BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY Norwell Roberts
| BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY |
Norwell Roberts, QPM joined the Metropolitan Police as part of a recruitment campaign by the Metropolitan Police Service in the late sixties. In 1967 he became the first black police officer in Britain. After a 30 year career, he received three commendations, and was first black Metropolitan Police officer to be awarded the Queen's Police Medal QPM for Distinguished Service.[1]
Early life
Norwell Roberts was born Norwell Lionel Gumbs on 23rd October 1945 in Anguilla, in the Leeward Islands in the West Indies. After constant misspelling of the name "Gumbs", he changed his name in 1968 by deed poll, taking his mother's maiden name of Roberts. His father died when he was just three years old and his widowed mother, lured by promises of job opportunities and a better life, sailed for England in 1954. Roberts was left behind, to be raised by his strict preacher grandparents.
His grandmother was a Methodist deaconess. When he misbehaved, he recalled with some horror, his grandmother would send him to the local shops wearing her dresses. This was her way of punishing him, as well as being smacked as was the way it was in the West Indies at that time.[2]
He arrived at the port of Dover at age nine when his mother secured employment as a housemaid in London. Life in England didn't run smoothly. Like other fifties immigrants from the West Indies and Ireland, Roberts' mother struggled. The signs in landlords windows read 'No niggers, no Irish, no dogs,'. At home in Anguilla his mother had run several neighbourhood shops but in London she took any domestic jobs she could get, saving her money so her son could join her.
Roberts eventually joined her in 1956. They went to live in Bromley, Kent where his mother was a paid companion to an elderly lady, for whom Roberts had the utmost respect, for her courage as she was shunned by her neighbours, whom she had known all her life. Her family also rejected her for allowing a black family to live with her. She remained supportive of her lodgers because of her resolve to be a good Christian.
In 1956, Roberts was the only black child in his elementary school, and when he passed the 11-plus, the headmistress told his mother that Roberts would not be going to grammar school because he had to 'learn the English ways'. This was a way of saying that she was not prepared to allow a black child, however clever, to go to a grammar school in 1956, especially in Bromley, an affluent area. As a result Norwell instead went to the local secondary modern school in Bromley, where the older sixth form boys dropped him head first to the ground in order to see the colour of his blood. He still carries the scar on his forehead, but never once complained to his mother, because he understood that she had been powerless to act.[3]
In 1959 his mother remarried and moved to Camden Town, North London, where Roberts went to the Haverstock Hill Comprehensive School. He did not have a good relationship with his stepfather, who mistreated his mother. Roberts was kicked out of his London home when he was just 15 years old. Having passed O-levels in Religious Knowledge and Chemistry, he started work as a scientific laboratory technician in the Botany Department at Westfield College, which is affiliated to the University of London.
In 1966, while working at Westfield College, Roberts responded to a newspaper advertisement and completed the police recruitment application form. While on day release to Paddington Technical College, one of his fellow students who read the Daily Telegraph saw a headline which read ‘London to have first coloured Policeman soon’. The Metropolitan Police had not bothered to inform Roberts first.
Roberts in applying to join the Met police force was continuing a family tradition. In Anguilla, his grandfather was sergeant and in various islands in the West Indies he had three uncles who were all high-ranking officers, one of whom was awarded the CPM (Colonial Police Medal) for his services. They all attended, on secondment, Hendon Police Collegeduring their career, where Roberts also trained. They were trained on a 12-week course on the familiarisation of police procedure, before returning to the West Indies.[4]
Roberts enlisted on the 28th of March 1967. This intake also included Paul Condon, who later went on to become a Metropolitan Police Commissioner, and later, Lord Paul Condon.[5]
Police career
On the 3rd April 1967, when Roberts was 21, he officially joined the Metropolitan Police and achieved media and public attention because he was the first black police officer in the Metropolitan Police, which covers the greater London area. At that time the only black people in uniform were working for London transport on the buses, as conductors of the underground and British Rail. Under the scrutiny of the popular press of the time, Roberts completed his initial training at Hendon Police College. Roberts' selection and training was a test for community relationships within all sections of the multi-cultural British society of the 1960s.[6]
He remained in the police force for 30 years, and was the first black member of the CID. He rose to the rank of Detective Sergeant. His initial placement was at Bow Street Police Station, in Covent Garden, London. Despite the early public interest in his career, whilst doing his work Roberts was subjected to regular discrimination from his colleagues. He recalls that on the first day of his Bow Street probation placement, the duty sergeant said ‘Look you nigger, l will see to it that you never pass your probation’. Roberts now says with a wry grin, “he got that one wrong didn’t he?”.[7]
In spite of being ostracised by his fellow police officers, many were his friends during training at Hendon. As the first black policeman in the UK, he was the most conspicuous man in the force. His every move whether walking the beat or holding back protestors in Trafalgar Square hit newspaper headlines at home and abroad. He made tabloid cartoons[8]and was even on the cover of Private Eye. In newspapers in America in the Southern States the headlines read 'London gets first negro cop'.
His was the face that stood out at every protest, march and riot in the Swinging Sixties. He saw action in Grosvenor Square as anti-Vietnam demonstrators paraded in front of the American Embassy. Norwell patrolled outside the South African Embassy. He was positioned on Rhodesia House on the same day that Ian Smith had three black Africans hanged, and suffered vicious abuse from anti-apartheid protesters. He was quickly withdrawn. At a Beatles premiere or Springboks demos, his was the only black face under a helmet. News photos of the day show him linking arms with his colleagues, harnessed in solidarity with every other copper on the Metropolitan force.
In fact, the united front and show of camaraderie was but a cruel facade. Every night the 21-year-old Roberts locked himself in the bathroom of his digs in section house and wept in loneliness, despair and raging frustration at the brutal racism and rejection he encountered. That was the only way he could get ready to face another day. The stress had to be endured as there was simply no one to complain to. Ostracised and humiliated, he endured a three-year campaign of hostility. Coins were scraped along the side of his car and matchsticks jammed into locks, the tyres were slashed and buttons torn off his uniform, and when he called on the radio for backup, it didn't materialise. When he was posted on van duty, it would mysteriously on occasions 'break down', and he would overhear on the radio: "We're not helping that black so-and-so out." Once, he arrested a drunk, and had to transport him back to the nick on a market porter's trolley because the Black Maria driver wouldn't answer his call.[9]
The loneliness was unremitting, as not many of his colleagues spoke to him. Roberts was often used for ‘positive discrimination’ photographic opportunities by the Metropolitan Police. Some high-ranking officers made capital out of stating that they knew him, when it suited their purposes. The smiling photos of the young bobby hid the loneliness and torment he faced as a PC at Bow Street station.
To some in the black community, Roberts was a traitor. He was called "Uncle Tom" and "Judas in a white man's job." Yet, despite all this, he says there was only ever once that he contemplated leaving. It had been a lovely sunny day and Roberts was walking on the beat outside Covent Garden Opera House, when a driver of the area car [police car with blue light] wound down his window and shouted, 'you black c***'. He felt shame and anger because the remark was said in the open there were crowds of people there and they all turned and looked at him, it was almost was the final straw. He went into the police station and into the superintendent’s office and related the matter to him. He was taken aback when the superintendent instead of reassuring and comforting him retorted, "well what do you want me to do about it?" Roberts quickly realised at the time that in reality his superintendent didn’t want to do anything about it and had no intention of doing anything. Roberts abandoned his complaint when he realised that his tormentors would finally score a victory if they knew that they had gotten to him.
Roberts moved to CID at West End Central as a Temporary Detective Constable and later became a fully fledged Detective Constable in 1977. The abuse by his colleagues stopped, and he enjoyed his new position and colleagues picking up the nickname; Noz. Shortened from Norwell, in Albany street 1980. He won an outstanding commendation for arresting 5 contract killers in 1985. He worked in the drugs squad and undercover in a range of dangerous operations. He was known as Nozzer the Cozzer.[10] In fact his nickname was mentioned at Acton Crown Court when a barrister asked him what his nickname was. Roberts was reluctant to tell him. The judge directed him to do so. The Court, including the judge, erupted in laughter when Roberts said that his nickname was “Nozzer the Cozzer the High Flying Rozzer”. Norwell Roberts, aka Noz, served at several police stations across the metropolitan area including Bow Street, Vine Street, West End Central, West Hampstead, Albany Street, Kentish Town, Acton, Ealing, Southall Ruislip, Wembley, Barnet, Borehamwood and Golders Green. Police detectives are required to change their working borough every three to five years.
Roberts has been commended on three occasions, spectacularly in 1985 when he was part of a squad who arrested five people in six days for a contract killing. Sir Robert Mark (Commissioner from 1972 to 1977) praised his contribution towards better relations between white and black communities. In 1996 dressed in a canary yellow waistcoat and white ruff, at Buckingham Palace he received one of the force's highest honours, the Queen's Police Medal. (QPM); for Distinguished Service, in recognition of his time in the Police. The award is normally only reserved for chief constables and senior ranks only.[11]
When HRH Prince Charles presented him with the QPM award medal on the 15th of March 1996, he said that Britain needed more police like him. To this Roberts replied that he imagined Prince Charles had, had the same problem recruiting and keeping black guardsmen which was also a problem in those days.[12] It is also reported that Roberts achieved substantial success as the first black undercover officer and Roberts served undercover for 25 years on and off coupled with his normal Police duties.[13] On his career, Roberts says 'After 30 years on reflection I think that I've been a reasonably good detective. I've given a good account of myself and I’m happy with what I've done, I had something I wanted to prove to myself. I am still proving it. But I think I have earned people's respect. It has all been worth while" At his leaving party at the banqueting rooms in Finchley, in 1997 over 600 attended. One of those who attended was the then Commissioner Paul Condon. (He was not then a Lord), and his then Chief Superintendent Peter Twist with whom he still maintains contact. There were others there who worked with him in his early years and some of whom abused him in those early years.
Roberts is featured in a question of popular board game Trivial Pursuit. He also ran an attendance centre in Mill Hill for young offenders every other Saturday. During his time in the police, Roberts has lectured at Universities schools and colleges around the UK. He has even given a talk at the Police Special Senior Command Course for high-ranking Oofficers at Bramshill in Hampshire. Roberts has lectured on police and the ethnic minorities - now called diversity training. He once did charity work with Gary Numan including when dressing up a Father Christmas and handed out presents to over 50 disadvantaged children for nearly 40 years. He financed the transportation to Blackbushe airport in Hampshire where the children were treated to the arrival of Father Christmas from the ‘North Pole’.
Post-police career
Since 1985 Roberts has successfully been an active Freemason. He has risen to several respectable ranking positions within the organization. He is a member of some seven different orders. He has been the Provincial Grand Junior Warden in the Mark Degree in Hertfordshire. He has also recently been promoted to Past Grand Junior Deacon in the Mark Degree, and has Provincial Grand rank in The Royal Arch. In July 2015 he will become the Provincial Grand Almoner in the Mark Degree in the Province of Hertfordshire. He has also been through the Chair of the Royal and Select Masters. He is currently the secretary of a couple of orders, and enjoys being the Almoner. Roberts enjoysFreemasonry and is proud of the good and charitable work that this organisation achieves.
Personal life
Roberts retired from the Metropolitan Police in 1997. He has lived in Harrow with his wife Wendy since 1976.
Legacy
[14] Roberts is the UK’s first black police officer, first black member of the CID, the first black officer to serve 30 years, the first black undercover officer and the first black Metropolitan Police officer to be awarded the Prestigious Queen’s Police medal, an award only given to those with recognition of Distinguished Police Service. He is still called upon for interviews in the media for his comments concerning ethnic minorities, police history, or his career and experiences as the first black police officer in the Metropolitan Police.
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