E10 - Afro Hair and Beauty

Speakers: Catherine Ross, Lynda-Louise Burrell & Rudi Page

[Music Playing]

Riaz: My mother's Dutch pot.

Jocelyn: A poster, which is a map of Barbados.

Female: My grandmother's suitcase.

Lenny: A flyer with a sound system on it.

Catherine: We all have one of those objects, don't we?

Lynda: Something so sentimental, we've had it for years.

Catherine: And losing or breaking it is not an option.

Lynda: These objects tell a story about us.

Catherine: About our lives, upbringing, and family.

Lynda: And for Caribbeans whose stories are so often left untold, we are bringing these stories to the fore.

Riaz: They're just pots on a surface level, but they're kind of loaded in history.

Lenny: These flyers would've been going back to the seventies, so it brings back great memories.

Catherine: This is Objeks & Tings.

Lynda: A podcast celebrating Caribbeans and their favourite tings. Episode 10: Afro Hair & Beauty.

Catherine: Hello, this is Objeks & Tings, a weekly show celebrating Caribbean culture in the UK. I'm Catherine Ross and this is my daughter, Lynda.

Lynda: Hello.

Catherine: Together, we run Museumand, a social history museum we take around the UK so we can meet and connect with people of all different ages.

Lynda: Our exhibitions focus on the lives of Caribbeans in the UK and share all the brilliant things we Caribbeans have done here.

Catherine: And this year, to celebrate 75 years since the Windrush first came to Britain, we are celebrating the Windrush generation in particular, with help from this podcast.

Lynda: Yes, each week we speak to a different guest about an object close to their heart.

Catherine: And use that as a jumping off point to discuss their family and life experiences.

Lynda: Not every guest will be from the Windrush generation, but if you’re Caribbean and living in the UK, chances are, you will have a story about someone who is.

Catherine: And that's what we are dealing with here at Museumand. Stories, they are our currency.

Lynda: So, shall we meet today's guest then?

Catherine: Yes.

Rudi: My name is Rudi Page. I am a Management Consultant, and I am the former Sales and Marketing Manager of Dyke & Dryden, the leading importers and wholesalers of afro hair and beauty products during the 1970s, 80s and 90s.

Lynda: Great, hair, I love talking about black women's hair. The innovation of tools and products for afro hair has come so far over the years, so I can't wait to hear what object Rudi has in store for us.

Catherine: Yes, so can you guess what it might be?

Lynda: An afro pic, foam rollers, dark and lovely like me.

Catherine: You're almost there, but it sounds like you're going through our bathroom cabinet. Let's find out from the man himself.

Rudi: My object is a hot comb and this hot comb, it has metal teeth, wooden handle, and it was used by Caribbean women to straighten their hair, particularly during the 1950s and 60s.

There was absolutely a Windrush generation look wavy at the front with plenty of length.

My mother was one of the best stylists using the hot comb when I was a child. And so, on a Saturday night, women would come round for her to style their hair before they all went out to party.

And then in later life, when I became the sales and marketing manager for Dyke & Dryden, the hot comb and afro combs were an integral part of my business life at the time.

So, I always had that close affinity to the hot comb and always made sure that I sold one wherever I went. In fact, I used to carry one round in the car, for sentimental reasons.

The hot comb looks like an ordinary comb, but the teeth are metal, and it has a wooden handle, and there's approximately 10 to 15 teeth. So, the hot comb would be put on the stove or on the top of a hot paraffin lamp, because we're now talking about the 1960s.

And the paraffin lamp was something that was used in all Caribbean households at that time. Of course, there was no central heat. The paraffin lamp gets very hot after a while, there's a slight change in colour because it's metal.

It's always through judgement to know exactly when to take it off and when to place it on its hair. And that's part of the skill of course, knowing when to do that.

I can remember my mother on one side of the room with friends, they would be sitting, chatting, joking as she was doing their hair before they all went out. I can remember music in the background.

If the comb was too hot and it was placed on the hair, there may be a slight sizzling sound, which is not a good sound, but for me, there was not any sound because my mother was one of the best stylists at the time.

Catherine: I love the idea of Rudi carrying around a hot comb for sentimental reasons. I'm really sentimental too and hang on to everything that's special to me. In fact, I love documenting my life through Objeks & Tings.

Lynda: Yes, you even keep our podcast scripts, don't you?

Catherine: I do, indeed.

Lynda: You love a momentum, mum.

Catherine: True.

Lynda: But back to the hot comb, because it really was and still is for many, an integral part of Caribbean life. Hot combs are a symbol of time spent with family and friends to have a wealth of personal stories attached to them. I can't wait to hear some more of Rudi's and share with you of our own.

Catherine: Hello, Rudi.

Rudi: Good day.

Lynda: Hi.

Rudi: Good day.

Catherine: Right, tell us where in the Caribbean are your family from?

Rudi: My mother came from Montserrat, my father Jamaica, and I was born in London, East London.

Catherine: And when did they come to London then?

Rudi: Both of them arrived in the same year, actually, 1955.

Lynda: They were early comers then.

Rudi: Absolutely.

Catherine: Earlier than me.

Rudi: Yeah, so yes, I am a real child of the Windrush generation.

Catherine: Have you only lived in London then or grew up in London?

Rudi: No. In fact, we sort of lived in Finsbury Park, and then we moved to Slough. So, I actually regard myself as a Slough man as we used to say in the 1970s. We used to regard ourselves according to our town.

Catherine: So, what did they get up to then? Come on, sell it to me.

Lynda: Were you a bad boy?

Rudi: No, no, no. I was always well-behaved. That's one thing I will always say about myself. I was always well-behaved, so I was very much about football and enjoying myself going out in the 1970s. Of course, lovers rock time, sound systems, that's the 1970s for me.

Catherine: That sounds very proper, I approve of all that. But then tell us how did you move from that to Dyke & Dryden?

Rudi: They were looking for somebody to handle sales because they were going to have a major push. At the time, of course, this is as the curly perm was growing. So, Mr. Wade asked me if I would be interested and I said, “Yes, of course.” Very dynamic industry.

So, I joined Dyke & Dryden on the 20th of July, 1981. I mean, Dyke & Dryden actually began in 1965, but it wasn't until really the 1970s where there was quite a good wholesale business.

And then the 1980s with the trends for curly perms and relaxers. And that's where the company really grew.

Lynda: And I had both of those, curly perm and relaxers, and that smell of chemicals. And the burn.

Rudi: The sodium hydroxide.

Lynda: So, what was your proudest moment working with Dyke & Dryden? I'm sure there must have been many because you really changed or even gave birth to this whole industry.

Rudi: So, in July 1982, I was promoted to Sales and Marketing Manager, and I won a trip to Atlanta.

In fact, it was really the first trade mission for Caribbean business owners where 40 of us went to Atlanta, to the Bronner Brothers Show. At the time, that was the largest show in the world when it came to the whole black hair industry.

Going to America and seeing how the Americans … the layout of the Bronner Brothers show in terms of the music, the style, the fashion, and the whole glitz at the time for us was totally a different world.

Took all that in, and then coming back and putting together and coordinating the original afro hair and beauty, that's probably still my greatest triumph.

Lynda: That was you, woo-woo. You've really taught us and given us access to all of these things. Because before that, a lot of people in the world I suppose never saw afro hair, beauty, black people as being beautiful apart from ourselves — we thought ourselves beautiful, but the rest of the world could see and hear it. And that's amazing that you put that together.

Rudi: You make a great point. I'll tell you why — because Mr. Dyke, said that we had to have our own trade exhibition in this country. Because prior to that, of course, we'd always had beauty shows, Miss Afro, West Indian and all those kinds of shows.

But that was us enjoying ourselves and it was really for our communities, part of our cultural esteem, wasn't it, to have those sorts of shows.

And you are right, there wasn't this recognition of us in the wider world as looking good, making an economic contribution to the country as well. We weren't really seen there. So, afro hair & beauty really demonstrated that.

Lynda: I think it's really amazing what you did with the show, and even now, all of the new young hot brands for afro hair care that are out there, those people would've gone to the show and got inspired.

I know a few hairdressers actually that we've had over the years that would always go to your show, and then also go to Bronner Brothers and also have to go to … Atlanta is the home of afro hair, isn’t it?

Rudi: Absolutely.

Lynda: So, it's amazing all those little brands that are popping up, actually they're doing really well. So, they started small, but they're now quite large, advertising on TV and people like Rucker and Charlotte Manson, and all those other brands, all gave birth and all started because of afro hair & beauty.

Catherine: Let's talk about the hot comb, now.

Rudi: Of course, you mean the pressing comb, but we Caribbeans of course, say hot comb.

Catherine: Except if you come from Saint Kitts, we call it the iron comb.

Rudi: What the … I've never heard that one.

Catherine: Alright.

Lynda: Well, that’s more an island thing.

Rudi: Okay, okay.

Lynda: Rudi, have you ever used a hot comb, iron comb, pressing comb?

Rudi: Certainly not. I was always on the selling the marketing side of the industry. You wouldn't want me to do your hair, trust me. Certainly not with a hot comb.

Catherine: I have many stories about why even now, I don't even trust it when I go to a hairdresser from … even nowadays, they use it a little bit, but the burning of your skull and-

Lynda: The sizzle, the style.

Catherine: And then it leaves a mark. You get it all done up because you're going somewhere special and then you've got a mark everybody knows where you’ve been.

Rudi: A tattoo.

Lynda: Yeah, that's a good one.

Catherine: That’s a good one.

Lynda: The hot comb tattoo, burn you up.

Rudi: That's what we used to say. We used to call them tattoos.

Lynda: Remember that time you burnt Joe on the forehead?

Catherine: Yeah, Joe's my eldest daughter. I was trying to turn her into a young lady now. She was old enough now to get her hair press.

Lynda: And mom scarred her for life.

Rudi: Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear.

Lynda: How many families have done that though? It's never happened to me yet.

Catherine: But I do miss when the smell and things — it's all nostalgic, isn't it? The sizzle, like you said, Lynda.

Rudi: Yeah, of course.

Lynda: The smell of the burning of your actual hair. But it looked amazing after though, didn't it? You can't beat a hot comb, hot press. Even now, you have all of those different ways of flattening and straightening your hair with gadgets, but nothing beats our old fashioned way of doing it.

Rudi: That heat from a paraffin lamp can't be matched.

Catherine: No.

Lynda: Well, because I'm so super young, I never had it on the paraffin heat stove. I've heard about that … on the stove.

Rudi: The stove. Yeah, it was a stove really.

Lynda: I remember that, sitting in the kitchen and wincing every time mom came at me with it like, “Oh, I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it.”

Catherine: And me shouting, “Keep still, keep still.”

Lynda: Sunday night, ready for Monday morning for school.

Rudi: Exactly. I mean, that's why the kitchen was one of the best saloon places in the community.

Lynda: That's probably why we still go to the saloon. You get your head done, but you have to eat something because it's been ingrained in you since you were a child.

Rudi: Part of the culture.

Lynda: So, Rudi, your mum sounds great at doing hair, is she still with us?

Rudi: Unfortunately, she passed at an early age. She died of cancer at the age of 45. And in fact, she died five months before the launch of Afro Hair & Beauty. So, that's why I've always dedicated the original Afro Hair & Beauty to my mother, Esther Elena Lee from Montserrat.

Lynda: Oh, lovely name. I like that.

Catherine: Oh, you sweetheart. What a lovely son.

Lynda: So, without your mom … all black women in England, all owe gratitude to your mum for inspiring you to do that.

Rudi: Absolutely. Because we could have never dreamed that that connection in terms of what my mother was doing. And then just those few years later that I would be involved in the launch of still the most significant show in our community after all this time.

This year we have been celebrating the 40th anniversary of Afro Hair & Beauty and we've kind of integrated it into our overall Windrush 75 activities.

Lynda: Lovely time to be all together, isn't it? But can you tell us a bit more about your mom? What else does she shine at? Was there anything else she's really good at?

Rudi: She was just a caring person, had the challenges at the time, single mother. But like I said, passing quite early in her life, so some of the things she probably wanted to do, she didn't get to do. So, yeah, that was what she was really known for; her styling.

Catherine: In what ways does the hot comb make you feel close to your Caribbean heritage?

Rudi: I think it's a symbol. It's a symbol of life in the UK, just like the front room.

Lynda: Oh, yes.

Rudi: Those of us who grew up in the 1960s and 70s know what it means when we talk about the front room. You better not go in there, you better not touch, you know.

Lynda: That's so true. But there's still a few obviously, because what we do, we work a lot with the Windrush generation, and when we go around to their homes even just to chat, not even to actually do any work, and have a social time, the front room is still the untouched room for a lot of people.

Rudi: That gram-

Lynda: Don't touch the-

Rudi: The cabinet, the glasses, all those kinds of things. So, yeah, so I think it's part of our culture, just like the paraffin lamp, p8articularly the green one.

Lynda: That is so true. We do have one of those in our collection and whenever we have that out and we show that, the amounts of stories we still collect from people, so it really is. It's anonymous and people always then have to mention the hot comb.

Rudi: Absolutely. And I've still got the scar on my left hand from touching the paraffin lamp. And if you can't hear, as we say, if you can't hear …

Catherine: You feel.

Rudi: That's it.

Lynda: As my mum tells me on a daily basis, unfortunately.

Catherine: We'd like to end each episode with a saying, you've already mentioned one. And if I could take you back to that, you said, “If you won’t hear, you'll feel.” Have you got something else you might want to share with us or some sort of saying anyway?

Rudi: It's not really a saying, but I would like to end on the note, I would be really happy if we could recover lost expertise in taking care of our own hair because I think that's very important for the cultural esteem for the future generations.

Catherine: There's nothing better than sitting with your mom and she's teaching you how to plat and the importance of parting and straight partings.

Lynda: Greasing your roots.

Catherine: Yeah. Again, I'm Caribbean, Windrush generation, we grease our roots, we don't moisturise and oil, all of that. So, we grease our roots and stuff like that, and explain why it's important and you work out the styles between you. I think it's really nice.

Rudi: It's bonding as well. And one of the things, as you mentioned, that the roles that we played at Dyke & Dryden is that we used to go and speak in schools, in children's homes, including Dr. Bernardo's.

Because again, in those days, there was a lot of young children, mixed race as well as Caribbean children who were in these homes and they just didn't know how to take care of their hair.

So, if you think, again, in those times, that was kind of a neglect of the young person, which impacts on their cultural esteem as well. So, Dyke &Dryden were very clear that that was one of our roles in the community. So, as staff, we used to do that.

Lynda: I think you're totally right. And unfortunately, we do need to look after our hair and the culture behind it. Because we’re still asked as a museum, and it's usually by children's homes to come in to do a talk about hair. So, it's something that we all need.

In fact, even myself, I must admit, which is really bad to admit out there in the world, but I don't do anything to do my hair myself. I grease it in the morning. I still say grease, but I go to the hairdressers once or twice a week, but it's usually once a week, and get them to do everything.

Wash it, grease up my roots. I'm so lazy. Look, I don't have any children, so I can't pass down my bad habits.

Rudi: But as you say that, that's interesting. But COVID brought some lessons back to many women about their hair because they weren't, a couple of years able to go to the saloons. And also, that caused a lot of women to go back to the natural style as well.

Lynda: That's what I did over COVID because I moved in with my mum because I didn't want to live on my own over COVID. Mum used to grease up my hair once a week, didn't you?

Catherine: Yeah.

Lynda: Plat it up, and then when the world opened again, I didn't go to have a relaxer. I went to have parting, and my hair just grew and grew and grew and it was quite natural. And I was like, “Is that all it took? Just leave my hair to grow and do its own thing.”

Rudi: Absolutely, that's nature. Leave it alone, moisturise it and it grows.

Lynda: Can I just say my saying — it's not really saying, it's something mum used to say to me and my sister about doing our own hair when we were younger, when I did try and do my hair. She always just said, “Remember to comb your finnigans.” The little bits back here. Some people call pepper grain-

Rudi: Absolutely. We don't know about those.

Catherine: Alright. Thank you very much.

Lynda: Thank you so much for our chat today. I've really enjoyed it. And thank you for coining that phrase, “afro hair and beauty.”

Rudi: Thank you.

Lynda: Because I am definitely afro and I'm definitely beautiful. See, you soon, bye.

Catherine: Bye.

Rudi: Bye. Take care.

Lynda: I love that ending sentiment from Rudi. You know, as Caribbeans, it's easy to lose the practices of our elders and ancestors, especially because Caribbeans tend to move around the world so much.

So, I'm keen to take his advice on board, research all techniques, and get back to my roots, literally.

[Music Playing]

Catherine: Yes, that's the best advice I've heard for a while. Hair care is definitely self-care.

Lynda: It really is. I truly believe that.

Catherine: So, that's all we have time for today. If you're liking what you're hearing, please get in touch.

Lynda: Yes. I know we say this every week, but we honestly love hearing from you.

Catherine: You can find us at Museumand on Instagram.

Lynda: And at Museumand_ on Twitter.

Catherine: And you can also head to our website, museumand.org to find out more about our work, sharing Caribbean brilliance across the UK.

Lynda: Next week, we'll be speaking to someone whose object is something you can all interact with at home.

Catherine: Yes, it's going to be a multimedia extravaganza.

Lynda: But until then, bye-bye.

Catherine: Bye.