Cy Grant - War hero More than being a mere strummer of chords Cy Grant, who has died aged 90 years old, was the first West Indian, and, indeed, the first black person, that most English people of their generation ever saw. For three years from 1957 he opened the popular BBC television programme with a calypso commenting on the events of he day. Grant, who was born in Guyana (then British Guiana), was so successful in that role that he became type-cast and his careers – sorry, his careers – suffered accordingly. There was so much more to Cy than being a mere strummer of chords. It was known that he was also an actor, even if most people suspected, wrongly, that the acting opportunities came as a result of, rather than preceding, his calypso spot. It was hardly mentioned, if at all, that he was a qualified barrister. At that time there was very little work in Britain for black barristers however qualified they may have been. At least in acting Grant had a second string to his bow. Even that was not the extent of the abilities of an extraordinary man who was also a writer, civil rights campaigner and ...... a war hero. The 1950s, when Cy was whistling tunes penned for him by critic Bernard Levin, were high-point for films about the Second World War, especially those, such as Dambusters, about the air-raids over a Germany. That was followed by the Great Escape in the following decade. Yet here was an actor eminently qualified for these roles who was quite over-looked. Grant had been an RAF officer – a navigator on those very raids. And he was shot down and taken prisoner, even spending some time at the same prisoner-of-war camp where the real Great Escape took place. For him captivity had double jeopardy – he was an enemy combatant and a black person who had fallen into the hands of a regime which practised extreme ethnic cleansing. His experiences of racial discrimination in Britain changed Cy Grant, a man who was born into comparative privilege, from being television’s cheery “innocuous” token black man to a campaigning activist. Towards the end of his long life, and particularly in his final years, he was active through his writing, speaking and research in ensuring that the black servicemen of the Second World War, especially those of the R.A.F., should not be forgotten. It would be appropriate if Cy Grant could return again to our screens (but large and small) as the subject of a film of his life. The last time that I saw Mr Grant personally was back a couple of years at the same meeting at the West Indian Ex-Servicemen’s/women’s Association in Clapham, South London as at which I also last saw Connie Mark, another campaigner for the recognition of Second World War service personnel, just a few days before she died. Clayton Goodwin 16th February 2010