ABSTRACT
In 1964, in a chapter entitled "Blacks next door" in her Back street new worlds, first published in Punch, Elspeth Huxley wrote:
I have seen immigrants living in revolting slums in Stepney, Balsall Heath in Birmingham and elsewhere, but far more in substantial Victorian houses, with names like Blenheim Villas and Cadogan Mansions, in Leeds, Bradford, Birmingham and Southall, as well as in London. These are the sort of houses that would once have had a maid-of-all-work in the attic, a mistress in her decent bombazine mending pinafores in the parlour, and the master in his striped trousers, black coat and wing collar going off to his city office every morning on the dot.
