IN 1979, a pair of journalists — Derek Bishton and John Reardon — arrange a photography studio on a street in Handsworth, inviting passers-by to take self-portraits. More than 500 people took part. At the time, when industry was in decline, and there have been high rates of unemployment and tensions with the police, Handsworth was, within the words of The Guardian “a byword for inner-city decline, and infrequently a probability to pin the blame on its newer inhabitants”. The photography project was a chance to indicate a special side.
Thirty-six later years, local residents are once more painting a special portrait from the one which appears within the headlines. This week, clergy and a head teacher described how comments made by the Shadow Lord Chancellor, Robert Jenrick, didn’t resonate with their experience (News, 10 October).
“Handsworth is a microcosm of what an actual and vibrant multi-cultural community looks like or ought to be like. It’s an area and place I’m comfortable and proud to call home,” the Area Dean, Canon Douglas Machiridza, who has lived in the realm for 11 years, said on Monday.
Mr Jenrick’s assertion that Handsworth was “as close as I’ve come to a slum on this country” and “certainly one of the worst integrated places I’ve ever been” — made after a 90-minute walk for filming in the realm — had left clergy “baffled”, Canon Machiridza said. “Everybody is appalled, however it isn’t a real reflection of what we all know of this space. Which area did he go to?”
As a black man, the Canon wondered whether, had Mr Jenrick passed him, he would have assumed “I wasn’t integrated and neither was I contributing in a positive solution to the welfare and development of this area which I call home.”
His three children — all of whom have attended schools in the realm — “continually express their gratitude for such a wealthy, diverse and very positive education experience gained in Handsworth”, he said.
As the Vicar of St Andrew’s, he served a congregation that was half white, while the remaining half had a combination of Afro-Caribbean, Asian, and Black African backgrounds. It made a “huge difference” to have clergy of global-majority heritage, he suggested.
The Priest-in-Charge of St Michael and St Peter, Handsworth, Canon Dominic Melville, described a “heart-warmingly and surprisingly well-integrated community” with “a really long history here of individuals working together”. He gave as examples the church foodbank depending on support from local gurdwaras and litter picks carried out by Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists and Muslims.
Mr Jenrick’s comments — which include the statement that he had not seen a single white face on his visit — “appear to imply that integration relies on there being white people”, Canon Melville said. “I’m a white man, and I feel very integrated. Here, I’m a part of minority community, but then so is sort of everyone else.”
The Rector of St Andrew’s, Rugby, Canon Edmund Newey, served in Handsworth for six years until 2013. He described this as a “very positive” experience that had left him “encouraged in regards to the way forward for our multicultural society”.
“It was — and I believe still is — a genuinely diverse area, by which nobody cultural, religious or ethnic group was dominant,” he said on Monday. “This meant that the civic lifetime of the community trusted good conversation and communication, and fairly often the Church of England was a highly effective broker, through its buildings, clergy, lay leaders, and their connections.”
He recalled his contribution to Fear and Friendship: Anglicans Engaging with Islam (Books, 2 August 2012), by which he observed that, “as a longtime Church, we’re ready to take risks that others won’t hazard”.
Among those that have defended Mr Jenrick is a senior fellow at Policy Exchange, Dr Rakib Ehsan. In The Daily Telegraph last week, he cited the outcomes of the last census, which found that — when asked about their national identity — three in ten residents in Handsworth West identified with an exclusively non-UK identity. “For a swathe of neighbourhoods across Handsworth, one in five people cannot speak English well, if in any respect.”
Responding, Canon Melville suggested that a matter about national identity was different from asking “How do you are feeling about being in Britain, about Britishness, about your life within the UK? . . . It isn’t necessarily to say that they aren’t also very energetically engaged within the work of integration here and an investment in a future here for themselves and their children. . . The overwhelming majority of individuals you’d encounter here have superb English and, if not, are making really significant efforts to speak well.”
Canon Machiridza said that while there have been “pockets” where people were less integrated, he and leaders of other faiths were continually promoting integration to stop communities’ becoming “marginalised or isolated or living in a silo”.
In previous many years, Handsworth was affected by riots. In 1985, clergy told the Church Times that the realm “suffered acutely from a dramatic lack of jobs” (13 September 1985). That 12 months, the realm was referred to within the report Faith and the City, which described “smouldering anger and quiet despair” in urban priority areas (6 December 1985). More recently, in 2011, clergy again warned of high levels of unemployment: “Bored, alienated, and knowing that their life-chances are low — what are people expected to do?” (News, 12 August 2011).
This week, Canon Machiridza said that challenges included unemployment, problems with drink, drugs, and rough sleeping. Canon Melville spoke of under-investment and low-quality HMO housing, but strongly rejected Mr Jenrick’s “slum” description. His comments had “awoken a resilience here. . . Across racial identities, people have been saying ‘it’s not like that for us’.”
Phillip Hynan, the pinnacle teacher of St Michael’s C of E Primary Academy, Handsworth (rated “Outstanding” by Ofsted) has worked in schools in the realm for 20 years. On Wednesday, he described a college of 200 children which reflected the realm’s position “at a crossroads of religion”. Parents of non-Christian faiths (making up two-thirds of the intake) had actively chosen St Michael’s. “What we’re is a college of religion where each school lives side by side in harmony and respect. We are an excellent example of integration.”
While some might use the label of “disadvantaged”, he regarded Handsworth as “anything but that”. Thirty-one languages were spoken, and there have been families “from all corners of the world because they need higher, families who’ve bounced back from adversity, families of ambition and drive”. In May, the varsity opened a community hub offering services including a foodbank, English classes, a youth club, and toddler classes, “built for, and paid for, by Handsworth”, without having for the varsity to contribute to funding.
The community was “mobile”, he said. About half of the intake would change through the years from Reception to Year 6. But the proven fact that greater than 100 attended the monthly community supper at the varsity was illustrative of the local commitment to integration and socialising, he said, and the English classes on the community hub could be full in the event that they were available day by day. “They want greater than we can provide.”
A story that the varsity often returned to was the story of the lady healed after touching the hem of Jesus’s cloak: “this concept of Jesus making her understand that her status in society that was imposed on her by others made her no less entitled to his compassion and love and support. She deserved to be seen and heard.”
