You may have seen the ‘story’ in parts of the media about the landlady of the White Hart Inn in Greys, one Benice Ryley, who has had her collection of gollywog dolls confiscated by the police, as part of an investigation into an alleged hate crime. I cringe when I see stories like these, I really do. Because when I were a young lad, we lived close to the Robertson’s Jam Factory in Brislington (that’s Briz to you Bristolians) in Bristol. Until it was closed in the 1970s, it was the largest jam factory in Europe. And growing up with the aroma of a jam factory just up the road meant this small boy had a collection of gollywog dolls.
To the best of my memory, I cannot recall thinking of them in any other way than dolls but as time went by I suppose I began to understand that they might be a little awkward. But that came much later. I associated jam with the gollywog. I think we all did. As with everything else, people and times change.
By the end of the 1970s, Britain was a powder keg. The far right National Front gained great popularity with its anti-migrant narrative and indeed racism was often more the norm than the exception. I can see why the Robertson’s golly was becoming outdated. In 2002, the company quietly dropped the golly. The company said this: “We are retiring Golly because we found families with kids no longer necessarily knew about him. We are not bowing to political correctness, but like with any great make we have to move with the time.” I’ll take their word for that, except to say that I’ve always felt that those who complain about “political correctness” are usually upset about their bigotry being called out. That debate is for another day. The reality is that older people, mainly collectors, retained an interest in Golly where younger people had none.
Perhaps Mrs Ryley is indeed an avid collector and not at all racist, despite finding the word “wog” not to be racist. “I’m not a racist in any form,” she said, after admitting husband Chris once wore a T shirt bearing the name of the far right fascist group Britain First. :”I don’t think Chris is a supporter of Britain First,” she continued. “He was just wearing that shirt because it was convenient at the time.” Which is fair enough. Who doesn’t know an anti-racist who just happens to have a Britain First T shirt just lying around?
Hubby Chris hasn’t been around to share the flak his wife has endured because he lives in Marmaris in Turkey, a country where nearly 90% of the population define themselves as Muslim. But Chris doesn’t like Muslims. In fact, he doesn’t seem to like anyone Just look at this charming tweet:
Hmm. I’m not sure how his Turkish hosts will regard his comments, although they may warm to his unique and refreshing LGBT views. Hopefully not enough to send him back to the UK. “Don’t get me wrong, I choose to live in a Muslim country,” he says, apparently without irony.
Chris is such a patriot he absolutely hates Grays.
I’m not in favour of banning things, even the Robertson’s Golly. Something that wasn’t deemed racist in the early 1910s may be felt to be is in 2023. That’s because the country’s demographic has changed and because we now see the world in a different light. I don’t avoid saying things to avoid offending others: I avoid saying things, when I actually think about the subject which isn’t often, because I don’t think they’re right. The last thing. I’d want to do is to ban the Golly but I would want to point out that they belonged to a different age and they don’t really belong in this one. I don’t know if that makes me a ‘snowflake‘, ‘politically correct‘ or ‘woke‘ and I don’t care, either, other than to say I am very proud to be woke in the correct sense of the word.
We certainly don’t need to make a big fuss about the subject and we can all make our own minds up whether we would want to have a pint in the White Hart Inn in Grays. By the same token, those who object to the display of the Golly should be able to do so.
On balance, I’d like to see Mr and Mrs Ryley take down the Golly display and end all this nonsense. I can’t help feel that there is an element of shit-stirring on their part going on, which helps no one. An earlier post by Mr Ryley would appear to confirm my suspicions:
Woah! “I’m not a racist is any form.” Okay then. I think it is racist. It’s a museum piece, like Edward Colston’s statue.
As John Lennon put it so beautifully:
