Trace and Tell your Family's Empire Stories
Introduction
I am Afro-Guyanese, born the eldest of 11 children in British Guiana in the mid-1920s. The British influence was all around us and to me, it seemed that everything good came out of Britain.
I left for Britain at 24, by which time I already had three children of my own. I found Britain very different from Guiana but I settled here happily with my family. The country became independent as Guyana in 1966. I didn't visit my old home again until 1972.
My son Ivan, who was born in Britain, had a very different experience. He grew up in the 1950s and '60s when life was difficult for young black men in Britain. Ivan has never been to Guyana and feels little connection with the country.
Ivan's cousin Colin was also born in Britain. Colin takes a lot more interest than Ivan in his Guyanese heritage and has visited Guyana. Born around a decade later than Ivan, as Colin grew up some of the attitudes Ivan experienced were beginning to dissolve.
Browser by chapterIvan, Muriel's son, talks about the difficulties of growing up as a young black man in Britain.
My son Ivan is very different from me. He was born in the mid-1950s and his experience of Britain has not been so positive. Growing up in Britain was tough for young black men during the 1960s and '70s:
"I grew up in the days of 'no Irish, no dogs and no blacks'. We weren't welcome in certain areas. I wouldn't say we lived in ghettos, but we did grow up in cliques."
"I grew up with a lot of guys from Jamaica. A group of us used to call ourselves the 'Clean Half Dozen'. We didn't worry about who was Guyanese or who was Jamaican. We were all just black, trying to watch each other's backs, looking out for the football hooligans and the National Front."
"My mum didn't believe me when I told her how the police harassed us, because she was used to the police in Guiana. In her mind, the police caught criminals; they didn't go after innocent people. She didn't encounter racism in the way that we did."
