:00:02. > :00:12.Hello. Tonight, Inside Out is in Derby to remember a war long past
:00:12. > :00:15.
:00:15. > :00:21.and some more recent battles. It was branded the most recent --
:00:21. > :00:28.racist city. How did Leicester transform itself? No Blacks, No
:00:28. > :00:32.Irish, No Dogs. This is Britain! And later in the programme, Tony
:00:32. > :00:36.Roe recovers the remarkable story of the villages with no War
:00:36. > :00:42.Memorial. The idea that there are villages and communities where
:00:42. > :00:52.everyone came home, what joy and happiness there must have been.
:00:52. > :01:02.
:01:02. > :01:04.This is Inside Out for the East Imagine a city where pubs, clubs
:01:04. > :01:07.and guest houses openly discriminated against immigrants,
:01:07. > :01:09.and where racial tension ran so high there were riots on the
:01:09. > :01:13.streets. That's how broadcaster and student protester Barbara Jacobs
:01:13. > :01:16.remembers the Leicester of her youth. We asked her to go back in
:01:16. > :01:21.time to investigate how a city with such problems could become the
:01:21. > :01:24.diverse community of today. And we should warn you, her film does
:01:24. > :01:34.start with some offensive language from the era and includes violent
:01:34. > :01:37.
:01:37. > :01:40.It was supposed to be comic satire. But not so long ago, Alf Garnett's
:01:40. > :01:50.rants reflected more of the mainstream view than we care to
:01:50. > :02:02.
:02:02. > :02:07.admit. The great British Empire! It is being given away to a load off...
:02:07. > :02:12.That makes for an uncomfortable watch. I know people call it
:02:12. > :02:18.political correctness, but I would rather be correct that listen to
:02:18. > :02:23.that. However, it was a piece of its time. Its time was the 1970s.
:02:23. > :02:26.There was I huge raid -- wave of resentment, what he calls the
:02:26. > :02:32.British Empire and should have been called the British Commonwealth,
:02:32. > :02:38.there were floods of people coming in, and naturally this led some
:02:38. > :02:48.people to feeling very resentful, particularly in the city which at
:02:48. > :02:50.
:02:50. > :02:54.that time was Britain's most racist city. It was one of the biggest
:02:54. > :02:59.police operations ever mounted outside London. 5,000 police men
:02:59. > :03:03.were brought to Leicester from 5,000 -- several forces. Some of
:03:03. > :03:08.the worst violence occurred on the campus of the University of
:03:08. > :03:14.Leicester. The fact that they are born here does not make them
:03:14. > :03:19.British. They must be repaid created along with those who had
:03:19. > :03:23.actually come into this country -- repatriated.
:03:23. > :03:25.It was a time of pitched battles on the streets of the midlands as the
:03:25. > :03:29.Anti-Nazi League and the National Front fought each other, and far
:03:29. > :03:34.right views surged in popularity. But I want to find out how
:03:34. > :03:38.Leicester fought back against its racist reputation. Has the
:03:38. > :03:48.prejudice simply moved out of the town and into the countryside? To
:03:48. > :03:52.
:03:52. > :03:56.find out, I need to revisit my own protesting past. Let's rewind to
:03:56. > :04:00.1964 when I was a student at the University of Leicester. Just down
:04:00. > :04:04.there, it was the most racist public in Leicester. Black people
:04:05. > :04:10.were allowed downstairs but not upstairs. What is that all about?
:04:10. > :04:15.It is like apartheid, that is what it struck us as. So we decided we
:04:15. > :04:22.would do less it in. What was amazing was that our local
:04:22. > :04:31.newspaper, the Leicester Mercury, actually did give us a bit of a
:04:31. > :04:36.slot. It was just a bit bigger on the front page and a lorry sinks
:04:36. > :04:44.into whole. Today, it would be all over the front page. But of course,
:04:44. > :04:47.times have changed. Her the new national health service starts,...
:04:47. > :04:50.When the Second World War ended, Britain needed workers - huge
:04:50. > :04:53.numbers of them - to help reconstruct a war-battered country.
:04:53. > :04:55.The appeal went out, and immigrants of 'good stock' were welcomed from
:04:55. > :05:01.Britain's Commonwealth counties, including the Caribbean, to fill
:05:01. > :05:11.the gaps in the labour market. I'm meeting three people who arrived in
:05:11. > :05:17.
:05:17. > :05:23.Leicester during this time, to find I arrived from Jamaica. And during
:05:23. > :05:30.the week, and as it church-going member of the community, I tried to
:05:30. > :05:37.go to the church across the road. I walked in, and the pastor said,
:05:37. > :05:42.welcome, but when did you come and when are you going back? No Blacks,
:05:42. > :05:45.No Irish, no children have no dogs. This is Britain!
:05:45. > :05:48.Staff shortages in British hospitals had been a problem even
:05:48. > :05:51.before the founding of the NHS in 1948. In the 50s, the workforce
:05:51. > :05:57.boomed, and senior NHS staff travelled to the Caribbean to
:05:57. > :06:07.recruit new staff. But when new nurses arrived in Britain, they
:06:07. > :06:13.found their welcome was often less than warm. Some of the patients
:06:13. > :06:21.enquired as to whether it was the first time I had worn clothes. And
:06:21. > :06:25.if it was the first time I had worn a bra. And I said, no. You are
:06:25. > :06:31.talking about something that is different. I said I am not from
:06:31. > :06:36.Africa, where you see dancing ladies without clothes. So they did
:06:36. > :06:40.not have a clue, basically? they were ignorant in that fact,
:06:40. > :06:43.that we were British subject. After months of protest, the
:06:43. > :06:46.landlord of 'The Nelson' finally agreed to lift his ban on black
:06:46. > :06:49.customers. We'd won our battle, but we hadn't won the war. World events
:06:49. > :06:59.were about to put an even greater strain on racial harmony in
:06:59. > :07:04.
:07:04. > :07:11.Leicester. Martin Luther King had a dream. So did the Ugandan dictator
:07:11. > :07:14.Idi Amin. But a completely different kind of a dream. They
:07:14. > :07:16.hold situation... Idi Amin's dream was to expel the
:07:16. > :07:19.country's entire Asian community. Over many years, they'd become a
:07:19. > :07:29.dominant force in the economy of this former British colony, playing
:07:29. > :07:32.
:07:32. > :07:40.key roles in business, trade and the civil service. There have been
:07:40. > :07:44.milking the economy of the country. The responsibility in Uganda, it is
:07:44. > :07:48.the responsibility of Great Britain. Amin accused the Asian community of
:07:48. > :07:52.hoarding wealth and sabotaging 'his' country. In reality, it was
:07:52. > :07:55.his own extravagance which put a strain on the national budget. A
:07:55. > :08:05.land grab began, and thousands of Ugandan Asians were given 90 days
:08:05. > :08:10.
:08:10. > :08:14.to leave. Many of them have British passports. 50,000 of them were
:08:14. > :08:18.thrown out. Some went to North America, some meant -- went to
:08:18. > :08:22.other countries but the majority came to Britain. At the majority of
:08:22. > :08:25.those who came to Britain came here, to Leicester.
:08:25. > :08:33.In 1972, Leicester was a prosperous city and many Ugandan Asians found
:08:33. > :08:36.jobs in hosiery manufacturing. But was Leicester the safe haven they
:08:36. > :08:43.hoped for? I'm meeting brother and sister Nisha and Atal who fled
:08:43. > :08:49.Uganda as children. You came here and thought it was a safe haven,
:08:49. > :08:54.clearly it was not, was it? Something happened. That is correct.
:08:54. > :09:00.Back in those days we had a glorious summer's. And they used to
:09:00. > :09:04.attract a fair ground here. There was a group of English boys, boys
:09:04. > :09:12.or men, they did not seem to be troubling anyone. But what they
:09:12. > :09:15.were doing was taking all the wooden stakes out of the fence. And
:09:15. > :09:21.the minute the fairground finished, that was the cue. Or you could see
:09:21. > :09:25.was about 60 guys running across. They were swinging those things
:09:25. > :09:32.indiscriminately. He ever came in the way, whether it was an man or a
:09:32. > :09:35.woman, a child, whatever. At person got hit. You can imagine, it was
:09:35. > :09:41.pandemonium. It is probably the most frightening episode of my life.
:09:41. > :09:45.I would put it on a Power, I would remember being scared at the
:09:45. > :09:49.airport in Uganda with all the soldiers. And all of a sudden, that
:09:49. > :09:59.whole thing was re enacted but in a different way.
:09:59. > :09:59.
:09:59. > :22:49.Apology for the loss of subtitles for 770 seconds
:22:49. > :22:57.BELLS RING. We are in love for breath. -- we are in Loughborough.
:22:57. > :23:04.The cavalry regiment are farmers or farm workers. A ledger listing the
:23:04. > :23:12.names of the meant holds a surprise.. It says he joined up in
:23:12. > :23:20.1911. He would have been 11 years old. He had lied about his age. He
:23:20. > :23:26.was 15 when he first saw action. He was a lance corporal in 1916. At
:23:26. > :23:34.the age of 17, too young to fight, he was lance corporal and having
:23:34. > :23:44.fought a major battle. The Scot -- astonishing. The battle is
:23:44. > :23:44.
:23:44. > :23:50.remembered every year at Bradgate Park, near Leicester. Some of the
:23:50. > :23:58.cadets here were probably as old as some of the soldiers in World War
:23:58. > :24:03.One. The Honorary Colonel of the Leicestershire and Derbyshire
:24:03. > :24:10.Yeomanry today is the great- grandson of the man who left them -
:24:10. > :24:14.- led them into battle. This is rather a nice little picture. It
:24:14. > :24:24.does not see the light of day very often, but it is something very
:24:24. > :24:26.
:24:26. > :24:30.special. These squadrons were under attack on the front line.
:24:30. > :24:36.squadron's wanted to withdraw, and they started to withdraw, and a
:24:36. > :24:44.great cry went up, hold hard, listened -- Leicestershire
:24:44. > :24:52.Yeomanry! They subsequently fell. His great-grandfather led A
:24:52. > :24:56.squadron. My grandfather, a was a commanding officer, was killed at
:24:56. > :25:04.half-past six in the morning. He was out of it before the battle
:25:04. > :25:09.really got going. The a squadron, which a Greek -- originally come
:25:09. > :25:15.from Melton Mowbray and luck -- run and, held the line, and had they
:25:15. > :25:25.not done so the Germans would have gone straight through. My dad was
:25:25. > :25:32.
:25:32. > :25:37.in covering letter seat Scotland. - We have a photograph of him here
:25:37. > :25:47.from his wedding in August 1914. He would have been 15 years old. He
:25:47. > :25:49.
:25:49. > :25:58.does look older. He could pass for 17 or 18 quite easily. He was the
:25:58. > :26:03.to save the day at the battle. The Life Guards had retreated.
:26:03. > :26:10.bombardment had completely wiped out the front trenches. It had
:26:10. > :26:20.disappeared in red mist. A knot of Yeoman with the infantry attack the
:26:20. > :26:31.
:26:31. > :26:36.Your dad would have been in that front trench. I don't think he
:26:36. > :26:46.would have forgotten it. He would not have forgotten it until the end
:26:46. > :26:47.
:26:47. > :26:57.of his days. We found a veteran of that battle on his 100 birthday. I
:26:57. > :27:07.did the interview 15 years ago, not knowing he had fought with my dad.
:27:07. > :27:31.
:27:31. > :27:41.You must have seen some terrible things. Both sides were in battled.
:27:41. > :27:51.
:27:51. > :27:57.There are many more stories to be found in villages. On the first
:27:57. > :28:03.grave you see is one of the returning soldiers. Dead at 23
:28:03. > :28:13.years old. He died from exhaustion or four years after the war. In
:28:13. > :28:35.