In Journeys from Black Youth to Black Manhood-Part 2 last week, I outlined my personal journey from a newborn baby shrouded in shame to a child of 11 years of age when my childhood ended. During my 11th year I was confronted with a totally new world that I had to understand quickly, adapt to and work out how I could manage within it. I tried very hard to ‘fit in’ to the foster family I was found by using some of the tools I had learnt in the Orphanage; being helpful in the house and the garden, being polite and respectful, working hard at school, making friends. But seemingly no matter what I tried to do it was having minimal impact on my foster parents and in time I decided that whilst I would continue to be as respectful and as helpful as I could, I was going to deploy most of my energies elsewhere and that was in my school work and developing my friendship with peers. Creating, in essence, a parallel family. The emerging adult in me was focused on maintaining my presence in the foster home, as there was nowhere else to go. I could not return to the Orphanage as it was closing and the prospect of being placed into another foster home filled me with dread. ‘Better the devil you know than the one you don’t’. I also knew that I was on my own and it was down to me to forge a future for myself: a frightening prospect.
I still tried to be as unobtrusive as possible and cause as little trouble and effort on the part of the foster parents, but I knew that it was a truce. There was little affection in the home. I was tolerated, a paying guest. I understood that. From the age of 11 years of age, I worked on trying to be the best I could be at whatever I was undertaking. My primary school (Junior High) had a wonderful headmaster, Mr. Sutherland, and my class teacher, Mrs Marchbanks, was a model of perfection as a teacher. She made the classroom a wonderland of information and interest, the classroom walls always covered with pictures and words describing the content of those, and told the class fascinating stories including of her travels around Europe. She was patient and involved with her pupils, encouraging each to aspire to the next level. The leadership of Mr Sutherland and Mrs Marchbanks in the school reminded me of the Orphanage staff members who I had been involved with; caring, devoted to making learning not only interesting and useful as a tool to find out about life but also how to learn from others, both past and present, of how to navigate through that life to achieve what you desire. The knowledge gained was not just to assist students to pass exams but to equip students to competently deal with life and contribute to it.
I loved reading and I visited the local library several times per week looking for books about people’s lives. I asked the librarian for help. I did not know which individuals I wished to read about, I just looked at the book covers, read a little about the content of the book and then if interested, took the book out on loan. I went through each book on the shelves in this manner and gradually discovered a treasure trove of books on biography, history, adventure- including colonial history, photography, geography especially Africa. The lives of people fascinated me. What they did with their lives, why they made certain decisions, what were the consequences, what regrets did they have, and how did they cope with those? I did not realise it at the time but I was preparing for an adulthood professional life of four decades and continuing, working with the most marginalised individuals and communities in society, largely culturally diverse and of colour.
The Library was where my knowledge about people who looked like me began even although one of the children in the foster home was Black but for some reason, we never connected, as our interests were so different. He was into football and it never interested me and I was fascinated by books and loved studying which he found a complete bore. He also found me to be a total waste of space but I could not please anybody in the foster home so this was not a one-off. Amongst my peers at school, I was rarely made to feel different because of my colour. I was social, athletic, popular, and was simply one of the group. I knew I looked different but it was not an issue for me except that I wanted to find out more about people who looked like me.
In the early sixties in Scotland students at primary school were ‘streamed’ by an exam at the age of 11 titled ’11 plus’. If you passed, the student was eligible to go to the High School with the prospect of going on from there to University. If you failed, you were sent to an alternative venue geared to vocational education, tailored to working eventually in the trades or in the coal mine. In the small town where I was fostered most of the adult males either worked in the coal mine or had occupations tied to it. I was fortunate in that when I was due to sit the 11 plus exam I was in hospital with pneumonia and the school argued for my waiver on a passing grade to enter the High School.
The following six years at the High School were wonderful. I made new friends, I worked hard and although not a brilliant scholar I did well academically, had a good relationship with my teachers, and ended up Deputy Head Prefect and captain of the school Rugby Team which had an excellent reputation at the time. The most critical achievement was that the goal I aspired to at the High School was achieved. I received the grades necessary to be accepted at Edinburgh University and to secure a place in the student halls of residence where I could live all year round. I could leave the foster home now and have a place of my ‘own’ for the first time. Everywhere I had lived before then was always shared with multiple others. There was no such thing as private space. Finally, I was going to have this precious gift at 19 years of age and I was ecstatic.
During my time at the University, I studied social sciences and pursued my interest in people’s lives and cultures by taking courses in social anthropology, criminology and history. Deciding that what I wanted to do with my life was to work with people but I wanted that work to be based in culturally diverse settings. As a postgraduate student, I undertook my professional social work training that had options of practice placements around the UK for several months at a time. Half the course was centred on practice. I chose placements that had significant populations of immigrants from around the globe. I ended my social work training in the east end of London and fell in love with the colour, vitality, novel experiences, further learning and risk-taking, how the local residents looked, and the multiplicity of cultures. I knew this is where I wanted to practice social work and settle and that is what I did immediately upon qualifying.
As a youth reaching towards manhood, the pathways are not clear, wrong turnings and dead ends are strewn in your way and you pick yourself up, shrug off the dust, and move on. Occasionally your travels are interrupted by beacons of light consisting of Individuals who leave a lasting impression on you, make you stop and think, reflect and incorporate the lessons learnt in your onward journey. My carers at the Orphanage, teachers at my schools, served as beacons for me. My peers also served in that capacity and those employers who saw something in me that prompted them to hire me. The people I worked with as a social worker, community development professional, educator, author, placed their trust in me and shared their stories of trying to cope in horrendous circumstances and taught me about life, struggles, how to cope and survive and occasionally, overcome those barriers. Routinely humbled by their honesty, transparency, directness, authority, and humour, they led me hand in hand to manhood. Their belief that I would do all that I could to assist them in what they were trying to achieve emboldened me to often achieve the impossible. They were furnaces in the darkness.
In next week’s Journeys from Black Youth to Black Manhood-Part 4, I will share the story of someone else’s passage to Black Manhood and how they used their experience of it to influence others on their passage.