Jaine Blackman reports on a book about the founder of a soup kitchen

When retired publisher Andrew Bax met Icolyn Smith he knew he had to write her story.

Better known as “Ma Smith”, for nearly quarter or a century she has been serving lunch to Oxford’s homeless and has quite a tale to tell.

“I had an idea for a book on the reminiscences of immigrants into Oxford from a variety of ethnic backgrounds,” says Andrew, of Drayton, near Abingdon.

He called into the Asian Cultural Centre on Manzil Way, off Cowley Road, one Wednesday hoping to find a variety of people to talk to.

Instead he found that day’s soup kitchen in full swing.

“Mrs Smith was busy at the cooking range but she was interested in talking to me and invited me to her home a few days later,” he recalls.

“I was planning to write some 5,000 words on around eight to 10 interviewees, but Mrs Smith had such a big story that it became an entire book on its own.”

Nearly two years after they first met, Andrew has published From Coolshade To Cowley Road which tells of Icolyn’s journey from her birth in Jamaica in 1930, one of seven children, to marriage and motherhood, arrival in Oxford as an immigrant in the 1960s and her tireless work to help others.

Life was not always easy for her but she never failed to give a helping hand whenever she could and give hope to many.

“I first met Mrs Smith in February 2012 and I finished the writing in June this year,” says Andrew, who founded Radcliffe Publishing in 1987 and sold it in 2010.

“I then began searching for photographs which took much longer and proved to be more difficult than I expected.

“I tried very hard, but failed, to obtain some pics of shantytown Kingston in the troubled 1960s.”

What wasn’t so hard to find were pictures of Icolyn in the Oxford Mail.

She has become something of a local hero since, in 1990, she pledged to help the homeless after walking along streets like the Cowley Road and seeing those in need.

In 1998, she was made an MBE for services to disadvantaged people and in 2012 appeared in the television show The Secret Millionaire, when self-made entrepreneur Arfan Razak went undercover and donated £11,500 to the soup kitchen.

Aged 84, she is still running the soup kitchen which is now a registered charity and named The Icolyn Smith Foundation Trust in honour of her.

The book is self-published and Andrew, who paid for the production himself, is donating all proceeds from sales to the trust.

Half of the initial print run of 150 have already been sold and Andrew is pleased with the reaction.

“I would like sales to raise a minimum of £1,000, and I think that’s attainable,” he says.

Now he is planning his next project.

“I still hope to write and publish a collection of reminiscences from other immigrants to Oxford,” says Andrew.

From Coolshade To Cowley Road by Andrew Bax is available from bookshops, Amazon or Bombus Books (bombusbooks.co.uk).
All proceeds from the book will go to The Icolyn Smith Foundation, set up to run the soup kitchen.

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