Now this seemed to be a strange synchronicity. Over the years and particularly In the past few months, I have been receiving similar requests from all over the world; from Great Britain to Canada and from the Continent, some from France but mainly from Germany – but only a few had specifically referred to  my role as Lieutenant Green. It seemed quite unlikely that films in which I had appeared could be the reason although I was aware that some are still being re-shown [Sea Wife, Shaft in Africa, At the Earth’s Core and the Italian, Calypso]. Could they have stumbled on my website which receives a continuous stream of hits?  Unlikely as it seems, I now suspect that Lieutenant Green, the puppet character which I voiced, may have something to do with it.  Green is a very evocative word these days in our world threatened by global warming.

Was there also some other, much  deeper, connection here; something allegorical about Gerry Anderson’s Captain Scarlet, in which the forces of good are arraigned  against those of evil? The series was conceived, after all, in the period shortly after World War II when the world was under the threat of nuclear annihilation, the Cold War with Russia, the Communist threat and racial tension in America leading to the Civil Rights Movement. It was also the time in Britain which preceded the Windrush generation; a time when to see a black face of British Television would have been unthinkable, until in late 1957 when I began to appear regularly on  the BBC Tonight programme singing the news in Calypso. This was also something the white majority were having to deal with – seeing a black face almost daily on their brand new TV screens which they had just acquired and at a time when race riots were constantly in the news. I was the recipient of masses of fan mail as well as a little hate mail from British cells of the Klan that managed to sneak through the screening of fan mail.

In 1956, the year before Tonight,  I had appeared in the BBC TV Drama, Man from the Sun, about the explosive issues that surrounded immigration and race relations - the difficulty of black people gaining employment and accommodation. The play reflected  public opinion about the current state of affairs; as  Immigration Laws were being rushed through Parliament,  black boys were dating white girls, and Teddy boys were chucking bricks through the windows of black homes.

That same year I had co-starred in the Film Sea Wife with Richard Burton and Joan Collins, playing the role of the Purser of an Ocean liner, and  one of four survivors in a dingy, after it had been torpedoed. The story, overlaid with racial innuendo, was ostensibly about the love affair between a drifter and a nun. I had been selected for my role by the great Italian director, Roberto Rossalini who walked out the day before shooting began following objections from Twentieth Century Fox that the dominant and pivotal role was that of a black character, on whom, as a sailor, the survival of the others depended.

Still more to the point, just two days after the very first Tonight  went out, I starred in the Authur Laurents psychological drama Home of the Brave for Granada TV in which race was again on the menu. This time in an American wartime drama set in the jungles of the Far East. This powerful and traumatic play about race was seen by the entire nation [largest audience at the time for a  Play of the Week on British Television].

I recount these facts to show that race as well as nuclear extinction was high on the agenda and consciousness of the Nation, especially as the new innovative Tonight programme was the most popular outlet for disseminating the news.  It was watched by the entire nation.  I was known by everyone, from the milk man to the politician.

I suspect that these appearances may have influenced Anderson when he decided to cast me, a very visible black actor to voice Colonel White’s chief Aide. He could not have possibly known that I had served as a Flight Lieutenant and navigator of a RAF Lancaster bomber during World War II.  I myself was to learn that Anderson had also served in the RAF, albeit as part of National Service after the War, passing out at the rank of Leading Aircraftsman. His brother Lionel had been lost in the War over Holland, flying one of the many Mosquitos which acted as homing beacons for British bombers and decoys for enemy radar systems.

Anderson’s whole concept seemed to have religious connotations - the forces of good against evil, one of the main pillars of the Western dualistic paradigm and also of the Semetic religions. Colonel White (the Supreme Being) and  Captain Scarlet (His son?) who is killed each time, but miraculously survives death because he is a Mysteron creation and therefore not actually mortal; whilst Captain Black is the Devil incarnate.  Was it just coincidence that the actor who voiced Captain Black was a white South African at the time of Apartheid  and Ian Smith? That actor, Donald Gray, a charming man no doubt, had a sticker on his car with the words “Support Rhodesia” which I recall I queried at the time, much  to his chagrin.  

Now the word black is a very emotive and defining word in the English language, saying much about the culture, whilst causing great psychological damage to black people. I deal with this issue at some length in my recently published  book, Blackness & the Dreaming Soul.

 Was it also pure coincidence that both my surname and that of the puppet character I voiced began with the letters ‘G’ and ‘R’ – GRANT, GREEN?   I know for a fact that Lieutenant Green was modelled on me and that the voice of Captain Scarlet, deliberately mimicked the voice of Cary Grant;  Gerry Anderson’s own name includes four letters of five in the name GRANT [GeRry ANderson and the ‘T’ is conveniently provided by the first and reinforced by the last letter of the word TONIGHT, the news programme that was on everyone’s lips at the time. Perhaps there was a subliminal connexion; I could not help but speculate on how I seemed to I fit  into this strange scenario. Tonight begun with a black character singing  the news in calypso while Lt. Green, also a black character, was Communications Officer to Colonel White. The effect that both series had on black people watching TV in Britain was significant – for the very time  there was a positive image of someone they could relate to with pride. A decade or two later, a black Member of Parliament admitted to me that my visibility on TV when he was a young man had been an inspiration to him and several others have also remarked on the significance of these appearances.

My Tonight appearances indirectly led to my  being cast as Lt. Green; again, the very first time a black character was to appear in a TV sci- series  Black Lieutenant  Green was Colonel  White’s chief Aide & Communications Officer.  What was his real office? What message did he have to communicate? Was it that the black presence in Britain could have a healing potential for society?*  That Britain was being forced to acknowledge its shadow, its past history of racism and slavery? 1967 was also the year that Enoch Powell made his Rivers of Blood speech that brought the shadow into the open.  Was the struggle between good and evil that the series seems to represent also prompting us to know each other and so reconstruct the way in which  we make our reality?

The Civil Rights Movement in America, had given impetus to the Women’s Rights Movement. Cloudbase was itself defended by female fighter pilots called Angels, one of whom, Melody, (great name!)  was black. Both Captain Scarlet and its American counterpart Star Trek came out about the same time - series in which women as well as ethnic minorities were cast. This was a powerful message for the young at the time and no doubt led to the changes in racial attitudes that are  slowly healing our society.  Both series captured the imagination of generations creating a CULT TV World that is very alive and kicking to this day.

I have always been amazed at the number of people who showed such delight when they discovered that I voiced Lt. Green.  Whilst recording the series it was just another job – like doing a play for radio - standing around a microphone with script in one’s  hand.

The real significance of this synchronistic story is that the royalties I received over a period of thirty years allowed me the time and freedom to write my own story, about issues that concerned Gerry Anderson and his writers, like the fight against evil but also, in my case, the search for truth. As a boy I was made to recite “Ode to a Grecian Urn” by John Keats,  at a Speech Day at School:

Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that all is ye know on Earth and all ye need to know

In my latest book, Blackness & the Dreaming Soul, I’ve tried to trace an alchemical journey of Self discovery, a search for ‘Soul’, to decipher the CODE, a quest for meaning, for our true Identity. I believe that I’ve found all these at last, all intertwined in the notion of Unity in Diversity!

*According to Terrence Brathwaite, University Lecturer and  African scholar, Lt. Green was a Western symbol of the  African trickster god, Legba, messenger of and spokesman for the other Orishas.   Legba is the keeper of the crossroads between the worlds, the messenger between human and divine worlds. He understands all languages (including that of the Mysterons), and acts as an interpreter for the Gods and  opens the door to the spirit world. It is only through him that the other orishas (SPECTRUM agents of change) can be contacted.]