No.17 - Prince Monolulu - In Town Tonight.

Cigarette Cards

In the 1930's they had their ‘celebrities’ just as we have today, but to a modern eye, most of their household names seem to have been dull men in drab lounge suits who have faded into a dusty obscurity. But who was it that captured the public imagination? One can browse through the archive of daily newspapers - but there are other ways of getting an idea.

Tobacco companies introduced many series of cigarette cards as a promotional tool, featuring flowers, birds, motor cars, trains, sporting heroes, film stars, band leaders, music hall artistes and radio personalities. Many of us are collectors by nature, and once one or two cards in a series had been acquired, there was a strong impetus towards sticking with the same brand of cigarettes to collect the full set. The colourful cards were extremely popular, with almost every well-known brand offering one in every pack. These cards were not exclusively the province of children either - Wills cigarettes offered a series on ‘Famous British Authors’ and I can hardly imagine the following dialogue in the school playground - “I’ll swap you an Aldous Huxley and an Elinor Glyn for your Compton Mackenzie.”

Wills' Famous British Authors series.

In Town Tonight

The best sets for gauging who was popular with the public were general sets like 1935's In the Public Eye by Godfrey Phillips Ltd, and particularly Churchman’s 1938 series based on the BBC radio programme In Town Tonight.

Introduced in 1933, the programme was an early example of the chat show format and it endured until 1960. It featured stars or celebrities who were appearing in the capital, and sometimes just ordinary people who happened to have unusual jobs - like Molly Moore, one of the last knocker-ups. The programme's theme, known by all, was Knightsbridge March by Eric Coates."

Rass Prince Monolulu

For me, the most prominent figure in the fifty card In Town Tonight set is No. 28, which features the flamboyantly colourful figure of Rass Prince Monolulu, who certainly stood out among all the drab lounge suits. Adorned with a red, white and blue ostrich feathered headdress, he stands with both fingers pointing skywards in a typical pose for a horse racing tipster, which was how he made his living. Along with football and boxing, horse racing was a national obsession - and Prince Monolulu became the sport's most recognisable figure. Any newsreel film of the Epsom Derby or the Grand National, filmed between the thirties and the fifties is likely to feature Monolulu, who was conspicuous to say the least. He made cameo appearances in the racecourse scenes of several feature films - The Lion Has Wings (1939), Derby Day (1952), Aunt Clara (1954) and Make Mine a Million (1959). He was probably the best known black man in Britain at the time, and became the first to appear on British television, on the BBC's first day of tv broadcasting on 2nd November 1936.

Prince Monolulu claimed to be Chief of the Abyssinian Falasha tribe, who eventually found his way to London after his ship had been shanghaied. In fact his name was Peter Carl McKay, a Danish citizen born in the Dutch West Indies, since 1917 the American Virgin Islands. He first arrived in London in 1902 but was touring Europe at the outbreak of the Great War and was interned by the Germans, very comfortably for the duration, at the Ruhleben camp. He became famous by picking out the horse Spion Kop in the 1920 Derby, which came in at 100–6. He personally made around £8,000 from it, which was a small fortune in 1920.

'The inevitable Prince Monolulu' follows one of his successful tips. (British Newspaper Archive).

Betting of any kind had only been legal since 1928 - and even then was only permitted on the racecourses. The first turf accountant shop wasn't to be opened until 1961. Monolulu wasn't a bookie but a tipster - you would pay him for a tip which he would then supply. He knew how to command an audience, calling them to him with his bellow of ‘I got a horse! I got a horse to beat the favour-ite’. He became a well known and popular figure throughout the land, even making a gramophone record featuring his tipster spiel. Monolulu was nothing if not adaptable. In 1939, when the outbreak of war suspended horse racing, he could be found selling gas mask holders in Piccadilly Circus.

He may have been a feature of the racecourses, but he was an all too familiar figure in the magistrates courts too. Sometimes it was for using expressions considered 'improper 'or 'indecent' while making speeches in Hyde Park, on racing and the Italian-Abyssinian conflict. Looking into a 1943 offence further, it seems that he had referred to the German Chancellor as a 'bastard.' "I'm against Hitler my Lord. After what he's done to other people, what will he do to a black man like me if we don't all get together and beat the illegitimate." The Evening News reported that Mr Hedley, the Marlborough Street magistrate, 'did not seem inclined to accept Prince Monolulu's verbal barrage as a desirable contribution to the war effort.' "I just speak it plain my Lord," insisted Prince Monolulu."You speak disgustingly and you must pay forty shillings."

Another court appearance - Daily Express 28 September 1934 (British Newspaper Archive).

At other times, when he was charged with causing an obstruction because his familiar flamboyant clothing and 'I got a horse!' cry would draw an enthusiastic crowd, he was treated more benignly. At Old Street Police Court Mr Metcalfe said "I never thought I would find you in this part of London. I would expect to find you at Hyde Park Corner, or on the rails at Tattenham Corner." When the police told the court about his prosecution for a previous similar incident, he said "I am a good customer!" The magistrate laughed and later admitted that Monolulu had 'cheered up the court', not least because as always, he wore every plume of his feathered finery. Facing the magistrates, he looked more than ever an explosion of colour in a black and white world.

Likeable, energetic and often in trouble, he was a much loved institution in Britain for decades. Even his death in 1965 was somewhat out of the ordinary. The journalist Jeffrey Bernard, then covering horse racing, visited him in the Middlesex Hospital, having been granted an interview. Bernard took him a box of Black Magic chocolates, but sadly Rass Prince Monolulu choked on a strawberry cream, and died.

Here are some marvellous photographs of Rass Prince Monolulu among the people who loved him, compiled by World Horse Racing.

Obituary (British Newspaper Archive)