Thursday, November 18, 2010

Mix up over race

It was not until I was looking for links for the post about Professor Appiah’s book on Honour that I realised that he is the grandson of Sir Stafford Cripps.

I think I remember what the DNB calls ‘a predictable flutter in the British press’ whenCripps daughter Peggy married Joseph Appiah (who was wearing Ashanti ceremonial dress at the ceremony) in Coronation year, 1953 (Cripps had died the previous year). That flutter though was as nothing compared to the fuss which had been made in 1948 & was still rumbling on over the marriage of Seretse Khama & Ruth Williams.

The main reason however for making a note of all this here & now is a quote in the DNB from the Daily Sketch newspaper of 1958; this described Peggy Appiah’s son & daughter, on a visit to their grandmother Dame Isobel Cripps, as the ‘best-connected piccaninnies ever to hit an English village’.