Key stories

I was four when my parents conned me out of my Dominican wall-to-wall sunshine in exchange for a London staged like a Hammer Horror film set full of October smog-filled streets, magicians’ smoke-breath and ice rink pavements. I’m no brain-box but I could tell those 1950s White people didn’t like us. After days of crying, no amount of sweeties and ‘Ooh- Aah’ and ‘Bang-Bang’ fireworks in the near and far skies that birthday could convince me they were welcoming me to London. I had already worked out the children in plastic shoes and no coats shouting ‘penny for the Guy’ were begging, and not, as I was lied to, collecting for that big present I wanted.

We bought our first house in Blechynden Street, three storeys high, but it had no natural light at the front. Shh! Shh! I was told, solid oak and mahogany Victorian wardrobes protected the windows because the Teddy Boys had a popular sport beating up or throwing bricks at ‘nig-nogs’ and ‘darkies’ – home listening to the radiogram, outside the corner shop, in the park, travelling from work, the pictures and Blues dances. Even my uncle, all the way in White City got batted and ended up in hospital.

The irony is that from when I was little until I was a 5 foot 6-and-a-half-inch teenager with a 38c bust, my mother repeatedly told me I had to be 10 times better than any White child – in anything and everything that I did.

I began to doubt her wisdom at junior school when a teacher called me a ‘black bastard’ in front of the whole class for spilling some ink. A couple of years later, in the headmistress’ office, and without any conscience, the same White man proudly announced that mine was the best 11+ essay he had read in his long career. “Top of the class for the Black bastard, eh?”, my mother barbed.

After that, she was my life-long hero. 

I shared that “tell me about yourself” story with Coretta Scott King in her Atlanta office (1980).