WWII ‘Brown Babies’ | A Hidden History

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

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

And you still feel, both of you, all these decades later, a sense of coming home.

Absolutely.

Now I belong here. This is my home.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

This place, Holnicote House, it's part of a whole infrastructure that's there to facilitate these children being taken from their mothers.

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

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.

Yes, I do. I've felt a lot of emotion coming back to my beginnings.

To your beginnings?

It's my third visit to the place in what? 70 odd years and it just brings back so many happy memories

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?

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

Yeah nothing was mine all yours it was ours.

Seven decades later you both feel that you were you were shaped by your very early years

Absolutely

And how old were you when you arrived Ann?

I was three days old when I got you and I was four and eleven months when I went from here.

And how about you, 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.

You moved on to a different place when you came to five, but I was adopted, so...

How about you, Carol?

I went from here to Wellington.

Which was another children's home.

Yeah, yeah.

Again at Somerset?

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.

You describe the children here as a happy bunch.

We were happy.

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?

That's Leon, my boyfriend. I was going to marry him at that age, I tell you.

And where were you, Carol?

That one. That's me. That's Deborah.

Where were you at?

In the front.

There you are.

She's always in the front.

About three, I think, when I was taken.

I thought that was you when I saw this picture. The gang.

Yeah.

And the nurses, I mean, these are nursery nurses. Yeah, nursery nurses. I mean, they were probably teenagers.

They were 17 and 18, that's all they were. But no, they were lovely.

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.

Yes, I think we were.

And it does explain this happy little gang of kids on the lawn 70 years ago.

Yeah. Yeah, we were happy, we were healthy and we were loved.

Should we have a look at some other rooms where you might have other memories?

Yes, yes, by all means. Do you want to go to the potty room, Carol?

I want to see the potty room.

You lead the way.

No it wasn't in there... it isn't that one

We've lost the potty room See, I can remember all these brown doors.

Shall we try down here? Do you remember these tiles, this pattern?

I would think this is more or less where it was.

And this was the potty room is that right?

And that was it, yeah. And you'd take the pots out of there, and we'd all line up there.

Yeah.

Bums on each pot. Yeah. And Leon then would be the leader. We're going to play trains.

Should we go and look at some other rooms and see if they bring up other memories?

Yes. Okay. Ah, yes. Here we go.

So what was this room?

Piano room.

Piano room. Hence the piano.

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.

This key in the piano?

It had to be replaced because you used to chew them.

Yeah, I was chewing them, yeah.

And this is a big room.

It's lovely.

I can imagine all the children in that photograph. All of you running around.

And the noise bouncing off the walls.

And one of the nurses would play the piano for us all to sing Christmas carols.

So your first Christmas is...

Was spent here, yeah.

And out there, it's a view into the front garden. So this is now out in the garden. It is absolutely beautiful.

Yeah. Same old trees.

A lot bigger.

A lot bigger, yeah.

Shall we head down?

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.

Go for a walk then

Go for a walk, lots of walks, didn't we? That's why I'm so short.

So you were taken out of here on walks in the countryside?

Yeah, all over the place.

Walked almost every day, didn't we?

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.

Absolutely.

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.

And up until that point, because you'd been here at Holnicote, you'd not experienced this?

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.

You mean anything racist?

Yeah.

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

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.

As you moved on through life, what did it make you think about your own childhood and how you'd been brought up?

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.

And where did that search take you?

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.

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.

To the United States.

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.

Even though your father was trying to reunite with you, the authorities got in the way and felt that way.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I don't think I would have gone anyway, David. No

I just wanted to ask you about what happened after you became adults and went on to have families of your own.

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.

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?

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.

And it must be special to look at that photograph of that little group of children.

Well, it'll always remain special, I think.

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.

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.

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

Hi David.

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.

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.

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?

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.

With one another.

That's right.

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.

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.

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.

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.

And it's a search for knowledge.

It's a search for knowledge.

And identity.

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

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?

Absolutely.

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...

I can hear children laughing. And do you know what? I can never ever remember children crying. Can you?

No, no.

Except when you hit them. Do you remember when you used to hit them? They used to cry then, didn't they?

It was her it was, and she's blaming me.

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.