Beryl Gilroy

Beryl Agatha Gilroy (née Answick; 30 August 1924 – 4 April 2001)[1] was a Guyanese educator, novelist, ethno-psychotherapist, and poet.

[3][5][10] Gilroy spent a lot of time listening to woman chatting as they worked; her grandmother in particular told her folkloric tales and Guyanese proverbs.

[8][9][10] Gilroy earned a first-class diploma from a teacher training college in Georgetown in 1945, then taught and lectured for a UNICEF nutrition program.

[5][14] Her first teaching job was at a poor Catholic school in Bethnal Green where her third year pupils had already been taught racist stereotypes by their parents.

[10][11][12] During this time, she met and married Patrick Gilroy, a British scientist of German heritage who was an active anti-colonialist.

[4][17][23] She started her PhD in 1984 at Century University in the United States and completed her doctorate in counselling psychology in 1987.

[10] These are considered the first children's stories about the Black British presence in London and were meant to replace the outdated Janet and John books.

[10][4][11] Meanwhile, male Guyanese writers, such as Sam Selvon, George Lamming, E. R. Braithwaite, and V. S. Naipaul flourished.

[22] She felt compelled to write about her experiences as a teacher so a woman's story could be heard alongside books like Braithwaite's To Sir, With Love; she also wanted "to set the record straight.

"[22] Marina Warner notes in the London Review of Books that, even though the books were both about being a Black Guyanese teacher in a poor, white London classroom: "Gilroy was accused of boasting and of exaggerating the prejudice she had faced; for her part, she complained her account had been softened in the editing.

In To Sir, with Love Braithwaite had glowingly described his eventual success in an East End classroom, but he wasn't censured.

[9][25] Gilroy died on 4 April 2001 at the Royal Free Hospital in Camden, London, from an aortic aneurysm.

[2][9] She had been scheduled to deliver a keynote speech at the 4th annual Caribbean Women Writers Association Conference two days after her death.

The orange skirt suit she was wearing when she arrived in the UK was on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum as part of the Black British Style exhibition in 2004.