Glynis NeslenGlynis learned of her British-African heritage at the age of sixteen having been fostered at the age of two in Great Yarmouth. She came to Hull in 1999 via London and Leeds. Glynis talks about her experiences being raised by white-British parents within a multiracial household and of how she used art and political activism to understand her heritage.
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Transcription: Glynis Neslen Interview
Interview with Glynis Neslen
Interviewer: Jerome Whittingham
Date: 22 July 2016
JW: Glynis, I’ve sort of known you a little bit over the last two or three years, we’ve bumped into each other at different exhibition openings and the like but I don’t really know you.
GN: Yeah
JW: You’re just another face in the crowd for me really so I’m quite looking forward to a chat and learning more. So first and foremost just introduce yourself to the listener. You know, your full name and your connection with Africa.
GN: OK, well my - full name is Glynis Anne Neslen, that’s my – yeah, that’s, that’s not on my birth certificate actually but that is what I’m known as at the moment and yeah I’ve, yeah. I grew up in Great Yarmouth. And my connection with Africa really is my dad I suppose which is – he’s from Nigeria.
JW: OK. So tell me about how your dad came over to the UK? How did he land on the shores?
GN: Well I’m not really sure exactly because I didn’t grow up with him. I was fostered so that’s why we grew up in Great Yarmouth and – I grew up with foster parents and it was only when I was 16, I think that I got a bit of paper from Dr Barnardo’s saying that – my dad – putative father they called it was – African. And from Nigeria they did specify as such he was Nigerian. So I think well, he was, well obviously growing up I did, you know, I didn’t look white so we, and I grew up in a family of 3 other young people who were also mixed race as well; two African and one Asian mix.
JW: At what age did you begin to question your origin?
GN: Well I think it comes up, it comes up in school you know, you get called names and things like that. ‘Sambo’, ‘Jungle Bunny’ which I thought was really funny at the time. I thought, “what a funny name” – yeah and just generally – also because I grew up in Great Yarmouth it’s a seaside town so when people came to visit there were a few, the odd Black family came to visit and they, there was almost an acknowledgment you know sort of, they definitely saw racism, and –I remember actually 1960’s I think it was the Olympics and - there was a Black Power salute by some of the African athletes and – I remember we all watched it and – we sort of identified with the athlete in a sense, so there was always an identification with you know, Black people on the telly for instance because they weren’t many in Great Yarmouth but certainly Love Thy Neighbour, so we went through a whole gamut of these programmes – Fosters, Love Thy Neighbour. There was also Patti Boulaye. I went to see – Hot Chocolate came to the – what was it called, the Mecca Ballroom, They use to put bands on there, I remember seeing, seeing him. So there were always, cause we were always looked different so there was to…
JW: So how did you feel? You and your siblings within that foster home? Did you feel African? Did you feel British?
GN: It’s difficult really because you grow up British, went to church – went to school but you, you know you’re different. There was one school friend who said to me, “How come”, because she knew that both my parents, foster parents were whit, she said, “How come your foster parents are white and you’re, you’re not?”, sort of thing. And that was, that was quite sort of a difficult question to, because I don’t know whether everybody knew that we were fostered or adopted so they assumed that maybe my mother and father had produced us.
JW: Right. How typical was it for – Black children to be placed with white foster parents, foster adoptive parents?
GN: It was pretty common – in the 60’s. I mean later on I remember reading, reading different things. There was a book by Catherine Cookson called Colour Blind which talks about – and in fact it was televised recently as a series, yes as a series – and that was quite interesting. My mum, my foster mum used to read lots of Catherine Cookson books and I think she use to , she use to show us, get us to watch a programme. We watched lots of social documentaries type programmes. We saw, because also we were I suppose – rescue children in the sense because if you’re adopted or fostered usually there’s usually something you know, wrong with your, with your background so you can’t, you can’t be brought up by your natural parents for one reason or another so you’re then – place in care or foster care or whatever but yeah, so, so I certainly maybe identified more as being Black than maybe my siblings although we didn’t talk about it until later, much later when we did mention racism and things like that because we all had different experiences of it within Great Yarmouth. And further afield as well.
JW: How did it affect your foster parents? Do you think they were perhaps more protective of you because they knew of your differences?
GN: Year they were quite altruistic really. They were very – they were very gentle, they weren’t you know, horrible, they didn’t sort of, they didn’t beat us, they didn’t you know. My dad was very soft man. They were both nurses actually as well so. Yeah. I think when I went to London and I joined a Black women’s group. I remember having a conversation with another member saying “why do you need to join a group or why do you need to”. Because we did have regular visits from the social worker while were, were growing up and most of it was actually to talk to her, to talk to my mother because that was her support because foster parents don’t get support sometimes and bringing up 4 children especially 4 non-white children in a white area, looking back you know, I certainly maybe didn’t empathise with her then but later on I’d been chatting to my sister I think she talked to one of my sisters more about the issues because she used to be called names in the street , so.
JW: What were your parents, particularly your mum’s ambitions for you and your siblings?
GN: I think she just wanted us to do the best that we could. Two of us managed to get into grammar school, the local grammar school and two of us went to secondary modern and I think she was pleased that we got into the grammar school although she, she hated it really because he was a bit of a socialist really. So she sort of hated that elitist. And she had some run-ins with the school as well. They wanted me to play hockey, netball. Because we were, we didn’t have much money so I got a Saturday job and the hockey team, the hockey tutor, wanted me to go in for some hockey trails and I went in once and I didn’t get anywhere so the next year I decided not to go and she rang up my job, and then my mum was furious. Because it’s you know, because then, because we didn’t get much pocket money so it was also if I had a Saturday job I could buy bits and pieces with myself so. I, you know, we didn’t have a brilliant hockey team or teacher quite honestly so why, what’s the point of going anyway when we weren’t going to get anywhere, you know, but I suppose it’s the teachers, teacher’s point of view they had to put in so many students forward but – yeah there was that sort of pushing me into athletics events that I wasn’t ready for. I remember going for a national athletic event in Norwich and I realise after a while that I was about 12, 13, I can’t remember. And I was put in for the under 15’s, 15, 16 age group and the hurdles because the hurdles , and I’d done hurdles before but they actually raised them a couple of inches for the older age group and of course I fell over the first one.
JW: So falling at the first hurdle has that been a feature?
GN: I was, well it’s just sort of going in for things and you know being used, I’ve talked to people about this. If you’re Black sometimes they think you can run, they think you can play this. My sister was 6ft tall actually. One of my sisters and they wanted her to play basket ball but she couldn’t catch a ball so you know it doesn’t follow that because you’re really tall that you’re going to be good at something. It’s…
JW: So where do you feel you have flourished? In what pursuits?
GN: Well I suppose I like being active which is why I did do sports or, I did judo in the end, martial arts and…
JW: Why the martial arts? To control your aggression or to get aggression you of you or…
GN: No I think- it was to learn how to defend myself because a lot of my friends were quite, well a lot of my friends their dads were quite vicious because there was a lot of, I mean sometimes some people used to say, “Oh I wish I was adopted” because you have more control. I suppose the social services keep an eye on you if you’re fostered, not necessarily adopted, but they do come and see how you’re getting on and I suppose that is the thing, you feel you have to look out for yourself if you’re Black, you’re a woman and if you’re in a situation where you’re in a minority and I think those things, and I would say I had to protect my sisters a lot as well because they used to get into, well especially the youngest, used to get into a lot of trouble with boys. She used to annoy them so I would have to go around and either beat them up or, which I didn’t, I couldn’t really do very well, or you know just go and rescue her from these situations she would get herself into.
In the past there was this trend to put Black or coloured, (they used to called me coloured in those days as well), children in, out of big cities, you know, sort of into white areas. I don’t know if it was sort of like an integration issue or whether they thought you’d get a better upbringing if you were in a sort of, nicer, more calmer…
JW: You’d have, you know, fewer problems…yeah
GN: …or by the sea, that sort of thing. The only thing that I do know with Great Yarmouth in the 60s and 70s was in a bit of a recession so there wasn’t much work. There also wasn’t a lot of holiday makers coming either so the town did suffer quite a bit.
JW: So when you sort of came of age ,16 or 17, you received that letter explaining that, you know, that your Dad was of African descent, what did you do to, well, did you do anything to find out more?
GN: No. I did consider running to, running off to Africa at that point, but I didn’t because I didn’t have the means to do it, but - later on I did, when I was about 32, I went and searched for my, my birth mother. I think, I can’t remember if I did it after my foster mother died because I did talk to her about it and she said, “well it will, it will bring up a lot of…it’ll be very emotional, it’ll bring up a lot of stuff”.
JW: Is that something we could explore then, well what did you find out about your birth mum?
GN: Well, a lot of things really, personally. But I did meet her. I met her in a mediated situation in the Barkingside Dr Barnardo’s. Yeah it is amazing you meet your, it was almost like, because you, because when you’re fostered you don’t necessarily bond with your foster parents. While I was in London, I did explore lots of things because I met people like Jackie Kay - Valerie Mason-John who’d both been in care. I mean Jackie Kay has written The Adoption Papers, about her book, about her experience in Scotland, because she feels that she’s Scottish, you know, she feels very Scottish. Because if you’re brought up in England, you’re English, but the English don’t have a definite culture that you can get your hands on, in a sense, it’s often in opposition to other people so that the English are often…So I, I describe myself as Nigerian-English I suppose, if I have to fill out a monitoring form, and - yeah I looked at - I got involved with the Black Women in Care Movement a bit, went to some conferences, just to sort of broaden my perspective about other people.
JW: When did you arrive in Hull?
GN: In 2002, I think, yeah and that’s the first time I’d ever been to Hull, and - no I came before that, I came in 1999 or 2000 because I came to do an MA actually, that’s what I came to do originally. Hull attracted me because I was living in Leeds and I wanted somewhere that was near water and -
JW: Why is that, why the attraction to the water?
GN: Well partly because I’m a water sign. Part of my identity has been tied up with, you know, latching onto certain things, like I am a Scorpio so, for instance, so it’s part of trying to locate, because if you’re brought up adopted or fostered, you haven’t necessarily got access to your culture. So Hull, and I liked Hull, Hull and I discovered Hull was the birthplace of Wilberforce who, who, you know, the abolition of slavery, that’s something I hadn’t really looked at. - I was, I was always interested in African history, especially art, African art. I used to, - in fact when I was at school, when I was 15, I wrote, I did art at school, and I wrote an essay on African art, well primitive art, because we had a book in the library by Frank Willett but it was, it used to be called Primitive Art. I think it was by him anyway I’ll have to check, it might have been by another guy called William Fagg who also wrote books on African art, - and I wrote an essay on it and I haven’t got a copy of that essay because obviously I had to give it in, and - I did a critique of the book because I was basically saying that I thought African art wasn’t primitive and it was religious, it was almost like religious art that was put into museums and then it should have been in churches, you know, it was sort of equal to…
JW: Okay, yeah, I was going to ask you to, sort of, expand upon the description of African art from your perspective.
GN: It’s a style, I think, well, there are different styles I mean in different places in Africa and different, have different - styles and ways of doing it and different traditions, different uses for the different things. There is similar traditions in say like - it’s quite acceptable for a carver say for instances to have pupils and they all carve the same thing, which is similar to say Rembrandt having a studio and he paints, and he gets all his students to paint the same thing but he signs everything so it’s from the school of Rembrandt or it’s from the school of…
JW: Do you feel that you’ve had to create your own cultural identity rather than - you, know, growing up with a long family history of being English from Hull or, I’m from Stoke on Trent, you know, The Potteries, and my father worked in the potteries and the like. I’m no potter myself but, you know, I do feel as though I’ve got some of that heritage in my veins. Do you feel that you’ve had to create your cultural identity much?
GN: I’ve had to create it but I’ve sort of used what I naturally, I’m naturally quite good at art, say for instance, I’ve always been able to draw and that’s, that’s been, you know, and then, I, sometimes I’ve tried to work out what do I like, what am I drawn to, you know, sort of using a more meditative sort of - focusing on, you know, can I feel my ancestors in me rather than knowing who they actually are, and I do feel drawn to, well, I do, you know I listen to African music. I definitely have a feeling with it, being able to sort of participate in drumming, and I’ve like, I’ve done some tie-dying and batik and things like that. I sort of tried out a lot of African arts and wanted to…
GN: There’s also things attached to them, there’s baggage attached to a lot of - African things because, say I might think, “Oh yes I really like indigo” for instance, I love indigo stuff, but there used to be an industry in indigo in the 1700s, you know. I think there was one in Hull maybe, you know, they used to dye the sails blue and things like that and make uniforms, but there was one in Africa as well and often it was sort of used by the colonialists to, it was taken over by someone else so it was…became an industry that wasn’t controlled by the Africans. So there is sort of a bit of ambivalence. Yes it’s a traditional craft but it’s got baggage that’s associated with colonialism and - and those sort of things you know, and carving. In the past ancestors, people used to sort of, there used to be a whole ceremony about cutting down a tree and thanking the gods and sacrifices and, and then those carvings might be put in a, in a, in a sacred house for praying, you know, to go in, which would be like a church in the European sense. So there’s all…because I think now I’ve got more into conservation and I think that’s what I look at now. I’ve had to go through whole transitions of, yeah, identifying as being Black, then identifying, well where do I fit into all that, and then thinking what do I actually believe?
I should go forward to, well I went to, not Glastonbury - The Solstice, you know where the stones, Stonehenge.
JW: Yes Stonehenge.
GN: I thought I’d go to Stonehenge. I went with a filmmaker actually, it was a bit mad. Two filmmakers who fell out with each other, and then, so I was left sort of wandering about, and I was just thinking; it would just be nice at this moment if I just came across somebody, at that moment someone handed me a cup of Jack Daniels and it was this Black guy. He was from, I don’t know, Manchester, and he was really into festivals. Because I’d not really met many, I suppose, Black hippies, if you see what I mean. So people that were interested in the environment, interested in, just sort of natural things, you know, were a bit out of their communities in a sense, because sometimes, sometimes I realise the Black community can be. It’s like a massive family sometimes and people, people sometimes struggle because they have to be loyal to their family and also loyal to what they are and - I sometimes think, well, being in the position I am, I’m actually, I’m in the middle, in a sense, because I haven’t got a natural family, so it means I’m quite free in some ways.
JW: Has it become easier to fit in, to feel you’re fitting in, in society, culture, people around you over the years?
GN: I think it’s important actually, not necessarily to fit in, but to feel okay wherever you are, you know to be able to fit in – to be able to be comfortable with who you are, so you can fit – with people, you can empathise you can help them, help people but there’s always this thing that you’re not, you’re a bit sort of sort of on your own in a sense.
JW: You’ve lived in several cities then in the UK.
GN: Yeah.
JW: Great Yarmouth not a city but several areas across the UK. To what extent does Hull feel like home?
GN: I think Hull feels more like home than anywhere I’ve ever lived funnily enough.
JW: So you’ve been in Hull since…
GN: Yeah Hull since 2002 when I got the job, because I started doing the MA and I did photography so I was really interested in the docks and the river and that sort of area. And it was such a change from Leeds – because I was in Leeds, because in Leeds I was part of a community actually and in London I was part of a community and it all sometimes felt a bit, “no, I need to move on now”. So I think Hull is almost like it is coming home in a sense because it’s back on the East coast, it’s just up the road from up the coast from Great Yarmouth in a sense and I’ve actually started to say that I am from Great Yarmouth, I never used to say I was from Great Yarmouth, in London or Leeds. Because it is, it’s very similar, the people, people don’t leave unless they really have to – it’s a very, but it’s, Hull has been more successful I think than Great Yarmouth. It’s got communities that is quite close, it’s a very friendly place I think, even though, you know there are well sometimes there are issues – with people but and it’s reasonably small, so you sort of you know, you can get around it you can get to know it there’s no real no go areas and I’ve made sure I got to everywhere, you know I’ve been to East Hull, gone – and I’ve actually liked some areas, where people have said “oh no you don’t wanna go there” for instance I really liked Hessle Road, I wanted to live off Hessle Road actually originally when I first came and people said, “Oh no you can’t live there it’s really rough”, but I live on Springbank, I mean it’s like so…
JW: How would you describe your community then, not necessarily the geographical area but who is your community?
GN: - I’m not really sure because I think I came to Hull originally I came to Hull to study and I ended up working here but my natural skills are really networking and just getting to know everybody because I don’t sort of have a group particularly but I’ve really I’ve tried to focus actually recently so I’ve been mainly, and I’ve been sort of going back to this group quite a lot it is the environmental people you know the people that do the growing, the growing of the food feeding Hull - I find all that really – inspiring and also the art as well I mean I’m not necessarily inspired by a lot of the art in Hull, I find people need to well, I don’t know, I can’t say that really, but I find that I want to, I want to paint, I want to, do, explore my artistic talents here more and yeah I’m not really sure really. I’m a bit in between transition because for a while I was totally immersed in the art community and it’s an alternative art community in some ways – and I’ve have to suspend my disbelief or belief or and accept a lot of things so it’s actually been good to accept everything so from, you know, I’ve come across all sorts of artists, African artists, Asian artists – English artists, Norwegian, German, Swedish, you know all sorts, Icelandic there’s been all sorts of influences and also the time based arts movement all the alternative, and I find Hull is one of those places it’s like it begins things you know it doesn’t necessarily end up owning them, but, yeah.
JW: So you would probably describe Hull as – at the beginning or a road, not the end of a road?
GN: Yeah, I think it’s – it’s changing it’s got to…I think the only thing is it’s got to at least have more work, there needs to be more jobs and also I think Hull could set an example actually by having equitable wages so you haven’t got a big divide between people that are on very, very high salaries and then everyone else being extremely low paid.
JW: How do you feel about your achievements?
GN: I’m not sure, I’m not sure what I’ve achieved really. I suppose I don’t know. I suppose I have done a lot of things I wanted to do. I’m, I’m at the point now where I’m thinking I’m just, I’m just seeing if I could actually be an artist rather than helping other people, everybody else to do, to be that and actually do it myself and actually be an example because I think sometimes you can be, you can supportive, you can, help people but unless you’re an example yourself, people, people are influenced more by that. So I’m thinking about maybe becoming an individual again rather than part of a bigger thing and actually focussing on producing - my art which, it’s my art that’s probably more African than I am in a sense.
JW: So you’re wanting to sort of grow into your art, is that what you’re saying?
GN: Yeah, yeah I think so and, and my music as well, because I play the piano which is a very Western instrument, I play in churches usually so there is this thing that I’d like to get some sort of orchestra type things together or some ensembles or get people together playing instruments. But I think also I’ve got this sort of element of - because I used to be a nurse as well there’s this element of wanting to, of seeing art as a healing thing.
JW: Are you happy and comfortable with your, with your identity?
GN: Sometimes I am and sometimes I’m not. I think I’ve got more comfortable as I’ve got older, I think when you’re in your 50’s, you definitely, I mean in your 20’s your 30’s, yeah my 20’s were very problematic although I was busy I’ve kept busy, we kept busy then you don’t have time to think about it. I was training to be a nurse and that was where I met lots of African nurses, West Indian nurses and they were brilliant – women mainly – Irish – Jamaican and other West Indian nurses and African, they kept the health services going actually. But also what they brought to it, because most, most of those people I’ve mentioned all have a spiritual element to, and especially the West Indian, they have this, they’ve been to church, they’ve had traditions of going to church, whether they believe everything or not and in a hospital that’s actually quite interesting it’s very interesting and it’s very soothing in a sense to find that you have got someone, because you have death in hospitals, you have birth you have a whole gambit of stuff and it’s nice if people have that spiritual element because then how they treat patients is very different to, and that is what helped me because I wasn’t necessarily very religious I was a bit angry at the Anglican church. Me and my sister going to church in a big afro and denim flares looking like – we walked out of a pink, black panther movie and the vicar was just horrified he wouldn’t shake our hand as we came out of the church and I just thought well I’m not going back…so there’s little bits of rebellion going on, little quiet with a small, ‘r’ I suppose on - with someone also going to the shops and being followed around by the store detective – I just think, I’m not , not going in a shop just because the store detective might follow me around. I’ll say because I’m not going to steal anything, so I just though, it doesn’t prevent me, I think my identity, because for a while when I identified as black in London and I was a member of the black organisations and they were very political and we had to read whole tomes of Marx which I couldn’t do really there was no pictures - it was all a very interesting experience but it doesn’t prevent me from doing things so its, and I sometimes think you can’t put yourself in a ghetto and I admire people who – because I’m light skinned so I suppose people would think, “oh you don’t have as much trouble”, but I think it’s meeting this guy at Stonehenge, he didn’t, he’d gone to Stonehenge and he stuck out because he was dark skinned, black guy but to me it was really nice he was there and for him it was nice I was there because we sort of connected for a bit and I just think the more we can explore all our identities. Slavery is a very big issue. I’ve been reading the books in the library reading, you know I’ve had to, it wasn’t a clear cut thing at all so it was a trade you know and I think the more stories that come out and the more breadth of the colour that comes out of these stories will unite people more because you know it wasn’t just a case of white against black or black against white there was mixtures you know and - I’ve had to look at all those issues as well the issues of the mulatto the tragic mulatto the woman that passes for white and because of my interest in film there is a film actually called ‘Imitation of life’ where a black mother basically pushes her child to pass because and it’s so sad because she feels she has to make her fit in as a white person otherwise she won’t get anywhere. And to me it’s like no. You know, I’ve been to hairdressers and they’ve wanted to straighten my hair and I’ve said, “No why do you want to straighten my hair?” You know there’s things like that so I won’t straighten my hair or I won’t use chemicals, it’s chemicals like it burns your scalp it makes your hair thin and skin lightening creams, there’s all these things that still happen so I’d like to try and you know, FGM, female genital mutilation although it’s masquerading now as cosmetic surgery in the wealthy LA suburbs of America so people have took it on as ‘oh! Lets have it all trimmed’. It’s just so there’s issues like that, so yeah I’d say I’m a bit, I have got a political aspect to myself. But it’s seeing things like why you know I love the fact that Hull is an exhibition place and that people should be proud of the history of it you know.
JW: If you could say one thing to your younger self what would it be?
GN: Don’t worry.
JW: Glynis it’s been lovely chatting with you, thank you very much.
GN: Thank you Jerome.
JW: Bless you
Interviewer: Jerome Whittingham
Date: 22 July 2016
JW: Glynis, I’ve sort of known you a little bit over the last two or three years, we’ve bumped into each other at different exhibition openings and the like but I don’t really know you.
GN: Yeah
JW: You’re just another face in the crowd for me really so I’m quite looking forward to a chat and learning more. So first and foremost just introduce yourself to the listener. You know, your full name and your connection with Africa.
GN: OK, well my - full name is Glynis Anne Neslen, that’s my – yeah, that’s, that’s not on my birth certificate actually but that is what I’m known as at the moment and yeah I’ve, yeah. I grew up in Great Yarmouth. And my connection with Africa really is my dad I suppose which is – he’s from Nigeria.
JW: OK. So tell me about how your dad came over to the UK? How did he land on the shores?
GN: Well I’m not really sure exactly because I didn’t grow up with him. I was fostered so that’s why we grew up in Great Yarmouth and – I grew up with foster parents and it was only when I was 16, I think that I got a bit of paper from Dr Barnardo’s saying that – my dad – putative father they called it was – African. And from Nigeria they did specify as such he was Nigerian. So I think well, he was, well obviously growing up I did, you know, I didn’t look white so we, and I grew up in a family of 3 other young people who were also mixed race as well; two African and one Asian mix.
JW: At what age did you begin to question your origin?
GN: Well I think it comes up, it comes up in school you know, you get called names and things like that. ‘Sambo’, ‘Jungle Bunny’ which I thought was really funny at the time. I thought, “what a funny name” – yeah and just generally – also because I grew up in Great Yarmouth it’s a seaside town so when people came to visit there were a few, the odd Black family came to visit and they, there was almost an acknowledgment you know sort of, they definitely saw racism, and –I remember actually 1960’s I think it was the Olympics and - there was a Black Power salute by some of the African athletes and – I remember we all watched it and – we sort of identified with the athlete in a sense, so there was always an identification with you know, Black people on the telly for instance because they weren’t many in Great Yarmouth but certainly Love Thy Neighbour, so we went through a whole gamut of these programmes – Fosters, Love Thy Neighbour. There was also Patti Boulaye. I went to see – Hot Chocolate came to the – what was it called, the Mecca Ballroom, They use to put bands on there, I remember seeing, seeing him. So there were always, cause we were always looked different so there was to…
JW: So how did you feel? You and your siblings within that foster home? Did you feel African? Did you feel British?
GN: It’s difficult really because you grow up British, went to church – went to school but you, you know you’re different. There was one school friend who said to me, “How come”, because she knew that both my parents, foster parents were whit, she said, “How come your foster parents are white and you’re, you’re not?”, sort of thing. And that was, that was quite sort of a difficult question to, because I don’t know whether everybody knew that we were fostered or adopted so they assumed that maybe my mother and father had produced us.
JW: Right. How typical was it for – Black children to be placed with white foster parents, foster adoptive parents?
GN: It was pretty common – in the 60’s. I mean later on I remember reading, reading different things. There was a book by Catherine Cookson called Colour Blind which talks about – and in fact it was televised recently as a series, yes as a series – and that was quite interesting. My mum, my foster mum used to read lots of Catherine Cookson books and I think she use to , she use to show us, get us to watch a programme. We watched lots of social documentaries type programmes. We saw, because also we were I suppose – rescue children in the sense because if you’re adopted or fostered usually there’s usually something you know, wrong with your, with your background so you can’t, you can’t be brought up by your natural parents for one reason or another so you’re then – place in care or foster care or whatever but yeah, so, so I certainly maybe identified more as being Black than maybe my siblings although we didn’t talk about it until later, much later when we did mention racism and things like that because we all had different experiences of it within Great Yarmouth. And further afield as well.
JW: How did it affect your foster parents? Do you think they were perhaps more protective of you because they knew of your differences?
GN: Year they were quite altruistic really. They were very – they were very gentle, they weren’t you know, horrible, they didn’t sort of, they didn’t beat us, they didn’t you know. My dad was very soft man. They were both nurses actually as well so. Yeah. I think when I went to London and I joined a Black women’s group. I remember having a conversation with another member saying “why do you need to join a group or why do you need to”. Because we did have regular visits from the social worker while were, were growing up and most of it was actually to talk to her, to talk to my mother because that was her support because foster parents don’t get support sometimes and bringing up 4 children especially 4 non-white children in a white area, looking back you know, I certainly maybe didn’t empathise with her then but later on I’d been chatting to my sister I think she talked to one of my sisters more about the issues because she used to be called names in the street , so.
JW: What were your parents, particularly your mum’s ambitions for you and your siblings?
GN: I think she just wanted us to do the best that we could. Two of us managed to get into grammar school, the local grammar school and two of us went to secondary modern and I think she was pleased that we got into the grammar school although she, she hated it really because he was a bit of a socialist really. So she sort of hated that elitist. And she had some run-ins with the school as well. They wanted me to play hockey, netball. Because we were, we didn’t have much money so I got a Saturday job and the hockey team, the hockey tutor, wanted me to go in for some hockey trails and I went in once and I didn’t get anywhere so the next year I decided not to go and she rang up my job, and then my mum was furious. Because it’s you know, because then, because we didn’t get much pocket money so it was also if I had a Saturday job I could buy bits and pieces with myself so. I, you know, we didn’t have a brilliant hockey team or teacher quite honestly so why, what’s the point of going anyway when we weren’t going to get anywhere, you know, but I suppose it’s the teachers, teacher’s point of view they had to put in so many students forward but – yeah there was that sort of pushing me into athletics events that I wasn’t ready for. I remember going for a national athletic event in Norwich and I realise after a while that I was about 12, 13, I can’t remember. And I was put in for the under 15’s, 15, 16 age group and the hurdles because the hurdles , and I’d done hurdles before but they actually raised them a couple of inches for the older age group and of course I fell over the first one.
JW: So falling at the first hurdle has that been a feature?
GN: I was, well it’s just sort of going in for things and you know being used, I’ve talked to people about this. If you’re Black sometimes they think you can run, they think you can play this. My sister was 6ft tall actually. One of my sisters and they wanted her to play basket ball but she couldn’t catch a ball so you know it doesn’t follow that because you’re really tall that you’re going to be good at something. It’s…
JW: So where do you feel you have flourished? In what pursuits?
GN: Well I suppose I like being active which is why I did do sports or, I did judo in the end, martial arts and…
JW: Why the martial arts? To control your aggression or to get aggression you of you or…
GN: No I think- it was to learn how to defend myself because a lot of my friends were quite, well a lot of my friends their dads were quite vicious because there was a lot of, I mean sometimes some people used to say, “Oh I wish I was adopted” because you have more control. I suppose the social services keep an eye on you if you’re fostered, not necessarily adopted, but they do come and see how you’re getting on and I suppose that is the thing, you feel you have to look out for yourself if you’re Black, you’re a woman and if you’re in a situation where you’re in a minority and I think those things, and I would say I had to protect my sisters a lot as well because they used to get into, well especially the youngest, used to get into a lot of trouble with boys. She used to annoy them so I would have to go around and either beat them up or, which I didn’t, I couldn’t really do very well, or you know just go and rescue her from these situations she would get herself into.
In the past there was this trend to put Black or coloured, (they used to called me coloured in those days as well), children in, out of big cities, you know, sort of into white areas. I don’t know if it was sort of like an integration issue or whether they thought you’d get a better upbringing if you were in a sort of, nicer, more calmer…
JW: You’d have, you know, fewer problems…yeah
GN: …or by the sea, that sort of thing. The only thing that I do know with Great Yarmouth in the 60s and 70s was in a bit of a recession so there wasn’t much work. There also wasn’t a lot of holiday makers coming either so the town did suffer quite a bit.
JW: So when you sort of came of age ,16 or 17, you received that letter explaining that, you know, that your Dad was of African descent, what did you do to, well, did you do anything to find out more?
GN: No. I did consider running to, running off to Africa at that point, but I didn’t because I didn’t have the means to do it, but - later on I did, when I was about 32, I went and searched for my, my birth mother. I think, I can’t remember if I did it after my foster mother died because I did talk to her about it and she said, “well it will, it will bring up a lot of…it’ll be very emotional, it’ll bring up a lot of stuff”.
JW: Is that something we could explore then, well what did you find out about your birth mum?
GN: Well, a lot of things really, personally. But I did meet her. I met her in a mediated situation in the Barkingside Dr Barnardo’s. Yeah it is amazing you meet your, it was almost like, because you, because when you’re fostered you don’t necessarily bond with your foster parents. While I was in London, I did explore lots of things because I met people like Jackie Kay - Valerie Mason-John who’d both been in care. I mean Jackie Kay has written The Adoption Papers, about her book, about her experience in Scotland, because she feels that she’s Scottish, you know, she feels very Scottish. Because if you’re brought up in England, you’re English, but the English don’t have a definite culture that you can get your hands on, in a sense, it’s often in opposition to other people so that the English are often…So I, I describe myself as Nigerian-English I suppose, if I have to fill out a monitoring form, and - yeah I looked at - I got involved with the Black Women in Care Movement a bit, went to some conferences, just to sort of broaden my perspective about other people.
JW: When did you arrive in Hull?
GN: In 2002, I think, yeah and that’s the first time I’d ever been to Hull, and - no I came before that, I came in 1999 or 2000 because I came to do an MA actually, that’s what I came to do originally. Hull attracted me because I was living in Leeds and I wanted somewhere that was near water and -
JW: Why is that, why the attraction to the water?
GN: Well partly because I’m a water sign. Part of my identity has been tied up with, you know, latching onto certain things, like I am a Scorpio so, for instance, so it’s part of trying to locate, because if you’re brought up adopted or fostered, you haven’t necessarily got access to your culture. So Hull, and I liked Hull, Hull and I discovered Hull was the birthplace of Wilberforce who, who, you know, the abolition of slavery, that’s something I hadn’t really looked at. - I was, I was always interested in African history, especially art, African art. I used to, - in fact when I was at school, when I was 15, I wrote, I did art at school, and I wrote an essay on African art, well primitive art, because we had a book in the library by Frank Willett but it was, it used to be called Primitive Art. I think it was by him anyway I’ll have to check, it might have been by another guy called William Fagg who also wrote books on African art, - and I wrote an essay on it and I haven’t got a copy of that essay because obviously I had to give it in, and - I did a critique of the book because I was basically saying that I thought African art wasn’t primitive and it was religious, it was almost like religious art that was put into museums and then it should have been in churches, you know, it was sort of equal to…
JW: Okay, yeah, I was going to ask you to, sort of, expand upon the description of African art from your perspective.
GN: It’s a style, I think, well, there are different styles I mean in different places in Africa and different, have different - styles and ways of doing it and different traditions, different uses for the different things. There is similar traditions in say like - it’s quite acceptable for a carver say for instances to have pupils and they all carve the same thing, which is similar to say Rembrandt having a studio and he paints, and he gets all his students to paint the same thing but he signs everything so it’s from the school of Rembrandt or it’s from the school of…
JW: Do you feel that you’ve had to create your own cultural identity rather than - you, know, growing up with a long family history of being English from Hull or, I’m from Stoke on Trent, you know, The Potteries, and my father worked in the potteries and the like. I’m no potter myself but, you know, I do feel as though I’ve got some of that heritage in my veins. Do you feel that you’ve had to create your cultural identity much?
GN: I’ve had to create it but I’ve sort of used what I naturally, I’m naturally quite good at art, say for instance, I’ve always been able to draw and that’s, that’s been, you know, and then, I, sometimes I’ve tried to work out what do I like, what am I drawn to, you know, sort of using a more meditative sort of - focusing on, you know, can I feel my ancestors in me rather than knowing who they actually are, and I do feel drawn to, well, I do, you know I listen to African music. I definitely have a feeling with it, being able to sort of participate in drumming, and I’ve like, I’ve done some tie-dying and batik and things like that. I sort of tried out a lot of African arts and wanted to…
GN: There’s also things attached to them, there’s baggage attached to a lot of - African things because, say I might think, “Oh yes I really like indigo” for instance, I love indigo stuff, but there used to be an industry in indigo in the 1700s, you know. I think there was one in Hull maybe, you know, they used to dye the sails blue and things like that and make uniforms, but there was one in Africa as well and often it was sort of used by the colonialists to, it was taken over by someone else so it was…became an industry that wasn’t controlled by the Africans. So there is sort of a bit of ambivalence. Yes it’s a traditional craft but it’s got baggage that’s associated with colonialism and - and those sort of things you know, and carving. In the past ancestors, people used to sort of, there used to be a whole ceremony about cutting down a tree and thanking the gods and sacrifices and, and then those carvings might be put in a, in a, in a sacred house for praying, you know, to go in, which would be like a church in the European sense. So there’s all…because I think now I’ve got more into conservation and I think that’s what I look at now. I’ve had to go through whole transitions of, yeah, identifying as being Black, then identifying, well where do I fit into all that, and then thinking what do I actually believe?
I should go forward to, well I went to, not Glastonbury - The Solstice, you know where the stones, Stonehenge.
JW: Yes Stonehenge.
GN: I thought I’d go to Stonehenge. I went with a filmmaker actually, it was a bit mad. Two filmmakers who fell out with each other, and then, so I was left sort of wandering about, and I was just thinking; it would just be nice at this moment if I just came across somebody, at that moment someone handed me a cup of Jack Daniels and it was this Black guy. He was from, I don’t know, Manchester, and he was really into festivals. Because I’d not really met many, I suppose, Black hippies, if you see what I mean. So people that were interested in the environment, interested in, just sort of natural things, you know, were a bit out of their communities in a sense, because sometimes, sometimes I realise the Black community can be. It’s like a massive family sometimes and people, people sometimes struggle because they have to be loyal to their family and also loyal to what they are and - I sometimes think, well, being in the position I am, I’m actually, I’m in the middle, in a sense, because I haven’t got a natural family, so it means I’m quite free in some ways.
JW: Has it become easier to fit in, to feel you’re fitting in, in society, culture, people around you over the years?
GN: I think it’s important actually, not necessarily to fit in, but to feel okay wherever you are, you know to be able to fit in – to be able to be comfortable with who you are, so you can fit – with people, you can empathise you can help them, help people but there’s always this thing that you’re not, you’re a bit sort of sort of on your own in a sense.
JW: You’ve lived in several cities then in the UK.
GN: Yeah.
JW: Great Yarmouth not a city but several areas across the UK. To what extent does Hull feel like home?
GN: I think Hull feels more like home than anywhere I’ve ever lived funnily enough.
JW: So you’ve been in Hull since…
GN: Yeah Hull since 2002 when I got the job, because I started doing the MA and I did photography so I was really interested in the docks and the river and that sort of area. And it was such a change from Leeds – because I was in Leeds, because in Leeds I was part of a community actually and in London I was part of a community and it all sometimes felt a bit, “no, I need to move on now”. So I think Hull is almost like it is coming home in a sense because it’s back on the East coast, it’s just up the road from up the coast from Great Yarmouth in a sense and I’ve actually started to say that I am from Great Yarmouth, I never used to say I was from Great Yarmouth, in London or Leeds. Because it is, it’s very similar, the people, people don’t leave unless they really have to – it’s a very, but it’s, Hull has been more successful I think than Great Yarmouth. It’s got communities that is quite close, it’s a very friendly place I think, even though, you know there are well sometimes there are issues – with people but and it’s reasonably small, so you sort of you know, you can get around it you can get to know it there’s no real no go areas and I’ve made sure I got to everywhere, you know I’ve been to East Hull, gone – and I’ve actually liked some areas, where people have said “oh no you don’t wanna go there” for instance I really liked Hessle Road, I wanted to live off Hessle Road actually originally when I first came and people said, “Oh no you can’t live there it’s really rough”, but I live on Springbank, I mean it’s like so…
JW: How would you describe your community then, not necessarily the geographical area but who is your community?
GN: - I’m not really sure because I think I came to Hull originally I came to Hull to study and I ended up working here but my natural skills are really networking and just getting to know everybody because I don’t sort of have a group particularly but I’ve really I’ve tried to focus actually recently so I’ve been mainly, and I’ve been sort of going back to this group quite a lot it is the environmental people you know the people that do the growing, the growing of the food feeding Hull - I find all that really – inspiring and also the art as well I mean I’m not necessarily inspired by a lot of the art in Hull, I find people need to well, I don’t know, I can’t say that really, but I find that I want to, I want to paint, I want to, do, explore my artistic talents here more and yeah I’m not really sure really. I’m a bit in between transition because for a while I was totally immersed in the art community and it’s an alternative art community in some ways – and I’ve have to suspend my disbelief or belief or and accept a lot of things so it’s actually been good to accept everything so from, you know, I’ve come across all sorts of artists, African artists, Asian artists – English artists, Norwegian, German, Swedish, you know all sorts, Icelandic there’s been all sorts of influences and also the time based arts movement all the alternative, and I find Hull is one of those places it’s like it begins things you know it doesn’t necessarily end up owning them, but, yeah.
JW: So you would probably describe Hull as – at the beginning or a road, not the end of a road?
GN: Yeah, I think it’s – it’s changing it’s got to…I think the only thing is it’s got to at least have more work, there needs to be more jobs and also I think Hull could set an example actually by having equitable wages so you haven’t got a big divide between people that are on very, very high salaries and then everyone else being extremely low paid.
JW: How do you feel about your achievements?
GN: I’m not sure, I’m not sure what I’ve achieved really. I suppose I don’t know. I suppose I have done a lot of things I wanted to do. I’m, I’m at the point now where I’m thinking I’m just, I’m just seeing if I could actually be an artist rather than helping other people, everybody else to do, to be that and actually do it myself and actually be an example because I think sometimes you can be, you can supportive, you can, help people but unless you’re an example yourself, people, people are influenced more by that. So I’m thinking about maybe becoming an individual again rather than part of a bigger thing and actually focussing on producing - my art which, it’s my art that’s probably more African than I am in a sense.
JW: So you’re wanting to sort of grow into your art, is that what you’re saying?
GN: Yeah, yeah I think so and, and my music as well, because I play the piano which is a very Western instrument, I play in churches usually so there is this thing that I’d like to get some sort of orchestra type things together or some ensembles or get people together playing instruments. But I think also I’ve got this sort of element of - because I used to be a nurse as well there’s this element of wanting to, of seeing art as a healing thing.
JW: Are you happy and comfortable with your, with your identity?
GN: Sometimes I am and sometimes I’m not. I think I’ve got more comfortable as I’ve got older, I think when you’re in your 50’s, you definitely, I mean in your 20’s your 30’s, yeah my 20’s were very problematic although I was busy I’ve kept busy, we kept busy then you don’t have time to think about it. I was training to be a nurse and that was where I met lots of African nurses, West Indian nurses and they were brilliant – women mainly – Irish – Jamaican and other West Indian nurses and African, they kept the health services going actually. But also what they brought to it, because most, most of those people I’ve mentioned all have a spiritual element to, and especially the West Indian, they have this, they’ve been to church, they’ve had traditions of going to church, whether they believe everything or not and in a hospital that’s actually quite interesting it’s very interesting and it’s very soothing in a sense to find that you have got someone, because you have death in hospitals, you have birth you have a whole gambit of stuff and it’s nice if people have that spiritual element because then how they treat patients is very different to, and that is what helped me because I wasn’t necessarily very religious I was a bit angry at the Anglican church. Me and my sister going to church in a big afro and denim flares looking like – we walked out of a pink, black panther movie and the vicar was just horrified he wouldn’t shake our hand as we came out of the church and I just thought well I’m not going back…so there’s little bits of rebellion going on, little quiet with a small, ‘r’ I suppose on - with someone also going to the shops and being followed around by the store detective – I just think, I’m not , not going in a shop just because the store detective might follow me around. I’ll say because I’m not going to steal anything, so I just though, it doesn’t prevent me, I think my identity, because for a while when I identified as black in London and I was a member of the black organisations and they were very political and we had to read whole tomes of Marx which I couldn’t do really there was no pictures - it was all a very interesting experience but it doesn’t prevent me from doing things so its, and I sometimes think you can’t put yourself in a ghetto and I admire people who – because I’m light skinned so I suppose people would think, “oh you don’t have as much trouble”, but I think it’s meeting this guy at Stonehenge, he didn’t, he’d gone to Stonehenge and he stuck out because he was dark skinned, black guy but to me it was really nice he was there and for him it was nice I was there because we sort of connected for a bit and I just think the more we can explore all our identities. Slavery is a very big issue. I’ve been reading the books in the library reading, you know I’ve had to, it wasn’t a clear cut thing at all so it was a trade you know and I think the more stories that come out and the more breadth of the colour that comes out of these stories will unite people more because you know it wasn’t just a case of white against black or black against white there was mixtures you know and - I’ve had to look at all those issues as well the issues of the mulatto the tragic mulatto the woman that passes for white and because of my interest in film there is a film actually called ‘Imitation of life’ where a black mother basically pushes her child to pass because and it’s so sad because she feels she has to make her fit in as a white person otherwise she won’t get anywhere. And to me it’s like no. You know, I’ve been to hairdressers and they’ve wanted to straighten my hair and I’ve said, “No why do you want to straighten my hair?” You know there’s things like that so I won’t straighten my hair or I won’t use chemicals, it’s chemicals like it burns your scalp it makes your hair thin and skin lightening creams, there’s all these things that still happen so I’d like to try and you know, FGM, female genital mutilation although it’s masquerading now as cosmetic surgery in the wealthy LA suburbs of America so people have took it on as ‘oh! Lets have it all trimmed’. It’s just so there’s issues like that, so yeah I’d say I’m a bit, I have got a political aspect to myself. But it’s seeing things like why you know I love the fact that Hull is an exhibition place and that people should be proud of the history of it you know.
JW: If you could say one thing to your younger self what would it be?
GN: Don’t worry.
JW: Glynis it’s been lovely chatting with you, thank you very much.
GN: Thank you Jerome.
JW: Bless you