By Bill Hern
Here we tell the story of a Windrush passenger, McDonald Bailey, and his son, Emmanuel McDonald Bailey, who was an outstanding athlete.
Only two years before the Empire Windrush made her famous voyage in 1948, Trinidadian-born Bailey and another black athlete, the Jamaican Arthur Wint, had been excluded from the European Championships because they were not “European born or naturalised.” This was despite the fact that both were British, possessed British passports and were fighting for freedom in Europe by serving in the RAF. As the 1948 Olympics approached neither Bailey nor Wint knew if they would be competing and if so for which nation.
The passengers on the Empire Windrush had varying reasons for coming to England. The majority came to find work and help rebuild the country after the ravages of Word War Two. Some were coming across for business, others for pleasure. Passenger number 11, 67-year-old McDonald Bailey, had a very specific reason for coming to London – he wanted to watch his son Emmanuel McDonald Bailey compete in the 1948 Olympic Games.
Emmanuel McDonald Bailey was known as Mac so we will use that name here to distinguish him from his father. Mac was no run of the mill athlete, he was a world class sprinter and a real medal contender.
Mac lived at 4, Great James Street in London with his young wife Doris Florence, a Londoner, who he had married in 1946. Sharing the address were Charles Gordon Livick, Gordon Hume Mitchell and his wife Kathleen Marie Mitchell, Frederick George Osborne, Oscar Berry Tomkins (a solicitor) and Elizabeth Wells a 47-year-old widow.
Mac had served in the RAF during World War Two and had recently been demobbed. Because of his athletics and, of course, his marriage to Doris who was more than six year’s Mac’s junior, he had based himself in London rather than return home to Trinidad.
The run-up to the Olympics had been less than smooth for Mac. After being touted as one of Great Britain’s best hopes of a medal, the Olympic Committee put the cat amongst the pigeons in August 1947 by inviting Mac’s native country, Trinidad, to compete in the Games for the first time. The rules seemed to dictate that he must therefore represent Trinidad and the Great Britain management team accepted that as being the case.
In January 1948 the British announced their squad for the Games, missing from the list were Mac, Arthur Wint and Leslie Laing, the latter two were top class Jamaican runners. The assumption was that all three would be chosen to run for the island of their birth although neither Trinidad nor Jamaica had confirmed their participation.
In the case of Wint and Laing that assumption proved well founded. Wint who, like Mac, had served in the RAF although in his case as a pilot and an Officer, would go on to win Gold in the 400 metres, the first Jamaican to win Olympic gold. Laing competed at the Games finishing sixth in the 200 metres.
Having represented the RAF before his demobilisation, Mac had been running in the vest of Polytechnic Harriers in 1947. So successful was he that in October 1947 he was awarded the Harvey Memorial Gold Cup for the best performance at the Amateur Athletic Association (the three As) championships. It would be no exaggeration to say that Mac was the best athlete in the country in what was a pre-Olympic year. He had won the 100 and 220 yards double at the championships. Indeed he won that double every year between 1946 and 1953 except, significantly perhaps, 1948 – Olympic year.
As late as the end of May 1948 Mac’s position was unclear. The British Olympic team manager announced that Mac could run for Great Britain “if he wished” with an important proviso, “If he was chosen.”
McDonald senior was by then already on board the Windrush steaming towards England. He hoped that whether it be for Great Britain or Trinidad, his son would be competing in the Games.
There was the added complication of Mac’s fitness level. He had been suffering from a disease of the hip bone. A doctor told him that he could operate and ensure Mac was fully fit for the following year but Mac’s concern was the current year – 1948 – with the Games only a few months away.
There were signs that Mac was not at his best as the Games approached. He suffered several defeats including more than one by fellow Brit, Harrow-educated Alistair McCorquodale. McCorquodale was an excellent all-round sportsman and sprinting was very much a hobby for him. In fact he would go on to complete in the 1948 Games but never ran again, retiring from athletics aged only 22.
Thus when McDonald was greeted by his son at Tilbury on 22nd June he would have detected a great deal of uncertainty and no doubt some tension.
By a strange quirk of fate, Mac had arrived in Plymouth, England exactly nine years to the day before his father disembarked at Tilbury.
Mac was born in Hardbargain in the south of Trinidad on 8th December 1920. When he was 18 years old he was the youngest of six Trinidadian athletes who travelled to England on the German ship, the Caribia[1], giving their address in England as the Amateur Athletics Association headquarters at 2, Chancery Lane, London. Mac gave his occupation as lab assistant as did Manny Ramjohn, a distance runner, four year’s Mac’s senior and a native of San Fernando. In charge of the small squad was a 34-year old civil servant, Laurie Rogers.
The team was in England for the AAA championship and despite his tender years, Mac reached the semi-final.
There was little time for sight-seeing as the young men returned to Trinidad, leaving Dover on 12th July headed for Port of Spain.
Mac would next return to England in very different circumstances as, in 1944, he enlisted in the RAF. When the War ended he remained in England where he built his reputation as a world class sprinter.
Mac also found romance with Doris Florence Wells the daughter of Gifford Wells a reception clerk with The Times newspaper. Doris was born in Stoke Newington but her family had moved out to Billericay in Essex. The couple married in 1946 and went on to have five children.
McDonald Snr. had already met his daughter-in-law when Mac and his new wife visited Trinidad for Christmas 1946 and New Year 1947. When Mac and Doris left Port of Spain to return to England on 20th January 1947 Mac was still recording his occupation as ‘RAF.’
Although McDonald Snr. classed himself as a ‘merchant’ on the Windrush passenger list, he was in fact a former schoolteacher and had been head of Mac’s old school, Tranquillity, in Trinidad. Mac informed the New Ross Standard newspaper in 1969 that his father too had once been an athlete.
In early-July McDonald would have watched as Mac could finish only third in the AAA 100 yards behind Australian John Treloar and McCorquodale who was quickly becoming Mac’s nemesis. Although Mac qualified for the 220 yards final he pulled out, as did Treloar. Neither wanted to show their hand so close to the main event – the Olympic 100 metres.
Mac also competed in Manchester and Dublin prior to the Games, it is not known if McDonald travelled to watch his son.
In mid-July McDonald would have felt relief and pride when his son was formally named in the Great Britain Olympic team. Any celebrations would have been tempered by the fact that the British committee had sent a telegram to their Trinidadian counterparts stating they would rather that Mac run for his native country. The British asked for an urgent response but when none was received they had little choice but to select Mac, but only for the 100 metres. In contrast, McCorquodale was chosen for both the 100 and 200 metres.
Mac could not disguise his displeasure “I can’t think why they have done this. I am exasperated. Four years ago I represented Britain in a match and I have continued to do so to the best of my ability. Now, in effect, they say they do not require me. Is it, I wonder, because of my recent mishap [his hip injury] and the Board does not think I have as good a chance as I had before? It was wrong not to have told me on Sunday when the telegram was sent, instead of waiting until today [Wednesday].”
Mac did not suggest the Committee’s decision was due to the colour of his skin but he was certainly no stranger to racial discrimination. In 1946 described as ”the West Indian coloured track stars” both he and Arthur Wint were excluded from the European Championships in Oslo because they were ineligible due to the fact that were not “European born or naturalised.” This despite the fact they were British, held British passports and, more remarkably, were serving members of the RAF. To add to the ridiculousness of the situation, after Oslo, the British team moved on to two events in Sweden where Mac and Wint joined up with the squad.
Mac could of course have chosen to run for Trinidad. Had he done so he would have been selected for both the 100 and 200 metres. The British committee having made clear as long ago as May that if he was chosen for the British team it would only be for the shorter sprint event. Perhaps this was intended to encourage him to choose to run for Trinidad?
The 1948 Olympics were known as the Austerity Games. London and the rest of the world was only just recovering from the ravages of World War Two. No new venues were built and the athletics took place at Wembley Stadium. The Games opened on 29th July and the heats of the 100 metres took place the following day.
Taking part in the opening event for the very first time was the Trinidadian team of nine athletes and officials. Laurie Rogers and Manny Ramjohn, colleagues of Mac’s from 1939, proudly marched behind the Trinidadian flag. Trinidad even won a medal – the silver gained by Rodney Wilkes in the weightlifting.
They would have felt quite at home as London was in the midst of a heatwave which would last throughout the first week of the Games.
Watched by crowds of over 80,000 Mac qualified for the final along with his British team mate and arch rival McCorquodale. There was little to split the finalists. Both Brits finished third in their semi-final (only three qualified from each semi) but the difference between the time of the fastest qualifier , 10.4 seconds, and that of the slowest, 10.7 seconds, was marginal.
Mac was suffering from severe laryngitis and even took smelling salts down to the start of the final on 31st July. He said “I am not making excuses but I am very pleased to have got so far. My chest is so constricted I find myself gasping for breath after every race. But I’ll fight till I drop.”
Mac finished in last place and was said to be so exhausted he could barely walk off the track. He did make amends however as four years later in the Olympic Games at Helsinki he carried off a bronze medal for Great Britain.
Macdonald Snr. didn’t remain in London for long. He set off for Liverpool, where on 13th August he sailed on the Enid bound for British Guiana from where he would travel onto Trinidad. This time McDonald was shown on the passenger list as a retired schoolteacher and he was far away the oldest of the 11 passengers all of whom travelled first class.
Mac went on to have a long and varied life basing himself between England, British Guiana and Trinidad where he died four days before his 93rd birthday on 4th December 2013.
[1]Mac wasn’t to know it at the time but within 12 months the Caribia would be requisitioned by the German Navy as part of that country’s war effort. In May 1945 the Caribia was captured by the British forces but then handed over to the United States. By July 1946 it had been allocated to the Russians as a War reparation. It had a long and varied life and was not scrapped until 1993.