Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
First black woman elected to the UK Parliament; Labour MP for Hackney since 1987.
On the island
Eight records
Scarlet Ribbons (For Her Hair)
My first piece of music reminds me of my mother actually and it reminds me of being very young.
My next piece of music is The Beatles. And it just brings back to me all the the hope and the energy of the early sixties.
On my next piece of music is the first record I ever bought, and it's a record by The Temptations, and it's called Ain't Too Proud to Beg.
Oh, my next track is Bogmarley. He's an iconic Jamaican figure and I've chosen his album Exodus which came out around the same time. of the Brixton riots in the early 80s...
Oh, my next choice is by a current Jamaican artist, Budgie Banson, and it's driver A. I love Jamaica.
Oh gosh, my next piece of music is Things Could Only Get Better. I'm not saying I pled a lot on my desert island, but I, you know, I have to have it because it sums up a whole period of my life.
Oh, my next choice of music is Professor Music at the Guildhall Paul Roberts playing DeBoose's Reflections in the Water... This is the first thing he ever played me, and this is my favourite.
Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrikaFavourite
And this song, I first heard it at a demonstration, I think, against apartheid back in the 80s. And I thought it was a moving and beautiful song then. And I think it's a moving and beautiful song now.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:04It's always been about power, has it?
It's never been about personal power, but It's always been about change and in order to really change society you have to you know, be where the levers of power are.
Presenter asks
2:06Can you tell me about your memories of that time of being elected?
Well remember, if you're born into a working class Jamaican family or the ultimate outsider There were no black MPs before the four of us got elected in nineteen eighty seven and a lot of people thought we couldn't get elected... So election night, my mother was there, my brother was there, old friends I hadn't seen for years... was the most amazing night. But that night, and I think for months afterwards, I was kind of in a daze. I would sit on the green benches, look at all these sort of middle-aged white men around me and think, gosh, me here, really?
Presenter asks
14:43What do you remember of particularly your interview [for the civil service]?
Well I'll never forget it. It took place in a room off Admiralty Arch... I got to this huge civil service building and there was this big room and a big round table with five very serious people. And the chair was Dame Mary Warner. So I sat down in my frilly smock and my beads and my curly hair And Mary Warnock leaned forward and said to me, Why do you want to become a civil servant? So I sat up straight, all my curls bubbled, and I said, Because I want power. And all of them kind of sat back in their chest because it was such a contrast. But I got to know Mary Warnock's son afterwards, and he said that she said that that was the right answer.
The keepsakes
The book
London County Council
I love London. I'm a very proud Londoner. And also it's forty five volumes long. So I think it would keep me occupied.
The luxury
when you've brought up a toddler, the one thing you really appreciate is a good night's sleep.
Presenter asks
16:50What do you think it was about those [1981] riots that enabled that flowering [of black MPs]?
There were three things that happened. The first was my parents had been born in Jamaica. And in their minds they were always going back... my generation knew we were here to stay. So it was a gen it was a generational change. It was also the case that the Labour Party had moved to the Left, and black representation was very much something which the Left took up. But thirdly, The riots had a seismic effect at the time. Black people were very much on the margins of British society and then suddenly you had these television pictures of British cities burning because black people are taken to the streets and issues about black representation very much came to the fore.
Presenter asks
24:18How do you reply to [people who say your decision to send your son to a private school was hypocritical]?
What the issue? As an excuse. To have a go. And when you look at how long all of this went on and when you look at how personal it was, you have to say that a lot of people had been waiting for an opportunity to kind of vent. People have to judge me for who I am and what I've stood up for. That's all I can say.
“I would sit on the green benches, look at all these sort of middle-aged white men around me and think, gosh, me here, really?”
“I looked at her and I said, without skipping a beat, But I do, and that's what matters.”
“I had to choose between my son and my good name. And I chose my son. And if I had to take the decision again, I would make the same decision.”