Ivor Cummings grew up with his mother in Addiscombe, where the family befriended the widow of the composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, to whom they were related by marriage.
After briefly working in Freetown as a clerk for the United Africa Company, he returned to England looking for medical scholarships.
Abandoning those plans, in 1935 he became warden of Aggrey House, a government-run centre for colonial students, arranging meetings, lectures, dances and social events there.
[3]: 379–81 When the Greek proprietor of the Bristol Hotel there refused him a room because of his race, the scandal hit the British press.
He was posted to the Ghana High Commission in London to recruit West Indian professionals, including Ulric Cross.
He later worked as a training officer for Yengema Diamond Mines in Sierra Leone, and as public relations adviser to the London-based distillers Duncan, Gilbey and Matheson.