Career

Cleo Barton Alexander Wilson, better known to the Southampton community as ‘Mr. Wilson’ or ‘Uncle Son’, has lived in Southampton for over sixty years.  Deeply respected and admired for his wisdom and for the example he sets for all those who come into contact with him, his is a story that represents a significant and important contribution to the twentieth-century social history of the city’s residents.  As a long-standing member of Southamtpon Black Heritage, the organisation that was founded by a health visitor to bring together older people from the Southampton Caribbean community, I was asked to meet with him and write his story.  What you will read here is an important part of the Southampton Black Heritage legacy.  Shared with us on a blustery March day in the front room of the house he purchased over 50 years ago, here is 98-year-old, Mr. Wilson’s story.

Life in Jamaica

Born in January 1921, Mr Wilson grew up in a mountainous area in the north of Saint Thomas, Jamaica.  His mother died when he was just three years old leaving her parents to raise him. There were no other siblings; his cousin was the closest he came to having a brother. His father was from a Maroon village, in Portland, in a neighbouring parish.  Each Jamaican parish had a unique identity, and Mr Wilson explained that Mandeville, the capital of the parish of Manchester (west of Kingston), ‘grew teachers’, because it had a reputation for producing fine educators. Life in the mountains with his grandfather – a ‘good reading man’ – consisted of farming and rural pursuits. The four-bedroom homestead was a substantial property (the biggest in their district) with a fully furnished dining room and a veranda to retire to in the evenings. The family owned cattle, pigs, chickens, goats, horses, sheep and several donkeys and the cost of a heifer calf was just £5. Connections to doctors were rare in Mr Wilson’s area. If he had a childhood illness, his grandparents treated the illness using local knowledge of herbal medicine. The trees and plants near their home provided bark, leaves and roots which were boiled in a pot and used to treat a range of ailments.

Exit strategy

When Mr. Wilson was in his early thirties, he began making plans to set off on a new adventure.  His original plan was to go to America to do farm work.  He explained that in the 1950s, America was perceived by a lot of the rest of the world as a place that welcomed immigrants and wanted them to contribute to building the nation. Mr Wilson had excellent farming skills from helping his grandfather manage the family farm and believed he had a good chance of getting accepted for work in America; however, it was not to be. A series of medical tests ranging from blood and eye tests, to physicals to check for hernias had to be passed before applicants were given the go-ahead.  To Mr Wilson’s astonishment, one of the tests revealed that he had diabetes and this meant that his immigration application would be rejected. His second country of choice was England and once he got the all-clear, he was packing his bags. People who were keen to move abroad learned a lot about what the ‘immigration people’ paid attention to and word spread fast. Something as unassuming as a handshake was highly symbolic. Rough skin and a calloused hand that had done some work was a good thing. A smooth, soft hand was not.  When Hurricane Charlie, a deadly tropical cyclone, hit Jamaica in 1951, Mr Wilson was there. It caused more than 152 deaths and brought about widespread damage to the island. A few years after this natural disaster, in 1953, Mr Wilson set sail for England.  

The journey

Endowed with a £500 gift from his beloved grandmother, half of which was in silver coins packed into a heavy bag and tucked into the top of his underwear, a young Mr Wilson began the journey to start a new life.  His wife wasn’t with him because many immigrants were male heads of households who came to find work and accommodation before sending for the rest of the family to join them.

Arrival in England

On a Monday morning in August 1953, not long after the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, Mr Wilson arrived in Southampton. He had never been to the port city. His immediate goals were to find work and a place to stay.  For around 100 years, the Southampton, Salvation Army hostel at Oxford Street provided temporary accommodation for sailors and single men. And it was to the Salvation Army that Mr Wilson turned for a place to rest his head. There he found inexpensive accommodation until he saved enough money to move out.  When asked what his first meal in Britain was, Mr Wilson emphatically replied, ‘fish and chips’! He fondly recalled his early days of going to work and on his way home, stopping at the ‘chippy’ to pick up his evening meal.

Southampton Labour Exchange

Not one to hang around to observe the scenery, less than a week after he arrived in Southampton, Mr Wilson headed for the Southampton Labour Exchange to find work because local job vacancies were listed there. Uncertain of the exact location of the offices, Mr Wilson stopped a woman with a young child on the Radcliffe Road to ask for directions.  As it happened, she too was going to find work, so encouraged him to go with her. Those seeking work could drop into the Exchange, locate a job that was advertised on an index card, and put themselves forward for the work. Today, we are used to employment agencies and job centres, online recruitment sites and word-of-mouth recommendations, but in Mr Wilson’s time, it was all about ‘suiting up and showing up’ for a face-to-face encounter. On the day he put his name forward as a railway worker at Southampton Docks (a job he really wanted) he was hired and began training as a welder.

Working for the railway

Mr Wilson didn’t have to learn to drive or buy a car because the railway provided free travel and discounts to its employees. To get to work, he boarded the train at St Deny’s to make the short journey to the Docks and back again. A real lover of his local area and a country boy at heart, Mr Wilson didn’t really want to travel to other parts of the UK.  He went to London once, but found the city overwhelming, so spent the majority of his time working and living in his Southampton community.

From that day at the Labour Exchange in August 1953 when he was hired to work for the railway, until 33 years later when he retired, he was with the same employer.  And he said he felt lucky to have learned how to weld because skilled labour jobs were better paid than manual labour jobs. His wages of £6 per week paid for accommodation and food. With the little that was left, he began saving to bring his wife to Southampton.  Pay day was every Monday.  Mr Wilson became fond of ‘the rum’, as he called it, but emphasised that he ‘packed in drinking’ because he needed the money to move out of the hostel. He also sent £10 each month by postal order to his grandmother in Jamaica. PayPal and the sophisticated bank transfers we are used to today, did not exist then. People had to wait to receive the money in the post.

The English weather

Quipping that he had never seen frost, he described the winter mornings as ‘arctic’ and reminisced about how novel these frigid mornings were. In the 1950s, most Southampton homes did not have central heating or double glazing so the weather would have felt ‘arctic’ to anyone who wasn’t used to it. But Mr Wilson also liked that there were clear markers of the seasons: summer was summer and winter was winter. 

Reflections. Mid-twentieth century Southampton

In mid-twentieth century Southampton, Mr Wilson’s local pub was a place of conviviality where the ‘drunkards’ looked after other pub goers and it was where he could be around others and get to know them. He spoke of a Southampton community where there was respect for each other; however, he was also aware of racism. In his experience, younger people were often more progressive in their way of thinking and more accepting of immigrants; however, around older people, he kept his head down and avoided trouble. The infamous red-light area of Southamtpon was formed around Derby Road in the mid twentieth century and as such, was also a part of Mr Wilson’s Southampton observations. The Derby Road sex workers were not all from the local area, but from all over the country.  Travel to Southampton was not difficult and as it was a major port city, there was a lucrative sex trade operating in the city.

The reunion

It was five years of arduous work and getting to know the area before Mr Wilson could send for his wife. After she arrived, the Wilsons rented their first house in Southampton in what was then a more affordable area of the city. And they still live in the same area today. However, in the 1950s in Southampton, immigrants struggled to find properties to rent and some immigrants were more discriminated against than others. Landlords displayed ‘No Irish, no blacks, no dogs’ signs in their windows as a means of stopping potential renters from approaching them. Therefore, purchasing a property of their own became a priority of this industrious couple. Mrs Wilson worked as a cleaner at the Southampton General Hospital before becoming a machinist in a factory that was based near the Docks. Her better-paid job combined with his wages meant that they eventually became proud owners of the home they continue to live in today.

Recognition and retirement

This wonderful couple’s charitable hearts are well-known in the Southampton African-Caribbean community. Beverley Dowdell, Chairperson of Southampton Black Heritage, spoke of the Wilsons’ generosity and of how Mr Wilson’s nickname, ‘Uncle Son’ was a term of endearment. As the ‘uncle’ of the community, many still turn to him for help and advice.

Retirement freed up time for this keen horticultural couple to spend in the large garden at the back of their house, where Scotch bonnet peppers and lovingly tended fruit trees grow.

A testament to his robust good health and attitude towards life, Mr Wilson continued to travel to Jamaica for month-long visits with family and friends until he was well into his eighties. When he returned, he could be seen handing out bottles of the Jamaican rum he had carted back for friends in his Southampton community.

Two years short of a century old, Mr Cleo Barton Alexander Wilson has seen much more of life than most who will read his story. At the end of our interview, I asked him for some words of wisdom. His response?  

‘Old time people used to say, things would be better if we stayed together.  Do the best you can to look after yourself.  If you see something you want and work hard to get it, be sure to take care of it.’  

Sound advice from a man whose legacy will be remembered for generations to come.