The Dyke & Dryden Story

by Graham Hedley

Dyke & Dryden - not so much a business, more a lifestyle! You may not have heard of Dyke & Dryden, but you will certainly have noticed the effect it has had on the Black hair care market.

Lincoln “Len” Dyke and Dudley Dryden, who were both from Jamaica, did not specialise in hair products at first: they ran market stalls in Tottenham and Dalston, selling cosmetics, reggae records, and anything else the immigrant community wanted. They were also prominent in the Standing Conference of West Indians, a body which was both an outlet for the expression of West Indian views and a venue for commercial, financial and social advice.

Tony Wade, from Montserrat, joined the company in 1968, and around the same time the major record labels started marketing reggae music, putting pressure on Dyke & Dryden’s record sales. The company began to specialise in hair and beauty products, a market which nobody else was supplying. Where a salon could obtain supplies for its African/Caribbean customers, the owners would promote the business by putting on events, which provided work for musicians, entertainers and models. The advertisements also helped a fledgling local press to flourish.

The cosmetics industry tended to ignore black women, and Dyke & Dryden was one of the few businesses supplying the market. It became one of the largest, if not the largest, businesses in Britain owned by West Indians. It was certainly the first black-owned business in Britain to be worth £1,000,000. It made Dyke, Dryden and Wade the first black millionaires in Britain.

How did it manage to do this? By doing nothing more than finding - and then filling - a gap in the market. Dyke & Dryden “began the business of catering to the Afro Hair Care in the UK because there was no one doing it and it was a much-needed service”, as Tony Wade put it. The annual Afro Hair and Beauty Show was started by the company, and carries on to this day.

The company became well-known: the first to receive the Black Business Community Award (1983), the first black-owned company to take part in a government-sponsored trade mission from the UK (1983), and the subject of an advertising campaign to encourage exporting from small and medium-sized companies (1995).

In 1987, Len Dyke and Dudley Dryden sold the company to Soft Sheen, a larger American competitor. After 30 years in the business, the founders wanted to retire. Tony Wade, who was younger than the others, stayed with the company. It did not flourish, and in 1995 he bought it back.

Dudley Dryden died in 2002, and Len Dyke in 2006. They and Tony Wade have been honoured with a black plaque on the site of a shop the company opened in West Green Road, Tottenham, in 1965. Rudi Page, who worked as a sales and marketing manager for the company, praised the three men, saying “Their story can inspire all young people… who feel, in their local communities, opportunities are