The landlady of a pub whose collection of golliwog dolls was confiscated by police has assembled replacements, which she plans to display in defiance of a continuing investigation.
Last week four Essex police officers and a trainee seized all the dolls on show in the White Hart Inn in Grays as part of an investigation into an alleged hate crime.
The dolls divide opinion in Grays. On Tuesday some pub regulars turned up to show support, but others expressed their fury. The pub’s landlady, Benice Ryley, 62, refuses to accept they are racist.
Clutching an armful of the dolls, including three that have been donated by supporters, she said: “I’m going to put them back.”
She added: “I’m getting a notice printed saying ‘We’ve got gollies on display, if you find this offensive please don’t come in’. If they don’t like them they can walk out the door.”
The pub’s CCTV footage showed a man entering the pub on 1 March complaining about the dolls. “The police told me he was the victim of an alleged hate crime,” Ryley said.
The pub also received a complaint about the dolls in 2018. Ryley said: “The police was not interested then. So why are they interested now? And why would they come and seize my dolls.”
Ryley’s husband, Chris, who is the pub’s licensee, is due to be interviewed by police next month when he returns from the couple’s holiday home in Turkey.
“It depends what my husband says in the interview whether we are going to be done or not,” Ryley said.
She added: “It’s a complete waste of police time. When they were here something came through on the police radio and they said sorry we can’t attend that at the moment.”
Ryley said the pub has been sent several replacement dolls from supporters with more on the way. “We’ve had loads and loads of support. When people started complaining in 2018 I was sent more gollies in the post. Three have come in the last few days and there are two more in the post.”
She also denies that the word ‘wog’ is racist. She said: “I won’t use that word because I’ve been told not to. But I don’t find that offensive.”
Pub regular Mel Thompson said: “They’re just harmless toys. I’m not offended by that part of their name. Everyone just calls them gollies, anyway.”
Ryley is wary of media interest in the row. “I don’t mind talking to you, but I won’t go on TV because they’ll set me up to be racist.”
Tony Daly, who manages a nearby charity shop, said the dolls made his “blood boil” and said he was shocked they had been on display in such a diverse area.
He also plans to confront Ryley over the issue. He said: “I find them very offensive and I’ll be going there to peacefully put my point across and to educate her. I grew up in Tottenham in the 70s when we fought against those kind of things. They used to call black people golliwogs. It’s a racist symbol that says slavery to me and the black and white minstrels. It’s so outdated and offensive to black people.”
Ryley denied that she or her husband were racist. “I’m not a racist in any form.” She confirmed that her husband had been photographed in a T-shirt from the far-right group Britain First. She said: “I don’t think Chris is a supporter of Britain First, he was just wearing that shirt because it was convenient at the time.”
The police raid prompted differing accounts of whether the home secretary, Suella Braverman, had rebuked the force over the action. On Tuesday the force insisted it had no official complaint from Braverman or her office, despite assertions from an adviser to the home secretary.
A spokesman for Essex police said: “The people who the home secretary would be in touch with in our force would be the deputy chief constable and the chief constable. Neither of them have had any contact with her. We have not had any contact that we would deem official with the Home Office.” An adviser did ask for a briefing about the raid but there was no rebuke, the spokesman said.
Sunder Katwala, director of the integration thinktank British Future, said he was concerned by a post by Chris Ryley on Facebook. The 2016 post showed dolls hanging from a shelf in the bar alongside a comment by him saying, “They used to hang them in Mississippi years ago”. Katwala said that Chris Ryley had referenced lynchings in Mississippi in connection to the pub’s golliwogs collection in a Facebook post in 2016.
He said: “That shows a serious expression of racial hostility that is inappropriate to the holder of a licensed premise. The council or the police should find a way to stop that kind of display.”
Chris Ryley has been approached for comment.
