‘I enjoyed story telling ever since I was a junior at primary school. As a small child, I would often tell my younger brother bed-time stories. I recall the joy that I felt, after winning the school Christmas writing competition. My best friend at the time, Benjy, scoffed when he spotted my prize winnings, which was a chocolate bar, mini cereal pack, but I was shamelessly bursting with pride.
‘As a descendent of the Windrush generation, my father was a British Telecoms engineer, and my mother a care-worker. Although I was born and raised in the U.K. I always felt as though I was an outsider, and was often reminded that I had to do twice as well as any white person, if I wanted to do well, because the preference would always be to turn me down whenever opportunities surfaced. Nevertheless, there was a pervasive can-do ethos in my family.
‘I loved the competitive element of our primary school in Battersea, South London. From competitions in chess, swimming, or athletics, I thrived at these. My most memorable disappointment, was missing out on a medal, in the junior regional athletics competition. I’d won the first 100m sprint, then in the finals, I had the bright idea of looking over to boy in the lane next to me, and asking: “Do you think you’re fast?” He shrugged, said nothing and kept his stern looking face straight ahead. When the start gun was fired, I dashed ahead of everybody, deciding to be flash-as the guys at my school often did-I crossed over into the lane of the stern-faced kid, ran in front of him to the finish line. When I burst across the white ribbon ahead, I couldn’t help but wonder why the adults around me seemed to be poker-faced, unlike me, who celebrated. I’d been disqualified!
‘As a teenager growing up in South London, racism was something that I’d always known, whether that was far-right graffiti slogans, or a classmate advising me to keep out of sight from their parents, as they would get into trouble for being seen with a black person-outside of school. One of my earliest experiences as a child living in a ground floor council flat in Clapham, South London; was of my sister calling out to me from within the garden, “Rich! Come quick!” When I ran out onto the grass, my sister was crouched at the, desperately grabbing stones from ground. She turned to me,
‘“Quick!” she repeated, “get some stones, they’re throwing stones at us.” She swung some stones at the children that lived several doors away. I couldn’t work out what it was all about, back then, but I duly followed my sister and grabbed some stones, quickly hurled these back, with full gusto.
‘Over the years, I realized that racism can either produce resilience in a person, or diminish that persons’ confidence. My experience is the former, and is probably owed to the spirit of my family, some of whom went on to serve in both the British Army, and the United States Airforce. I have always had a curiosity about people from diverse backgrounds and cultures, whether that be Irish Protestant/Catholic, or Kurdish/Turkish, or African/Caribbean, etc. This curiosity has aided some of my writing, and has definitely enhanced my creative imagination.
‘For my novel: Idle Among Infamy, my research was based largely on my personal experiences, as a black person having to deal with the justice system, and the institutional racism that seems to be deeply embedded. Sometimes it can seem as though the law is not intended to apply to you, if you are black. I have lived in the West Midlands, Yorkshire, Cambridgeshire, and Manchester, and incorporated some of my experiences and imagination into fictional characters and settings. I hope the story is interesting.’
