Donald Hinds (13 January 1934 – 13 March 2023) was a Jamaican-born writer, journalist, historian and teacher. He is best known for his work on the '' West Indian Gazette'' and his fiction and non-fiction books portraying the West Indian community in
Britain
Britain most often refers to:
* Great Britain, a large island comprising the countries of England, Scotland and Wales
* The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, a sovereign state in Europe comprising Great Britain and the north-eas ...
, particularly his 1966 work ''Journey to an Illusion'', which has been called a groundbreaking book that "captured the plight of Commonwealth immigrants and foresaw the multicultural
London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
of today".
Biography
Donald Lloyd Hinds was born in
Kingston, Jamaica
Kingston is the Capital (political), capital and largest city of Jamaica, located on the southeastern coast of the island. It faces a natural harbour protected by the Palisadoes, a long spit (landform), sand spit which connects the town of Por ...
, on 13 January 1934 and grew up in a village in the parish of St. Thomas with his grandparents, his mother and stepfather having migrated to Britain.
In 1955, aged 21, he decided to travel to London, England, to join his mother. He had qualified as a probationary teacher in Jamaica but like many other West Indian migrants to the UK was unable to find employment that matched his qualifications. He eventually got a job with London Transport as a bus conductor, working out of Brixton Bus Garage in Streatham Hill.
While working on the buses Hinds met Theo Campbell, a local Jamaican businessman who owned London's first Black record shop at 250
Brixton Road
Brixton Road is a road in the London Borough of Lambeth (south London, England), leading from the Oval at Kennington to Brixton, where it forms the high street and then forks into Effra Road and Brixton Hill at St Matthew's church at the junctio ...
. The record shop shared the building with the '' West Indian Gazette''. Campbell introduced Hinds to
Claudia Jones
Claudia Vera Jones (; 21 February 1915 – 24 December 1964) was a Trinidad and Tobago-born journalist and activist. As a child, she migrated with her family to the United States, where she became a Communist political activist, feminist and bla ...
, the newspaper's editor, and Hinds began working for the paper in the summer of 1958. As the paper's "City Reporter", he was a regular contributor until Jones's death in 1964.
Between 1959 and 1963, Hinds was also broadcasting on BBC Caribbean, often reading short stories based on his experiences working on the buses. After ''
The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. First published in 1791, it is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.
In 1993 it was acquired by Guardian Media Group Limited, and operated as a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' ...
'' published a piece by him on West Indian schoolchildren in Britain, he was approached by a literary agent, which led to the commissioning of a book by Heinemann. Receiving an advance of £100 — the equivalent at the time of eight weeks' wages as a bus conductor — Hinds was emboldened to leave his job with London Transport to concentrate on his writings. ''Journey to an Illusion: The West Indian in Britain'' — a series of interviews, together with autobiographical writing and social comment — was first published in 1966. "One of the great works of journalism to have come out of the Jamaican-British encounter",Ian Thomson "‘Mother Country: In the Wake of a Dream’, by Donald Hinds. ‘When I Came to England’, edited by Z. Nia Reynolds" ''
Financial Times
The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and also published digitally that focuses on business and economic Current affairs (news format), current affairs. Based in London, the paper is owned by a Jap ...
'', 15 April 2015. the book was reissued in 2001 by Bogle-L'Ouverture Press and, in the words of Anne Walmsley: "''Journey to an Illusion'' remains a classic of the West Indian immigrant experience."
Hinds was one of the writers associated with the influential
Wilson Harris
Sir Theodore Wilson Harris (24 March 1921 – 8 March 2018) was a Guyana, Guyanese writer. He initially wrote poetry, but subsequently became a novelist and essayist. His writing style is often said to be abstract and densely metaphorical, and ...
,
Kenneth Ramchand
Kenneth Ramchand (born 1939) is a Trinidad and Tobago people, Trinidad and Tobago academic and writer, who is widely respected as "arguably the most prominent living critic of Caribbean fiction". He has written extensively on many West Indian au ...
,
Ronald Moody
Ronald Moody (12 August 1900 – 6 February 1984) was a Jamaican-born sculptor, specialising in wood carvings. His work features in collections including the National Portrait Gallery, London, National Portrait Gallery and Tate Britain in Londo ...
,
Aubrey Williams
Aubrey Williams (8 May 1926 – 27 April 1990) was a Guyanese artist. He was best known for his large, oil-on-canvas paintings, which combine elements of abstract expressionism with forms, images and symbols inspired by the pre-Columbian art o ...
,
Gordon Rohlehr
Gordon Rohlehr (20 February 1942 – 29 January 2023) was a Guyana-born scholar and critic of West Indian literature, noted for his study of popular culture in the Caribbean, including oral poetry, calypso and cricket. He pioneered the academic ...
, Christopher Laird, Louis James,
Orlando Patterson
Horace Orlando Patterson (born 5 June 1940) is a Jamaican-American historian and sociologist known for his work on the history of race and slavery in the United States and Jamaica, as well as the sociology of development. He is currently the Jo ...
and Anne Walmsley. Hinds joined CAM's committee and in 1969 took over editorship of the organization's ''Newsletter''. In February 1971 he chaired and introduced CAM's public session on "Contemporary African Poetry", at which Femi Fatoba from
Nigeria
Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...
and Cosmo Pieterse from Namibia participated with their Caribbean peers.
Hinds also worked for ''Magnet'', a newspaper launched in the 1960s with Jan Carew as its first editor.Angela Cobbinah "Black History Month: Mother Country: In The Wake of a Dream by Donald Hinds" ''Camden New Journal'', 10 October 2013. While continuing to write, Hinds went on to become a teacher and subsequently a lecturer in education at South Bank University, retiring in 2007.
In 2014, Hansib published his first novel, ''Mother Country: In the Wake of a Dream'', set in
Brixton
Brixton is an area of South London, part of the London Borough of Lambeth, England. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. Brixton experienced a rapid rise in population during the 19th century ...
in the 1950s and dealing with the dreams and realities lived by Jamaicans who settled in the "Mother Country" during that era. Describing the book as "an absorbing hybrid of fiction and reportage" in a ''
Financial Times
The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and also published digitally that focuses on business and economic Current affairs (news format), current affairs. Based in London, the paper is owned by a Jap ...
'' review, Ian Thomson says: "''Mother Country'', a work of documentary authenticity and rare narrative verve, takes us to the heart of the West Indian immigrant experience in postwar London."
Hinds was one of those interviewed for ''When I Came to England'', an anthology by Z. Nia Reynolds of oral accounts by newly arrived West Indians of life in the "mother country".
National Life Stories
National Life Stories (NLS) is an independent charitable trust and limited company (registered as the "National Life Story Collection") based within the British Library Oral History section, whose key focus and expertise is oral history fieldwork. ...
conducted an oral history interview (C1149/25) with Donald Hinds in 2012 for its Oral History of Oral History collection held by the British Library.National Life Stories, "Hinds, Donald (1 of 38) National Life Stories Collection: Oral History of Oral History" The British Library Board, 2012. Retrieved 9 October 2017. He features in Colin Grant's oral history ''Homecoming: Voices of the Windrush Generation'' (2019).
Hinds died on 13 March 2023, at the age of 89, survived by his wife Dawn (née Bruce), whom he married in 1961.
List of works
Non-fiction books and essays
*''Journey to an Illusion'' ( Heinemann, 1966), Bogle-L'Ouverture Press, 2001,
*"The 'Island' of Brixton", ''Oral History: The Journal of the Oral History Society'', Vol. 8, No. 1 (Spring 1980), pp. 49–51
*''Black Peoples of America, 1500-1900'', Collins Educational, 1992,
*''Native Peoples in America'', Collins, 1995,
Novels and short stories
*"Busman's Blues" in Andrew Salkey (ed), ''Stories from the Caribbean: an anthology'', Elek Books, 1965
*''Mother Country: In the Wake of a Dream'', Hansib Publications, 2014,
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...
Camden New Journal
The ''Camden New Journal'' is a British independent newspaper published in the London Borough of Camden. It was launched by editor Eric Gordon in 1982 following a two-year strike at its predecessor, the ''Camden Journal''. The newspaper was su ...
London Transport Museum
The London Transport Museum (LTM) is a transport museum based in Covent Garden, London. The museum predominantly hosts exhibits relating to the heritage of Transport in London, London's transport, as well as conserving and explaining the histo ...