Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
2 appearances
Award-winning novelist who vividly depicts the experiences of Caribbean immigrants in Britain, best known for 'Small Island'.
On the island
Eight records
where I was brought up, the sort of mantra was Don't get ideas above your station. That was how I was sort of told to view life really. And once I'd heard this song I thought, you know what, I think I'll wheel ideas above my station.
Scartoons are a group of friends. I have great family and great friends and I doubt that I ever let them know how much they mean to me. Basically as I've got older I realised that to love and be loved is what life is about and so I wanted to just play this song for my friends.
Georgie Fame & the Blue Flames
there's something about this song. It takes me right back to my childhood and to a particular Christmas. And it's Christmas Day in this tiny flat. And we've got a coal fire burning. And my dad's lying on the sofa snoozing. My brothers and sisters are just sort of sitting around being annoying. I'm playing with a Penny Bright doll and my mum's in the kitchen.
Dear Lord and Father of Mankind
I was in a lot of choirs when I was young. I loved singing. I miss it. I miss it. That communal singing there. So I was in a choir at church. I was brought up as a Christian, but I'm not anymore. But I was in a choir. So I went three times on a Sunday. And if ever this hymn was to be sung, then it cheered me up. It was going to be a good day.
Theme from Small IslandFavourite
I was sitting listening to a piece of music that in some way I had inspired. And I think it's the most fabulous piece of music that that he made.
Well, we're talking about Jamaica, and um this is Redemption Song by Bob Marley, and somehow this song really speaks the history of Jamaica.
I've been with my husband now for thirty years but when we were courting this was our courting song
I used to have a dread of slow songs at disco's because if nobody asked you to dance, which is usually hammed, you'd have to sort of do this strange swinging your arms dance with a sort of head tilting as if I don't care that nobody's asked me to dance and you just had to do this on your own. But when this song came on, I didn't care because I just went into a world of my own.
In conversation
Presenter asks
4:34Why had it taken you so long [until the age of twenty-three] to read your first novel?
I lived in a council flat, a tiny council flat, and there were six of us in there. And this was the days before central heating. So we only ever really kept one room warm, and that was the front room. And we were all in the front room. Usually the television was on from the time we got home from school to the time the little dot disappeared after the national anthem. So I would defy anybody to sit and read Middlemark whilst, you know, the golden shot is going on. I mean, it's really very difficult. And you couldn't, you know, you had to go to another room and be quiet to read a sort of novel like that. So I never managed to actually read them.
Presenter asks
9:12Can you explain more about why you didn't really think of yourself as black when you were growing up?
my family are very light-skinned, so we're not obviously. Dark skinned black. And in Jamaica, the class structure kind of works on the colour of your skin, not on the amount of money you have. So my parents were sort of brought up to think of themselves as high class because they had a lighter complexion. And they believed that once they got to Britain, those sort of gradations would be recognised by the white British, and were surprised to see that no, they were just black here. They tried to sort of distance themselves, I suppose, from other black people in the hope that nobody would notice that they'd sneaked into the country. They didn't want us to talk about Jamaica because they were not. They didn't. No, no, no. Because they hoped that nobody would question us about that and that they would just think that we were, you know, we were a little dark, but not we'd just sort of got a tan.
The keepsakes
The book
Peter Mark Roget
Well, failing that, then, I'm going to take my Theosaurus. I'll do some work while I'm there, probably.
The luxury
Most people when they see sort of, you know, rolling white sand and beautiful sea lapping the shore and sun and palm trees dipping down, they they think of paradise and I just think, ooh, I'll bet there's a lot of mosquitoes. So I need some mosquito repellent, I'm afraid.
Presenter asks
10:42How did you feel in school?
in school I knew I was the a black girl who'd uh arrived um and I was made to feel very different. Uh where are you from and when are you going back? was asked um a lot.
Presenter asks
17:22What has your mother made of your writing?
when I first started writing, my mum would have liked me to shut up, to be honest. She was absolutely horrified. I think there were a couple of reasons for that. One of them was that she was worried somehow I would make a fool of myself. And my mum always used to say to me, if you can't parse a sentence, you can't speak. And I didn't want to argue with her. But my mum just thought, I am just going to show her up with my lack of knowledge of English as well. And also, I was writing about our family and I was writing semi-autobiographical stuff, thinly disguised sometimes. And I was telling everyone our business, you know. And so she really wanted me to... to stop.
Presenter asks
32:53Has your writing helped you understand yourself more, and do you feel more of a connection with that cultural heritage?
Oh, absolutely. It's been extremely important. I've grown two inches, you know. I mean, really has made an enormous difference to me. And it's an ongoing project. There's still work to be done.
“I actually occupy it very uncomfortably. I feel quite uncomfortable with it and I'm never quite sure of what my place is within it and I'm I'm constantly surprised by it too. I feel very uncomfortable and very sort of nervous. My mum's mantra was always pride comes before a fall and I'm uh very sort of nervous of being too um uppity, you know.”
“I mean, that's why I write books, is because I'm I'm sort of belligerent on that topic. Uh that um you you should understand what happened in the Caribbean. It's a a very important part of British history. Yes, I'm very uh that's why I write.”
“I just always feel I'm learning. I I do fear complacency. I do fear that you sort of think I am the best thing since sliced bread. You know, uh I I think it's bad for the creative spirit. I really do.”
“Well, I suppose w we were talking earlier about those those kids who sort of say to you, why are you here and what are you about? And that cowed me for very many years. And I felt like I had no right to take up space in this country, indeed in this world. And actually learning about my history and about my heritage has made me stand tall.”