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| Age 18 in Cowdenbeath |
The story of my life in miniature is told in Beyond Borders and features in a new anthology 'Hidden Sussex' (2019) - writing by Black and People of Colour in Sussex.
This story is the first published extract of a long work in progress that tracks my life from Chapel Town in Leeds to Scotland and Brighton via Oxford. I have changed the names of all involved but nevertheless, the story remains true to my experiences and events as happened.
It moves from early childhood in an institution, to low paid work in factories as a sewing machinist where women's work is deemed ‘semi- skilled’. Lonely, depressed and just 15, this teenager was a lone black pebble among ‘chalk’ cast to the margins. A ‘toxic gas’ leaks out everywhere she is. Daily, her blank page is filled by others with denigrating characteristics, she internalises.
Her life was initially shattered at the age of four as her African father and Indian mother’s marriage splintered. Placed in a Roman Catholic Institution, her siblings disappeared and a door closed to “outsiders” and their world. Confined behind high walls with exiled ‘inmates,’ and the ‘Keepers of white beads and black book’, a grief- stricken Lauren was bound by strict codes. Subdued children, frequently punished, lost all rights most people take for granted. Worse for 'Lauren' (my character,) she keenly sensed something about her was ‘so off’ it could not be spoken.
Lauren will eventually become active in the Trade Union movement and is influenced by the larger social m movements around her, locally and globally. The story speaks of interwoven impacts of her class, race, gender, And of a particular religioous outfit's mistreatment of children in her experience. Adversity brings a growing aliveness awareness and resilience over a life time, in realising herself as fully human and the creative responsibilities that entails
