We have received a lovely email from Beryl Gilroy's daughter, Darla who said:
" I was delighted to come across your school page recently which featured my mother Dr Beryl Gilroy! This year marks 20 years since she died, and her autobiography is to be reprinted to commemorate this important anniversary. Thank you so much for taking an interest in her and her achievements. I can imagine this is a very difficult time for you as a school community, but I would be very happy to remain in contact with you and happy to contribute to anything online what you might be doing and will send you a copy of her book. Please stay safe."
This was in response to uur Famous Brits Assembly on 22nd October 2019, which was about her mum. Beryl is most famous for being the first black head teacher in London. She was a British pioneering teacher and novelist, and "one of Britain's most significant post-war Caribbean migrants", part of the so-called "Windrush generation". Born in what was then British Guiana, she moved in the 1950s to the United Kingdom. Although Gilroy was a qualified teacher, racism prevented her from getting a post for some time, and she had to work as a washer, a factory clerk and maid. Eventually employed by the Inner London Education Authority, she left work to raise her children before she returned to teaching and eventually became the first Black headteacher in London, at Beckford School in West Hampstead. Her experiences of those years are told in Black Teacher (1976).