HOWARD GREY, a young inexperienced photographer in 1962, was dismayed that the photographs he took of Windrush arrivals at Waterloo Station would not develop properly. His time had been wasted, or so he thought.
Howard tucked the undeveloped negatives in an envelope, stuffed them into an office drawer, and forgot about them for the next fifty years. There they sat, gathering dust, only to be brought to life more than half a century later – by pure chance – thanks to developments in technology.
Finally able to see the photos for the first time in 2014, a stunned Howard finally realised the gravity of what he had captured in 1962. An especially unique documentation of Windrush arrivals to the UK, like no other.
The story sounds like a movie script, but it’s exactly what happened.
Not only that, but the snaps Howard took would become the most iconic pictures of the Windrush generations. He took them in 20 mins, having bunked off work on a whim and a hunch, following his artistic instinct.
It’s a remarkable story, and almost an unbelievable one unless you understand the man behind the camera, his family’s story, and what drove him to make the trip one day to photograph what were thought to be the last arrivals from Jamaica, all those decades ago.
“I had two cameras,” Howard, now 79, says. “I heard an announcement on the radio that the last arrivals from the Caribbean were on the way to the UK before the Nationality Act kicked in. I decided not to go to work. It was a very dark day. The windows that lit the platform up in 1962 were still covered in soot and grease from the war.”
It wasn’t just that Howard heard the call on the radio and saw a photo opportunity. He’s always been fascinated by immigration, not least because of his own family’s arrival to the UK, which nearly didn’t happen.
“All my family are Jewish” says Howard. “My parents were born in the UK. But my grandparents on both sides were from Ukraine”.
He tells me of the persecution his grandparents faced in anti-Jewish pogroms in the 1890s, losing their homes and possessions. They ended up on a ship bound for Canada but the boat docked in Tilbury, London, for a couple of days – also one of the main arrival ports for many Windrush migrants.
It was there that fate would take a dramatic turn, for Howard’s family.
“Some agents came into my grandparents’ ship, and asked if there were any experienced tailors aboard, saying if so they would buy their ticket and house them in the east end of London where many Jewish families already lived. Savile Row needed expert tailors to make fine suits. That’s why my grandparents stayed in London. They were headed to Winnipeg but never got there.”
When he talks about the Savile Row agents hiring people aboard his grandparents ship, it has echoes of the flyers being handed out in the Caribbean encouraging people to head to the UK to work and help rebuild the ‘mother country’ after the war.
Taking a roll of the dice by chance, and setting up a new life in an unknown land, is Howard’s family story, but one which resonates deeply with so many among our Caribbean communities.
Howard explains that as a young child he remembers his grandparents describing in broken English the hardships they faced back home and the difficulties they faced in leaving their lives behind. He’s remorseful about the current situation in Ukraine. It saddens him. He feels empathy.
There’s an undoubted affinity that connects Howard to immigrant families going through such hard times, and throughout the interview it becomes plain to me that his interest in immigration is more than a curiosity as he initially told me; he cares.
Howard still lives in south London and tells me that he does most of his shopping in Brixton.
What’s interesting to me is that he speaks about Waterloo Station in the 1960s in great detail, as if it were last week. Similarly, his family stories remain etched in his mind eternally. He doesn’t miss any details. He is meticulous and thorough.
Perhaps this explains why he held onto the undeveloped unusable pictures he took of the Windrush arrivals in 1962. Most people might have thrown them in the bin. Torn them up in frustration. Or might have given up photography altogether. Not Howard. Something made him keep them, and had he not, his amazing pictures capturing such an important intimate moment in so many people’s lives would have been lost forever.
But they are not lost. Howard immediately made the pictures public – and they are quite something. Young black men, women, and children decked out in their Sunday best surrounded by luggage, climbing aboard trains while peering wide eyed at the new country they’d call home.
Many in the photos reflect their journey looking weary, or even most. Some of those pictured look like movie stars, young, good looking and full of swag and confidence. In fact, many have spoken about the photographic maturity reflected through the quality of then young Howard’s photos. This he tells me however, was purely by chance.
“All of that was by luck. I was just taking pictures of everything. I took 37 photos. My father was a portrait photographer and loved faces and so do I. So I just took as many as I could.”
He knew at the time he said, that there would be problems developing the pictures because everything was so dark. And he was right. After getting home from his impromptu shoot at Waterloo station, Howard soon realised the negatives were as good as worthless-or so he thought.
It was only in 2014, by chance, that Howard happened to be watching a TV programme discussing developments in photography. It dawned on him that all might not be lost, with the photos he had taken 52 years previously.
He tried to develop the negatives using the innovation he had only just learned of on TV. It worked. What was the moment like when he realised the incredible treasure he had, as the photos came to life on his computer screen? Tears, laughter, disbelief? All of the above? Howard laughs excitedly at the question. It’s all coming back to him now vividly, the same way it does each time he travels through Waterloo station.
“Afterwards I realised what I’d got”, he chuckles. “I went out and had a drink and saw my wife and gave her a big hug. I’ve got them, I’ve got them, I’ve got them” he told her.
He published the pictures on a website – and for years not much happened. Then the Windrush scandal came to light, sparking renewed interest in Howard’s photos. The treatment of all of those wrongly removed from the UK is something that angers Howard, as it does so many others.
He says he appreciates the love people show for the pictures he has taken, and supports Windrush day to honour that generation. “It’s absolutely vital that these things are recorded and documented,” he says.
As of yet, nobody has come forward to say that they are the subject of his photos, or that they recognise family members in them. But that day may very well come.
What message might Howard offer anyone reading this, who is from or connected to the Windrush generation. “Your past is safe with me and my photographs” he replies with little hesitation.
They say a picture says a thousand words. If that’s the case then each of Howard’s photo’s must have touched thousands of lives, eternally connecting us to a very important moment in our history.
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Er…. I’m afraid the opening sentence, “a young inexperienced photographer’ in 1962, isn’t quite accurate. Since around 1955, some 7 years previous, I had been working for my father, also a photographer, shooting many of the thousands of summer holiday makers on Isle of Man. HG.