Mixed Britannia

I've been watching 'Mixed Britannia', a documentary series by George Alagiah about mixed race life in Britain. Previous episodes have been historical, looking at the start of mixed race marriages in the sea-ports of the 1900s which has been fascinating, but this week's episode brought things right up to date, to things that I can recognise because I grew up in the 60s and 70s. From the Limehouse docks in London to Tiger Bay in Cardiff and to Liverpool, most of this country has taken part in the story of a mixed race Britain. George ends the final programme by saying that he is proud that Britain is one of the most mixed race countries of the world and so am I.

George is best known as a newsreader for BBC News but, based on this series, he's wasted doing that.  He has a great ability to talk into the camera and make you think he's talking to you. In this series he draws on his own family and his own mixed race marriage to make his points more personal. And it works. He tackles a difficult subject and humanises it.  He should do more of this.

This final episode took me back to my school days and reminded me of a school friend I haven't thought of in years.  I grew up in a small mining village in north Durham and went to the local grammar school.  And so did T, a black girl that lived half a mile away.  She wasn't just the only black girl in the village, she was the only black anyone within a 15 mile radius, brought up by adoptive white parents. I hadn't thought of T for years - we were friends at school but lost touch 30 years ago - but some of the stories I heard in the programme this evening made me think of her and wonder. I'd love to meet up again.

I was on the bus going down Brixton Hill the other day and thought to myself that I loved the colour I saw.  Not skin colour, but cultural colour with women in veils and saris, men in muslim hats and Nehru jackets, white lads with blond dreadlocks, a bloke in a turban and denims and a little old lady in the most floral of floral frocks you can imagine. I loved it. That's the ultimate diversity, it's people being who they are and who they want to be and I'm quite pleased that in my world people can be who they want to be. 

Who called the British a 'mongrel race'?  I don't know, but it's true.  Since we're on the edge of Europe, and there's a history of peoples moving west, so this little island has seen a host of peoples coming here.  The Celts, the Romans, the Angles and Saxons, the Vikings, the Normans, Jews escaping the pograms, Jamaicans and Indians in the 50s to help the country grow after the war. None of us are 'pure blood' as the far right would want us to think, we're all bit of a mix.  I am Northumbrian and Irish and probably some Scots in there as well and I grew up in the land of the Prince Bishops. I claim my Native American blood through Buffy Sainte-Marie and my Caribbean blood through Jimmy Cliff.  I am a citizen of the world and claim you all as brothers and sisters. You don't really have any say in it.

I'm with the mighty Poly Styrene when she sang, "When it comes to my bretheren, I and I, Jah simply choose to remain colour blind".  Poly was mixed race herself, part Somali and part British white. And she was perfect.