When I moved near to the Oval in south London, I was amazed to be told that Claudia Jones, the West Indian Gazette founder and Notting Hill carnival pioneer, had once lived in the house. One day Donald Hinds came round to see if he could make sense of the layout, as he had visited her often there.
He was a wonderful, gentle person, and told me about Claudia and the difficulties that he had when he came to Britain. His novel Mother Country (2014) had just been published, so he inscribed a copy to “Veronica who now lives where Claudia used to live”.
