So those that suffer serious injury through negligence or another, I help them with their rehabilitation and with recompense. My background actually is perhaps not untypical. My parents are from Jamaica, came here in the late 1950s.
They're part of the Windrush generation. I under, underachieved in many ways, leaving school at 16 or 17, stumbled across the law and whilst working I started initially as a, pretty much as a post clerk. But I worked my way up and I became a partner, the youngest and first ever black partner of the firm.
I was then at age 28. And I've gone on to deal with some of the perhaps most significant group actions and actions in this country, including the Croydon tram, which I mentioned because the inquest is about to start. My career has been one of starting with underachievement trying to break through the barriers that were in my way, both as a child, but also as an adult.
And now my aim is to try and help pull others through. And that's where Mary Seacole, and the trust is a wonderful vehicle. When I got involved by chance, actually As we were working towards the final stage of the campaign for the statue, simply because my son and I were watching Horrible Histories and after that jovial episode involving Florence and Mary I said that I wanted to try and get involved in raising awareness of Mary and found out about their campaign and have been active ever since.
Gavin: That's very inspiring. What a wonderful career and story. Moving on to talking about Mary herself, I think what do you think that her relevance is to modern Britain, her legacy?
Trevor: I think she's become even more relevant and even more significant since the tragic incident involving George Floyd and his death.
And of course, since the greater prominence around the Black Lives Matter movement. Why is she relevant? Because she's, has all of those characteristics which epitomize those who have historically been discriminated against in some way. And she is a collection of those characteristics. If you take the time she went to the Crimean War, she was a woman.
She was a woman of age. She was a woman of color. Yet she broke through all of those stereotypical barriers. She was a traveler. She was an entrepreneur. She was an author. She was a healer. And her importance of somebody who can break through those barriers and obstacles and do it for the right reasons, not do it because it will make you famous or successful in the broader sense, but do it because it's about being caring and being compassionate.
That's what she did. When she went out to the Crimea. The other significant thing about Mary Nagy is incredibly significant is, particularly when one thinks of Black History, they tend to think back to 1948 as the Windrush, Empire of Windrush worked its way down towards Tilbury Docks, and they assume that Black History only stretches back to that.
Obviously, Black History, It's far deeper in British history. It is part of British history. And Mary is a reminder of the existence of black contribution prior to Windrush, because, of course, she was at the Crimean War, and we are dealing with Victorian times in the 1800s. So it serves as a really important reminder as to how deep black history is, and, of course, it goes back even further than Mary Seacole.
So
Gavin: it's, as you mentioned there it's been a tumultuous year for racial injustice around the world. What does that mean to you? What does that mean to the Mary C. Cole trust? What, how do you look at the events of 2020?
Trevor: Starting with George Floyd George Floyd was only a little bit younger than I, and the reality is that if I happen to be in another land at this time.
I could have been George Floyd with a knee on my neck. There is too much discrimination that still exists and racism. And unfortunately, people like me personally a black man often are the victims of it through no fault of our own. And it's important this year that it isn't just a year.
But this is the start of something far deeper and meaningful in terms of long lasting change. And I think that what we are seeing is a collection of people from all different backgrounds. We, we saw that through the protests. From all different backgrounds, from across the world. That are starting to want to work together to bring about meaningful change and the Mary Seacole Trust would very much want to be a part of that using Mary as a role model, but also using our collective thoughts to try and bring about structural change to defeat racism as once and for
Gavin: all.
What do you think are some of the biggest challenges and inequalities facing Britain at the moment? Transcribed
Trevor: The Britain's main problem, I think, is that we, it doesn't fully accept its history. It has, as you would imagine, having established a successful empire much to say in terms of its success.
That does mean that there is often not room for some of the truth. which gave rise to that success. And of course I'm talking about slavery, and I'm talking about some of the structural racism that followed on from slavery. You cannot have 400 years of slavery and all the structures that come about as a result of that and then expect that the moment slavery is abolished that everything will be just fine.
It's important to acknowledge that part of history and it's important to be involved in dismantling some of the structures that came about. As a result, and I'm afraid to say that's not happened and not happened quickly enough. So one of the biggest challenges that is faced now in society is one acceptance and understanding of real British history.
And then to identify how we can address some of the structural changes and solutions needed to make sure there is long lasting change. And there is a clear distinction between structural. And simply racism. And I'm talking about structural. And that has to be addressed at all levels of our society.
Trevor, thank you
Gavin: so much for speaking with me today. It's been a real pleasure. It's been really genuinely wonderful and inspiring to, to speak with you. Good luck with the future work for the Mary C. Cole Trust. It's wonderful to speak with Trevor Stirling there and some really interesting thoughts about, about structural racism.
Turning to you, Pam and Mandeep. Now you're heading up the Lancet's internal task force for anti racism which is the group for racial equality. Perhaps you could tell us a little bit about that and how that came about and maybe talk about some of your backgrounds and how you came to start this group as well.
Mandip: I guess I'm quite new to the Lancet. I've been here for well over a year and a half now but my background initially so I'm Second generation Indian Punjabi Sikh, born and raised in the UK studied biochemistry at university, got into science publishing and kind of found that I wanted a bit more than that.
So I went back to university after working for a few years and did a master's in philosophy, politics and economics and health. And that lent, that kind of led me into the whole global health field. I worked for WHO for a while, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and then, yeah, start of 2019, I found myself joining the Lancet Global Health as a senior editor.
And I guess since I've joined, working with, in the academic side of global health, I really noticed how kind of some of the colonial attitudes still seem to persist. in present day global health. And so I really, I guess I've been looking for an opportunity to explore this a bit further. And also it ties in quite nicely with the whole idea of where the diverse, the lack of diversity in publishing.
It's very noticeable. So I very much felt like I'm in the minority. while I've been here, so a very visible minority. And so I just guess it's been in the back of my mind for over a year that I need to do something about this. And then earlier this year with the events of the summer and the awful murder of George Floyd in the US, it That was the spark that led to me talking to Pam and then we this idea, this whole idea of having a task force, the group for racial equality came about and we invited a whole bunch of others who were thinking with a similar experience and way of thinking.
And we've developed a program of work in the last couple of months that will address both cultural awareness internally, and also. Addressing racial and ethnic inequalities in medicine more broadly as well, and health. And part of that work will also be to look through the Lancet's archives as well, really in depth, and explore how colonial history really influences global health.
today.
Pam: Wow, that'd be interesting. Yes, that's going to be an uncomfortable process, I suspect, but I think Mandeep came up with a brilliant phrase at our first staff meeting where she said to heal the past, you need to reveal it. And I think that is very true. We do need to reveal it. And I think this process and journey that we go on will be important, very important.
Gavin: Pam, I was gonna, I was gonna ask just generally about Grace the group for racial equality at the Lancet. So how's it been so far? What are some of the kind of aims and goals that you have moving forward?
Pam: We've met together as a group twice. We've got another meeting scheduled for next month.
In those few months that we've formed, I think we've done quite a lot actually. I look back and I think given that we're in a pandemic and we're all at home and we're not. Exactly feeling 100 percent about ourselves right now that it to start something as huge as this was going to be was going to be really hard.
But I think, as Mandy said, the timing, I think we've got the timing really right. The events to the summer, COVID as well, which has also put a spotlight on the disparities and race and ethnicity and discrimination. I think they've all come together at this perfect time where there's a sort of real momentum and a dialogue that really needs to happen.
And so I feel we've really capitalized on that by bringing together this group, this task force. As Mandeep says, we're going to be looking internally, i. e. at ourselves. So just a little bit about me. I, unlike Mandeep, I've been here nearly 20 years. I joined the Lancet in 2001 and I joined Lancet Infectious Diseases and it was just John McConnell and me for those.
six years and the Lancet was very small. It was, I think, 40 people max, and that includes production, advertising, all the departments that we have today. So we were all on, half a floor of an office. And yeah, I it struck me. It struck me in odd ways when I arrived because obviously I was the only Asian, but then we were a very small group, so I thought one out of 40 isn't that bad.
But then as time went on and as we got bigger and expanded, I was still the only brown person in the group, so I did think, oh as one does when they try to psychoanalyse it. they think to themselves, Oh I must be really rather good at what I do, because, for the lancet to have taken me on, I'm very good at my job.
And and I just felt very privileged. very honoured and then put it out of my head. But then when Udani joined and I remembered I had somebody to talk to about it because I think that was the other thing. Who do I talk to about it at work if you're the only one? I talked to my parents or my friends or my parents friends but certainly never in the office.
So it was only when Udani arrived and we caught up for a cup of tea, and we hit it off quite quickly. But Yudani's, a very lovely person anyway, but we hit it off quite quickly because we were the only two non white people, and we chatted about it. It was the first conversation I was able to have with another colleague about it.
And so then, as I said, many years even after that passed, and we were still the only two editors. And it's really, if I'm really honest, it's only in the last five years where we've really expanded the pool of non white editors across all the teams. From a senior level I still think that there's very few of us there.
I was the only senior. a non white person for maybe 17 years, really. If I think about it now, we have Rupert, we have Duke, we have people in senior roles, but still very far from what we should have. And I think, that diversity contribute, that diversity of our workforce, it simply doesn't reflect the diversity of the society we live in.
And I think over the summer months. It was an opportunity for us to acknowledge as a group that we need to do better. We'll be looking at ourselves internally, looking at our recruitment processes, looking at the extent of the lack of racial and ethnic diversity in our workforce and our contributors.
That includes our authors, our peer reviewers, our international advisory boards, we really need to look at everybody. And so that's one. aim. The recruitment side of things I think is, Probably the most important aim of our group, but I see that as a very long standing issue.
I don't think we can do that on our own. We're going to have to work with HR, with Human Resources of Elsevier, as well as wonderfully now we have a new group, a new employee group, Embrace to tackle the issues that we're also tackling. So we now have partners who have similar visions as us. And, collectively, I think that's going to be much more.
powerful and a strong way of getting things done. And then externally, I hope that we can still continue to use the pages of our journal to highlight the achievements and celebrate the diversity of minority groups, as well as highlight all the injustices that still continue to happen and ultimately create an advisory board.
who will be devoted to this issue alongside us and work together to put together a special issue on race and equality in science, health and medicine. Yes, so I think that we've got quite a few. aims and objectives to look forward
Jessamy: to. It sounds amazing and a really great program of work and so necessary.
Obviously there's so much that 2020 is going to change and there have been periods historically where there's been a sort of, refocusing on race and inequality. How do you see it panning out from here now? Do you think this is a turning point? I'd like
Pam: to think it is. I think the pandemic is also an important factor in this.
We already know that people from marginalized populations and from ethnic and racial groups are heavily impacted by the virus. And I don't think that's going to change. I think at the end, when we do come out of this, it will be those groups that are going to be left worse off. So I think, we have a responsibility.
in many ways to do what we can now. It feels like a really important point in history. Yeah, so I do think it's, it is a turning point.
Mandip: Yeah, I agree with Pam on that. I think it is definitely, this year has been a year of change and on so many different fronts. This change that we have started, especially on this issue of racial and ethnic diversity and equality, it's going to take a long time to actually see the results.
Even with our program of work internally, we're in it for the long haul. So we're looking to start this and see where it goes and keep it on the agenda. So it's excellent that we have Black History Month in October, but it's more than just one month. So we've got to keep celebrating and highlighting and just keep on banging the drum for this issue throughout the year.
So once. October's ended too.
Gavin: Thanks so much for listening to this special episode of the Lancer Voice to Mark Black History Month. We hope it's inspired you to look into some of these back stories and thank you for joining us. We'll see you again next
time.