Beryl Gilroy

Beryl Gilroy was born in Skeldon, Berbice, Guyana.[5] She grew up in a large, extended family, largely under the influence of her maternal grandmother, Sally Louisa James (1868–1967), a herbalist, who managed the family small-holding, was a keen reader and imparted to the young Beryl stories of "Long Bubbies", Cabresses and Long Lady and a treasury of colloquial Guyanese proverbs.[5]

Gilroy did not enter full-time schooling until she was 12, this was influenced by her grandmother. Sally Louisa James, Gilroy's grandmother thought Gilroy would be able to learn more from life, if she had life different life experiences and more freedom, typically not something someone could gain from primary school.[6] Gilroy was heavily influenced by her grandmother in all her aspects of life, she found inspiration from her grandmother's stories in her own writings. She also used the same methodology that her grandmother used when it came to schooling her own children. Gilroy homeschooled her son and daughter with the same focus on freedom that her grandmother had for her.[6]

From 1943 to 1945, she attended teacher training college in Georgetown, gaining a first-class diploma. She subsequently taught and lectured on a UNICEF nutrition programme.[2] In 1951, at the age of 27, she was selected to attend university in the United Kingdom. Between 1951 and 1953 she attended the University of London, pursuing a Diploma in Child Development.[7]

Gilroy's first teaching job was in Guiana in the late 1940s up until 1951. She later left Guiana and went to attend the University of London. Gilroy assumed since she was a qualified teacher, and respected teacher from Guiana she believed she would not have a problem looking for a teaching job in London. However, during this time in the early 1950s racism was still strongly prevalent. Her prospective employers denied her for a long time because she was a black woman. It was not until the late 1960s that Gilroy was actually able to teach again. She was employed by the Inner London Education Authority,[7] at a "poor Catholic School"[8] she taught for a couple of years, married scientist Patrick Gilroy[9] (d. 1975),[10][2] and spent the next 12 years at home bringing up and educating their children Darla and Paul, furthering her own higher education.[7] In 1968 she returned to teaching and eventually became the first Black headteacher in London,[2][11][12] at Beckford School in West Hampstead.[13] It was difficult for her during this time since many of her coworkers were prejudice against her, and the low wage she received compared to other teachers at her school, she continued teaching regardless of all of that.. Many of these experiences she had as a teacher in London lead her to write her novel Black Teacher (1976).

Gilroy had many other jobs than just teaching. Previously stated above before she was able to become a teacher in London, Gilroy worked in a cafe, she was a maid, a dishwasher, and a worked in a factory. While she homeschooling her children she would also read and review works for a publisher.[7]

Later she worked as a multi-cultural researcher at the Institute of Education, University of London,[15][16] and developed a pioneering practice in psychotherapy, working mainly with Black women and children. She was a co-founder in the early 1980s of the Camden Black Sisters group.[7] She gained a PhD in counselling psychology from an American university in 1987 while working at the Institute of Education.[1][16][17]

Gilroy's creative writing began in childhood, as a teacher for children and then in the 1960s when she began writing what was later published by Peepal Tree Press as In Praise of Love and Children. Between 1970 and 1975 she wrote the pioneering children's series Nippers, containing probably the first reflection of the Black British presence in UK writing for children.[7]

Her 1976 memoir about her experiences as the first black headteacher in London is described by Sandra Courtman as "an unconventional autobiography ... [Black Teacher] is Gilroy’s experiment with an intermediary form – somewhere between fiction and autobiography, with a distinct non-linear structure."[14] It was not until 1986 that Gilroy's first novel, the award-winning Frangipani House was published (Heinemann). It won a GLC Creative Writing Prize in 1982.[15] Set in an old person's home in Guyana, it reflects one of her professional concerns: the position of ethnic minority elders and her persistent emphasis on the drive for human freedom. Boy Sandwich (Heinemann) was published in 1989, followed by Stedman and Joanna: A Love in Bondage (Vantage, 1991), and a collection of poems, Echoes and Voices (Vantage, 1991). Then came Sunlight and Sweet Water, Gather the Faces, In Praise of Love and Children and Inkle and Yarico (all Peepal Tree, 1994). Her last novel, The Green Grass Tango (Peepal Tree) was published in 2001, sadly after Beryl Gilroy’s death in April of that year.

Gilroy's early work examined the impact of life in Britain on West Indian families and her later work explored issues of African and Caribbean diaspora and slavery.[16]

In 1998, a collection of her non-fiction writing, entitled Leaves in the Wind, came out from Mango Publishing. It included her lectures, notes, essays, dissertations and personal reviews.[18] In this book she stated that the purpose behind Black Teacher and much of her other writing was "to set the record straight. There had been Ted Braithwaite’s To Sir With Love [1959] and Don Hinds’ Journey to an Illusion [1966] but the woman’s experiences had never been stated."[19] She also later noted: "In the tradition of Black women who write to come to terms with their trauma, or alternatively to understand the nature of their elemental oppression, I wrote to redefine myself and put the record straight."[20]

In Gilroy's writings she drew much of her inspiration from stories her grandmother would tell her about British Guiana. She also was inspired from her own life experiences, such her work before becoming a teacher, and the racism she experienced while being one of the first black head teachers in London.

Although many of Gilroy's peers who were writing Caribbean Literature were being published, Gilroy was turned away very often in the beginning. Her writings were seen to be too "...colonial, and unknowing, and ... psychological and strange."[8] Some of her writings weren't published for more than 30 years after she had written them. After many years she was finally able to share her work with the public, and to this day she is remembered as a part of black feminist movement, but that isn't how she wanted to be remembered. "She badly wanted to avoid being marginalised by any literary or black-feminist political label."[14]

Beryl Gilroy was a Caribbean Fiction and nonFiction writer. Many of her writings at the beginning of her career were Postcolonial Fiction novels and short stories. While near the end of her career she published a collection of her journals, lecture notes, essays and personal review. Her fiction writings were inspired by her life, and stories she was told by her grandmother in her childhood in Guiana. Her writings typically were based on Caribbean characters, many of which are women Caribbean characters. She wrote from the woman's perspective because that is what she knew. She wanted to give black women something they could relate too. Although, at the time many of the other Caribbean writers that were published at the time were writing from the male point of view. Gilroy was often Criticized for "Writing at the ‘wrong’ time and in the ‘wrong’ gender, the work of Beryl Gilroy was subject to misunderstandings and neglect. But Gilroy was the ultimate outsider who broke down barriers to clear a cultural and creative space for subsequent generations."[14]

Gilroy died of a heart attack at the age of 76 on 4 April 2001.[2] As noted by Roxann Bradshaw: "Two days later over one hundred Anglophone women writers from around the world gathered at Goldsmiths College in London, where Dr Gilroy had been scheduled to deliver a keynote address at the 4th annual Caribbean Women Writers Association conference. The news of her death was received with great sorrow for the passing of one of the first wave of Anglophone women writers, whose contribution to Caribbean women's literature is invaluable."[21]

After many years of neglect in Beryl Gilroy's life she finally began receiving recognition for her work. She eventually received many hounours, and awards late in her career as a writer. Gilroy wrote The Nippers Series which was written throughout the 1960s-1970s, they were several short stories made for children. This Series won her over sixteen awards.[22] She received the GLC Creative Writing Prize for her novel Frangipani House from 1986. Gilroy was honoured in 1990 by the Greater London Council for all of her services in education. Five years later in 1995 Gilroy received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of North London. In 1996 Gilroy was hounoured by the Association of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars[23]. Then in 2000 Gilroy was made an Honorary Fellow, which is a highly prestigious award that a University can give from the Institute of Education.[24]

In recognition of Beryl Gilroy, an orange skirt suit she wore was included in an exhibition titled Black British Style at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2004.[11]

She also received a British Guiana Teacher’s Certificate with first class honours in the 1950s.[4]

• Green and Gold Readers for Guyana, Longman, Green & Co., 1967–71
• Black Teacher, Cassell, 1976. Reprinted Bogle-L'Ouverture, 1994
• Frangipani House, Heinemann, 1986
• Boy Sandwich, Heinemann, 1989
• Stedman and Joanna: A Love in Bondage, Vantage, 1991
• Echoes and Voices (poetry), Vantage, 1991
• Sunlight and Sweet Water, Peepal Tree Press, 1994
• Gather the Faces, Peepal Tree Press, 1994
• In Praise of Love and Children, Peepal Tree Press, 1994
• Inkle and Yarico, Peepal Tree Press, 1994
• Leaves in the Wind: Collected Writings, Mango Publishing, 1998
• The Green Grass Tango, Peepal Tree Press, 2001

• Roxann Bradshaw, "Beryl Gilroy's 'Fact-Fiction': Through the Lens of the 'Quiet Old Lady'", Callaloo, Vol. 25, No. 2 (Spring 2002), pp. 381–400.

• Sandra Courtman, "Women Writers and the Windrush Generation: A Contextual Reading of Beryl Gilroy's In Praise of Love and Children and Andrea Levy's Small Island". EnterText, Special Issue on Andrea Levy, 9 (2012): 84–104.
• Nisha Obano, "Beryl Gilroy", Encyclopedia of Afroeuropean Studies.
• Susheila Nasta & Sandra Courtman (2018), "An Interview with Beryl Gilroy", Wasafiri, 33:2, 17-21, DOI: 10.1080/02690055.2018.1431101