Northview: A Snapshot of Multiracial London during the Second World War

Ayers, Oliver (2021) Northview: A Snapshot of Multiracial London during the Second World War. In: Cultures of London: Legacies of Migration. Bloomsbury. (In Press)

Abstract

Northview was a low-rise development of flats built in the interwar period on the corner of the Tufnell Park and Holloway Roads in Islington. This chapter tells the fascinating story of some of its wartime residents. At number 21 lived Nigerian-born dance hall pianist Fela Sowande, his wife Mildred and their two young children. At number 33 lived Clara Deniz – a mixed-race Briton originally from Cardiff – and her fellow-musician husband Frank, whose father hailed from the Cape Verde Isles. This chapter examines how the Sowandes and Denizes came to Northview and what happened to them in the war and its aftermath. The result is a snapshot of an often overlooked multiracial dimension to wartime London that focuses on a suburban enclave and the wider city, in the process revealing the connection of these local worlds to international cross-currents of empire, migration and war.

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