When I guarded the royal palaces I never realised there’d been a ban on black staff
This article is more than 2 years oldRichard StokesAs Britain’s first black guardsman I endured years of abuse. Now it saddens me to learn there was a royal household colour bar
In 1986, when I was a teenager, Prince Charles expressed “serious concern” about potential discrimination and the lack of black people in the monarch’s military escorts. My dad, Brian, saw this and immediately encouraged me, his adopted black son, to apply to join the elite Brigade of Guards.
At the time I had just finished secondary school. Given I had a long-term interest in the military and had attended the army cadets in Bristol, joining the regular army seemed a good career choice. I wasn’t aware at the time that the regiment I would soon be a part of had never had a black face join its ranks.
I had faced racism throughout my childhood in many forms and my father had done his best to prepare me for the situations I might face. However, I was not prepared for what the Guards had in store for me as I entered the gates of the then Guards Depot at Pirbright, Surrey, in September 1986.
On day one of my training I was greeted with putrid racial slurs, interrogations, death threats and regular visitors to my barrack room who’d stare, shout abuse and snigger at the black spectacle in front of them.
The racist behaviour never stopped. I was subjected to ostracisation, cigarettes stubbed out in my food, bananas thrown at me and hate mail, including a bullet with my name etched on it. The first six months of my deployment was a living hell. But despite this, I persevered. In 1988 my first day as a Grenadier in the changing of the guards ceremony was a national news story. Eventually I spent two more years serving the Queen and the royal family – guarding residences including Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and Clarence House.
So, after all the racial abuse I’d endured in guarding the royal family, it saddened me to read this week that inside the palace itself there had been a ban on ethnic minority staff. We now know that in 1968 – and possibly for many years afterwards – “it was not, in fact, the practice to appoint coloured immigrants or foreigners” to clerical roles in the royal household, according to the Queen’s chief financial manager at the time.
The news that a colour bar policy was in place in the palace further reinforces my disillusionment at the lack of progress being made on eliminating racism in society. Even today, the royal family could help bring about changes in attitudes by taking action, as Prince Charles did in 1986. The palace’s prominent place in British society means it could lead by example on diversity and inclusion, and be transparent about its own polices.
The outcome of Charles’s moral leadership was that I was able to break a longstanding “whites only” tradition and inspire other minority ethnic people to join the Guards.
The next generation of royals may be able to relate more closely to younger British people, and show they are in tune with the anti-racist sentiment expressed so strongly throughout 2020.
I continued ceremonial duties until I resigned from the Grenadiers in 1990. My father tried to persuade me to change my mind but it was already made up. He even wrote multiple times to Prince Charles to see if he could persuade me to change my decision.
I wasn’t prepared to continue to have to endure more racism, especially if I intended to make my way up the ranks. What I endured during the four years I served with the Grenadier Guards was something no one of any background should have to experience, especially when they commit to serving Queen and country.
Richard Stokes was the first black guardsman and served in the Grenadier Guards
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