Eric D Walrond – A life in Wiltshire in Search of Asylum
The name of Eric Walrond was completely unknown to me until a left-wing historian friend Dave Chapple who lives in Bridgwater mentioned his name to me, together with the fact that Eric had once lived in Bradford on Avon. This impelled me to find out more.
Eric Derwent Walrond was born in Georgetown, Guyana then known as British Guiana, on 18 December 1898. His father left when he was just 8 years old and Eric returned with his mother to her home country of Barbados and from there in 1910 to Panama when the family was reunited. His career as a writer began as a reporter with the Panama Star-Herald from 1916 – 1918 until he emigrated via Ellis Island to New York City to study at the City College and later Columbia University. He married Edith Cadogan in 1920 when he was only 22 years old, a Jamaican who he had met in Panama, but they were divorced within 3 years and his family abandoned.
It was in New York that he began writing literary reviews, essays, short stories, poems and his acclaimed, award winning ‘Tropic Death’, published in 1926 when he was only 28 years old. He was awarded the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, after which he travelled widely throughout the Caribbean and subsequently Europe including France, Ireland and England. Living for a time in Paris and in London from the mid-1930s.
His lyrical narrative style is in sharp contrast to the often harsh subject matters which explore migration, prejudice, racism, class division, social exclusion and cultural conflict. He is now becoming recognised as having been a major literary figure in the Harlem Renaissance and his writings are at last being rediscovered. The Harlem Renaissance saw a massive explosion of Black African American culture and creativity establish itself through music, dance, art and literature during the early part of the 20th century.
Eric moved to Bradford on Avon in 1939 and lived here at 9 Ivy Terrace until 1952 where he lodged with a couple of artists. We don’t know what brought him to our town, most probably as an escape from London’s Blitz but he had been accused at that time of stabbing a man in London, though the charges were later dropped. Bradford on Avon has over the years been an appealing home to many writers and artists. Perhaps because of its striking beauty, history, easy access to the surrounding countryside and good connections to Bristol, Bath, Salisbury and London. It must have been a pleasant haven for a writer and someone variously described as charming, congenial, good-looking and energetic. He worked during these years at the Avon Rubber Company in Melksham and continued to write including his short story set in Bradford on Avon “By the River Avon” which describes the impact made by Black GIs stationed in the area during World War II.
He became a voluntary patient at Roundway Hospital in Devizes, a psychiatric hospital originally built as an asylum for paupers, from May 1952 until September 1957. No records remain of why he chose to admit himself or the treatments he received, but he may have been suffering from anxiety or depression and disillusioned with a society that marginalised and discriminated against black people. He described the hospital as ‘a compact, almost self-contained community set in surroundings of rare beauty’. He was equally impressed by our National Health Service. Many of his writings there were published in the Roundway Review of which he was Editor. Some of these are published in “In search of Asylum – The later writings of Eric Walrond” 2011. A double edged title, edited by Louis J Parascandola and Carl A Wade with a foreword by Eric’s granddaughter Joan Stewart. I can thoroughly recommend this as well as his trademark stories in “Tropic Death”. “Eric Walrond: A Life in the Harlem Renaissance” a definitive biography by James C Davis was published in 2015. All available through Amazon but I suggest you try Ex Libris or the Library first!
Curiously the photo of his home in “In Search of Asylum” shows Ivy Terrace itself, whereas 9 Ivy Terrace is a detached cottage situated at the end of the group of dwellings.
Eric is now receiving greater recognition and his writings have been included in various anthologies including The Penguin Book of Caribbean Short Stories, published in 1996, but they aren’t always easy to locate.
After leaving Roundway Hospital Eric returned to London where he was involved in a poetry recital “Black and Unknown Bards” at the Royal Court Theatre following the Notting Hill Race Riots of 1958.
He was living in much straightened circumstances when he suffered a heart attack in 1965 and he died suddenly after collapsing in the street in 1966. He is buried in Abney Park Cemetery, Stoke Newington in an unmarked common grave. A fine hand-carved stone memorial in an Art Deco style depicting him holding a book was subsequently erected close to the burial place in 2009. It simply states Eric D Walrond: Author of Tropic Death: 1898 – 1966.
Written by Rosie MacGregor
