I was born and raised in the East end of London not far from where the Kray twins ruled many years before me.
Being of mixed raced heritage it’s surprising that my school years were very good considering this was in the eighties, but Hackney was a very multicultural place to grow up.
Even though I’d never been the type to get into trouble, I still had my fair share of times of being stopped by the police whilst walking on my own. Even whilst in my school uniform at the age of 13 and 14, I can still remember the embarrassment of being up against the wall while my pockets were searched, while people walked past.
This just became something of the norm, something that you accepted and expected, it was even worse once I learnt how to drive.
I suppose it wasn’t until the drama series Roots was aired on TV in the UK about slavery, that I first started to question how even in the UK the colour of your skin could determine how far you could go in life.
I have always been a keen story teller and there were many reasons for writing this book.
There are many things the people in charge do not let us hear about, and sometimes it takes many years for these things to be exposed, just like here in the UK, the Windrush scandal springs to mind.
Like I said there were many reasons for writing this book but the question I was left with was, in today’s world, could this actually happen?
