The Heart

This digital story was created by Leah as part of The Making of Black Britain.

I grew up in a majority white area in Bradford. When I went to school my mum would make me have my hair out in an afro, but I would come out of my front door and scrape it back as tight as I could into a bun and turn up my skirt to make it shorter, I really wanted to be white and have straight hair so I would fit in with the girls at school. At the weekends I would go to my dad’s in Leeds and visit my nanas house where most of my family were, my sister, cousins, aunt, uncles.
There would be pig foot/pig tail and rice and peas bubbling on the stove (I only ate the rice and peas though) family fortunes or the horse racing would be on tv, and at times the sweet sounds of soul and calypso mixed over the soundtrack of shouting at the racing from my dad and uncles, some of us would help nana in the kitchen preparing the journey cakes and serve the food out to all the hungry bellies in the room, to work it off I would play Curby on the street with my cousins. The drive back to Bradford with my dad would be full of the latest reggae sounds or motown, then arriving home my mum would make me beans on toast before braiding my hair for school the next morning whilst listening to some Tracy Chapman on her record player.
Looking back times were hard in lots of ways but i found solace in those warm moments at nanas house and the food and music and time with my family gave me a foundation from which to build upon for the future.