Janet Alder
Janet Alder is one of five children of Nigerian descent who grew up in an Avenues children’s home in Hull. She describes her experiences in her local area throughout the 1960s, 70s and 80s. Janet reflects on how she feels that a limited exposure to difference results in the narrowing of people’s views of the world around them. She gives a powerful insight into how she has been affected by the death of her brother Christopher Alder, eighteen years ago.
|
To go to the written transcription click on the box below.
Transcription: Janet Alder Interview
Interview with Janet Alder
Interviewer: Jerome Whittingham
Date: 26 July 2016
JW: For the sake of the listener that are going to be very interested in this particular story, can you introduce yourself?
JA: Yeah, my name is Janet Alder. – I’m the sister of Christopher Alder, the ex-paratrooper, - that died in police custody in 1998.
JW: So this project is all about contemporary voices of Africans that have a connection with Hull or, or the East Riding. So can we go right back to the beginning? Right back to your birthdate and..?
JA: My mother and father are both from Nigeria – and they came here in the 1950s, late 1950s. My father was – a well- traveled man. He was a merchant seaman and, but my mum came from a tiny little village, - in Lagos. They actually settled in Hull, you know, got married and settled in Hull.
JW: But why did he, sort of, choose to settle instead of continuing that, that travelling life.
JA: - I don’t know, he had various jobs, you know, it, it was employment, I think, more than anything else and a better life for us, - he was hoping to have and – as I say, my mum had five children very, very close together, you know. He had got good employment at Reckitt and Coleman’s. I were born in 1961. – I’m the fourth in line. I’m the only girl in the, in the family. Unfortunately, very early on – with my mum having five children close together, I think she had post- natal depression and maybe a little bit of psychiatric illness as well. And each time she had a baby she seemed to end up in psychiatric hospitals and whatsoever, and….
JW: So, what are your very earliest memories?
JA: I can’t remember what my mum looked like. I’ve got a photograph of my mum but I can’t remember what she looked like. I just remember being in a children’s home and it must have been before my youngest brother, and he’s like three years younger than me, actually came to the children’s home. But, I think I went into the children’s home when I was – in 1962, - my brothers’ had been going backwards and forwards, in and out – and then they eventually settled in 1961, they went in and were settled in there. I think they started off in Hessle Homes.
JW: Were you the only black girl?
JA: Yes, we were the only Black family – in the home. We was the only Black family for miles around, you know, that I knew really, so we really didn’t know any other Black people around at that time.
JW: So, if you were two when you were taken into care, you sort of grew up, your sort of very early memories there – what was it like – you know was it, would you say it was a happy childhood – it could, it could still be, surely?
JA: No – I, - I would say the opposite to that we, we all seemed to be settled, I think, at Hessle Homes and then I think what had happened was social services had decided they wanted to put us into a smaller more family orientated place and that’s when we moved to Marlborough Avenue, 71 Marlborough Avenue. No, it’s, it’s not been such happy memories at all, so it’s, it’s really hard to do you know, like, speak about really.
JW: Did you stick together as siblings? Was there some sort of support that you had for each other?
JA: Yeah, we – I think, when you are brought up in a children’s home you, you’re in that situation where you, you realise very early on that everybody’s got to do the same thing. Everybody’s the same and we’re all equal and, so there was plenty white children there as well. I think, there was, like, what, five or six white children living there, at that time and then there was the five, the five of us, do you know, my family, me and my four brothers and so all of us were really close, you know, we all experienced very similar things and whatsoever and – and yes, and I – I was known as the one who was a little bit bossy and you know bossing my brothers about and everybody like that.
JW: Was that because you were the only girl and had to stand up for yourself?
JA: Yeah, well yeah – I mean, you know, when I got my papers from the children’s home, which I have got downstairs, – they shocked me, do you know, the things that they used to say. They very early on, they must have seen that I had that kind of character – that was bossy and – but very friendly with people and whatsoever they said and I was always smiling and things like that and, you know, when the social workers came I was always friendly. I would be the one that would get upon their knee and whatsoever and, - I think that at that time they thought there wasn’t much going on in the children’s home at that time, so that, that had been the way that I’d always coped with everything I think. – my brothers’ were a little bit more reserved and withdrawn and maybe a bit more whingy and, you know they used to cry quite a lot and stuff like that and it just wasn’t what you would expect a children’s home to be like that at that time.
JW: What do you remember of Hull? Any sort of day trips and things you used to get up to?
JA: Yeah, Hull itself I used to think it was absolutely b.., especially the avenues where I lived. – I used to think there were absolutely beautiful, do you know, like all the, all the trees lined down each side and whatsoever, and the big glorious houses and - the big fountains in the centre of the roads and I thought that was absolutely fantastic. And, and Pearson’s Park, you know, we used to go to Pearson’s Park a lot and I really, really used to like it there and whatsoever. Yeah, I really thought that I’d been brought up in a really influential area and stuff like that and, you know, I got on with my, the neighbours quite well and stuff like that. And even our head teacher lived just doors away from us so we could never really get into that much trouble and things like that and ..
JW: So which school did you go to?
JA: I went to Kelvin Hall. I went to, first of all I went to Thoresby – Thoresby Infants School and from then I went to Wyke Senior, - Junior School and from there to Kelvin Hall Senior High School and I really enjoyed my time at school because I used to excel in ath…, athletic sports, gymnastics, anything that I could possibly do – and that seemed to be the pattern of all my, my brothers’ as well. We all used to excel in sports and whether that was a way of releasing any tensions and that that we had in the home but it was, you know, and we used to excel and we used to win medals and you know and we, were well known, the Alder family was well known for you know for being good athletes and whatsoever.
JW: So, - cast your mind back to that period then, say perhaps around your teenage years, what were your ambitions?
JA: - oh, oh I remember walking down the Avenues and there used to be like walls about, I think, they was what, two foot high or something like that and I used to be doing gymnastics on them and then I really thought I was going to be a world class gymnast and things like that, do you know. I, I used to say “You wait till people notice me,” and the other and – yeah just , you know, I really, that was my ambitions definitely to excel in gymnastics. I used to love Olga Korbut, Ludmilla Tourischeva and – Nellie Kim and do you know, people like that and yeah and athletics, just Olympics, I used to love everything like that you know, so..
JW: How far did you go to sort of, you know to realise that dream, or was it just a dream?
JA: No I, I were good. I was the best in school, do you know, as far as gymnastics and athletics were concerned and I joined the Hull Spartans Athletics Club, plus I went to Haltemprice Gymnastics Club, so you know I got quite far as an ordinary kid coming out of a Children’s home and stuff like that. I did quite well.
JW: So by, by - you know work life. What happened after you left school, college?
JA: Yeah, after I left school I started working at Jacksons, do you know, the supermarket? I got a work experience job there and – I started working at Jacksons. I never really wanted to leave school cause I used to really, you know, I used to really, really like school and get on with, do you know what I mean, the staff and the kids at school and whatsoever – you know, as I left there – as I say I, I went to Jacksons on Spring Bank. I worked there for a while. It wasn’t long after that that I actually met my daughter’s father and I ended up moving in there.
JW: So, you know, your, your early adulthood, what was, you know, the feeling of independence and the like, you know, what were your hopes for your daughter?
JA: Yeah, it was strange, at first, because – it were like coming out of a children’s home, it were like, it was like you, you were being thrown into, you know it was kind of exciting but it was also quite scary as well because you’d not been, you know, I’d realised that the kind of upbringing that we’d had is not like the normal everyday family relationship that most people, that I was coming across had had so it was a bit scary and whatsoever, do you know what I mean? And I tend to have latched on to the first person that had paid some attention to me, at that time I think and – it was, obviously, wasn’t the right person, so things were quite difficult there. I, you know, I had a lot of hopes for the future. I really didn’t know what I were going to do – and I really thought that I had the skills to survive but I really didn’t have any great ambitions or wanted to be anybody or do you, it was just a case of getting on with life and – you know freedom, basically, yes.
JW: Hull, back then, would have been a very white city. Certainly, the Spring Bank area, very, very different now.
JA: Very…
JW: What was it like, you know, being a Black family living in..?
JA: It were really, really, it was quite difficult, do you know, like at school and things like that because you didn’t have anybody to relate to. Do you know if you had any issues, at school and that, we kind of, my family kind of lashed out cause we really had not found any coping mechanisms. Nobody had taught us any coping mechanisms. They didn’t seem to, you know if somebody called you a ‘nigger’ or a ‘sambo’ or, you know, things like that. There were nobody to go to so we would lash out and then we’d get into trouble, do you know what I mean? - and – it, it felt as if at the time they didn’t realise the damage that it could do to you emotionally. They was only bothered about the physical effects on the person that you’d hit and I think that was hard to take, do you know, for a long, long time and it took us a long, long time but we did, we, we had to command respect off of people because we were the easy target and at that time you had the films like Tarzan, all the books of Enid Blyton – Little Black Sambo, all these things and children tended to use all that, do you know, like against you and yeah, it were, it were quite difficult, do you know, like when we were younger and whatsoever. You know the, the ones, do you know, the people I did get to understand me, I mean. I made, you know, a couple of real good friends and you know, like Donna Leatham, the Leatham family and that. Her mum and dad kind of shadowed and protected me in quite a lot of ways and they were, they would come to the athletics and the sports and that cause Donna was an athlete and gymnast as well. So, and they would give me the praise as well as Donna. So that was, you know, that was a good thing – yeah but it, you know, I would say it’s not easy, you know, it’s not easy and especially Hull being predominantly white, it was – it was just, it was really, really strange and at that, and when I was young as well there was a lot of skinheads going about and things like that, do you know what I mean and there were situations where I’d got on a bus, do you know, like with my friends and there was about twelve lads come on and they was all like calling us names and, you know, calling me names and I felt so kind of isolated cause I was the only black person on the bus and nobody said anything or anything like that and you know, so yeah, it were quite difficult.
JW: What coping mechanisms sort of kicked into play?
JA: Yeah I think when I were younger it were sports, yeah definitely sports and athletics and pure determination of not to be thret differently do you know and stuff and you build up that resistance that fight back and things like that and I think it were those were coping mechanisms I had as a child and – I you know I be, I wouldn't allow people to make me feel different in whatsoever and...
JW: Did you ever find that being Black you know being that identifiable as an individual you know distinct from so many people around you, did you ever find that an advantage?
JA: No I wouldn't say, no wouldn't say an advantage at all, no it wasn't no we always had to struggle. I remember being – there was my friend Donna and there was myself and we both excelled in sports but we excelled in different sports but I would say we were both on a par, do you know with what went on but when it come to like – the end of the year you would be awarded with a – trophy do you know for the Sportsman of the Year and I never ever, ever got it and I just to really, really try by best and improve in everything and that but I never ever got it, it was always Donna who always got it, do you know what I mean but – I just remember one teacher saying to me – you you're gonna be noticed one day, he said that to me and I didn't have a clue what he was on about or anything like that do you know what I mean but I remember that one teacher saying that so he'd recognised something that were going on but I wouldn't express what. I now know went on you know what I mean, you know cause I think it were a form of racism, a strange form of racism. I mean I notice it now you know like in football do you know like with the England team and that its very rare that there's a Black man that's got the captain’s and it were just very similar to that for some unknown reason wanted this you know it had to be like this a white person that had to be the top of the you know it were a strange kind of feeling but.
JW: Let’s talk about Black icons though all the people over the years that you've you know really taken inspiration from.
JA: mmmm yeah well Mohammed Ali were definitely one. I mean when the way people used to react when, it were so strange because – the way people used to react when he you know won a fight or anything like that were completely different and it would always if, if there was say a footballer do you know like Paul Ince or somebody do you know what I mean that done some sports or whatsoever for a while everything seemed OK for a while do you know what I mean it that person who was in the public eye and things like that, the racism towards us wasn't the same you it it kind of leveled out a bit but then if there was something going on, do you know like say in a different country you know in Africa or something like that and you know all the poverty they show they always tend to show the poverty and it was a way to undermine do you know Black people's achievements and things like that you know, so – cause there was nothing at school that they ever, they never showed us the achievements of black people so much, you know we had to , you know had to find it yourself – yeah so it made if difficult what so ever do you know what I mean even like the way they they schooling on – race – and slavery and things like that it were they never showed you like the rebellion of the slaves or do you know they think the achievements that the slaves did themselves to get them out of those situations and that lot which I found you know that was something I had to learn when I left school and grown up and you gone through my experiences you know that there were groups of slaves out there that were rebelling and do you know what I mean and achieving stuff and that but they never told you things like that but – quite difficult.
JW: Are they any Black women that have inspired you?
JA: Yeah – I mean when I heard about Mary Seacole, you know, that kind of inspired me, she, do you know, because I think that she, what she’d done once again you had Florence Nightingale but Mary Seacole was there and she was at the front of the Crimea War and, do you know what I mean, she was actually on the front line but she was kind of pushed out to , you know, as if she’d hadn’t even exist – things like that kind of inspired me- but when we were younger, you got to understand that it they didn’t, they didn’t show any inspirational Black people really on the TV. Yeah. If they did it was, do you know what I mean, they showed people like the lady who was in Gone, Gone with the Wind, you know, you know that you were brought up with like Tom and Jerry, the big Black fat woman and that’s the type, that’s the reality of how things were when we were younger. They didn’t show you like, you know, we didn’t see the Serena Williams or these people who was, you know that we were there and excelling, we just didn’t see it – so I think that’s something we’ve had to, I’ve had to find as I’ve got older and – I’ve had to partly be my own inspiration than not, just not allowed people to undermine me all the time and stuff like that, you know.
JW: That’s a really good example that you gave there of the Tom and Jerry cartoons
JA: Yeah
JW: The Black lady that you know
JA: Yeah it was
JW: We never even saw her face did we?
JA: No
JW: We heard her talking every now and then.
JA: You know I thought, “Well I don’t speak like that” do you know. And most Black people don’t speak like that.
JW: To what degree do you think it was just a sort of general misunderstanding of the issues that lead to that sort of stereotype? Was it a misunderstanding or was it more orchestrated than that?
JA: I think, I think because slavery, because there’s not been a proper, I don’t believe there’s been a proper acknowledgement of how slavery built Britain and things like that and I feel this is why there’s till racism nowadays because you know, if you look at, most people that everything comes from Tesco, something like that. They don’t think about where, where all your raw materials have come to build this country and things like that so I think it’s, it’s just a perception that’s been carried on and on and on and on – and I think the only way we’re going to change it is by challenging these thing and bringing these things out and showing, educating people, you know, like history is what the victors tell you isn’t it and it’s, I really don’t think its till you leave school that you, that’s when you learning really starts and things like that, and so as a kid most people, you know, as other children it’s not been really, I would say it’s not really been their fault because it’s what they’ve been taught. And as I say there weren’t too many people willing to challenge the ideas and things like that at that time so, I can’t, you know, I can’t really say whether it’s been, I think it’s just been a, it’s a culture that the white culture have been brought up with I think, and they’re just carried it on and on and on. Even nowadays it’s not many people that, you know they take it for granted that everything that they’ve got around them comes from Tesco. Somewhere like that. They don’t really stop and think, and think where’s my sugar come from, where’s my coffee, where’s, you know, where’s my chocolate come, where’s my bananas and all this, all these things, you know, the wood, rubber everything, they don’t, they don’t stop and think about where, where thing have come from. They honestly think, you know that Britain is that Great that it just produces everything, you know and I think that’s where the misconceptions and whatever.
JW: There’s a Rolling Stones' track that I quite like, one of their song, that what is it that they say? - “You don’t always get what you wish for” and that’s what?
JA: You don’t always get what you want.
JW: You don’t always get what you want, yeah. That’s probably very true of you. Life took a dramatic turning point for you and your family.
JA: Yes, I really didn’t expect, I don’t know what I expected, I mean, I always knew that we, we had a really bad childhood in care. I think it was one of those things as well, I don’t think the social workers at the time challenged everything that had gone on and I think the, the house parents had a really old fashioned, this kind of really old fashioned perception of what Black people were, do you know, like even when my father there was no understanding or anything about, like or my mum. Because they even, my mum, they’d gone into my mum’s house , my mum and dad’s house, and my mum must have had a tribal dress on and one of the social workers had wrote down that she had on a curtain wrapped around her. You know it’s just things like that that you know, I mean when I’ve read my, when I’ve read my papers you know from the children’s home which I have got downstairs, it’s kind of shocked me the, the ignorance at that time and that. And I just thought to myself well my mum, she must have come from a tiny little village where they probably didn’t even have a light bulb at that time and she was just surrounded by white people and there was nobody that could understand her or could relate to her, you know what must it have been like postnatal depression or something, she was being tret as though she was, you know, mentally ill, and electric shock treatment and she must have been absolutely petrified and so my father let her go home back to Nigeria so that’s how we ended up in children home but it’s just the lack of understanding and lack of thought process for other people, unless people see people that look like them, yeah, they honestly think that we, we come from a totally different planet or something, but then you look at the history of how Black people have been tret, how they were paraded in museums do you know for you know for people to look at and even now you know you still see the effects of people’s perceptions, then do you know when you think about Serena Williams who is a beautiful, strong, she’s got a body like a, like I don’t know, it’s absolutely fantastic but most people because she’s not this frail looking white woman and that lot do you know what I mean, you know, they call her a monkey or gorilla and things like that and that’s very similar to how Black people were being portrayed then. It’s not really gone away, it’s still there a little bit, you know, and then you look at all these Black men getting shot all the time in America and like Christopher’s death and things like that. They way that people have tret, have dealt with it and it’s very similar, it’s not changed.
JW: It begs the question all the time what have we learnt.
JA: No it really, really, really, really not changed. You knew even the way that I’ve been dealt with because I’ve been asking the question and I’ve been the one that’s been the one that’s been seen as the aggressor and – the, all those stereotypical things that they give to Black people that they're aggressive and, do you know what I mean? - and that – I’m not intelligent enough to understand things and that to me is exactly how things were at time of slavery so it’s not changed. People’s perceptions have not changed and because people don’t question themselves now, and they, some people just think it’s, it’s just natural. Even as far as Grace Kamara somebody from the council who knew Grace Kamara and Grace Kamara lived in Hull. She’d lived in Hull for well 30 or 40 years and – I’ve got it in the interviews, the guy says, “Oh I know Grace Kamara she was typical African woman. She looked like do you know, like that one off the Kia-ora advert and I think this is 2016 and people are still speaking like this and it’s so kind of natural to them. Yeah. I mean I’ve even seen it with Christopher’s killing and things like that – they got, they got a medical expert to give an opinion of why Christopher could have fallen unconscious on the floor and he turned around and said, “Black people have got bigger lips and bigger tongues, no, “negroes” he said, he said “Negroes have bigger lips and bigger tongues so he might have just choked on the floor because of his bigger lips and bigger tongue”.
It’s just gone on and on and on and on. Even though I, because I don’t really give a damn what any colour anybody is. I’m all about what’s in your heart and what’s in your head, it’s how you treat me and whatsoever. But when I come across this, it’s like, is just natural to them. You know. And then I ask myself then why has Hull not changed that much because its not got that many Black people in it compared to Leeds, compared to Bradford, compared to everybody else. What has stopped so many people going to Hull? What, you know, what is it there and – unless we live among white people a lot of them are not going to change their opinions about anything.
JW: Well without getting too political – sort of the whole Brexit thing, wanting to, you know, people voting to leave the EU – has that been a sort of catalyst do you think for the, sort of, doors for racism to fly open again?
JA: Oh yeah, definitely because, I think, don’t get me wrong, I think this, every community has got racism and you think – some of the biggest racists have never had an experience with a different culture and it’s the same in the Black community, and the same as the white community and it’s the same in the Asian community. Yeah. Unless you live among different people of different cultures, how are you going to know anything about those people. And I think to myself, yeah – a lot of people, I think a lot of that was what we’ve been told on the TV. I mean I don’t believe a word that they tell me. I really don’t watch the BBC news ever – I’ve stopped doing all that.
And I think its continuously it’s like day in day out, all we’ve ever heard for last 25 year or so is Muslims have done this, every single day, every single day and to me racism is not, you can have a Polish person walk down the street or an Irish person walk down the street, unless they open their mouths, nobody knows where they’re from. But if you’re a Black person or an Asian person, it’s what people see and 9 times out of 10, that’s, that is what racism is. Racism is what people see and if they see more than two or three Black people, this kind of fear comes up. And then they kind of think, and when they’re speaking about foreigners they’re speaking about what they see. They’re speaking about people of colour even though, you know, it might be Polish people coming in at the time or whatever, or do you know what I mean, like Yugoslavians or Croatians or whatever, their racism comes from what they’re seeing. It doesn’t come from, do you know what I mean, someone speaking or things like that, you know because half the time, half these people have never spoke to someone of a different culture anyhow. And I do, I think the Brexit, but there again I wanted, I wanted us to come out anyway. And the reason I wanted us to come out is purely because I know that all these countries get together and they go warring elsewhere together. And I thought that if were out of it, we're going to find it a little bit easier to hold our Government responsible in such a way that we don’t want to go , you know, and then they’re kind of isolated and there on their own, you know, they’re got to deal with it. But once they’re in the European Union or whatever, they all just follow suit anyhow and we really don’t have any say because, you know, that was the reason why I, it wasn’t anything to do with people coming in, I don’t care as far as I’m concerned every, the world is everybody’s. Nobody’d got a right to tell anybody where they can go and where they can’t go and whatsoever.
JW: You’ve mentioned William Wilberforce creating freedom for so many back then. How free do you, you feel?
JA: Well I have my views about William Wilberforce, I mean he was a politician for one. He’s main interest was to make the conditions for the slaves better on the ships and things like that it wasn’t actually to eradicate slavery because it wouldn’t have been in favour for all his constituents who had businesses, do you know what I mean, things like that – I mean he’s done more than a lot of people have done but he’s not, he’s, I don’t believe that he’s the one and only. There were some really, really good, you know, white people out there that were really, really fighting to abolish slavery completely – but as I say William Wilberforce his were basically to improve the conditions because he couldn’t really go against his constituents. He was an MP after all, do you know what I mean. So yeah. I, when I was a kid and that lot, we all went to Wilberforce’s house; I felt really strange going in there. Because as I say, you know, it’s something you do with school, but it’s skimmed over really, really quick. And when I went, of course I looked like the people that they’ve got in these slave ships and things like that.
JW: So we’re sitting here in your house in Halifax Janet and beautiful decorations. You’ve obviously got something about butterflies in particular,
JA: Yeah freedom
JW: Freedom, yeah, OK. But also now you know, you’ve also just had a delivery of two big boxes of paperwork here
JA: Yeah
JW: And there’s lots of paperwork around
JA: There is
JW: On your coffee table
JA: Yeah this is all the documents from Christopher’s inquest
JW: Yeah so even after all these years Christopher’s death is still having a huge impact on your life?
JA: Eighteen years
JW: Give us a little sense of that really
JA: Yeah - it’s been horrendous. It’s been absolutely horrendous. It’s, I cannot believe that he suffered such a horrific death and everybody’s kind of tried to just close the door or hide it or sweep it under the carpet and kind of tried to project it all, as if it’s just me that’s the problem. When I saw that video – I just thought, “How lonely a death could that be.” And I’m asthmatic as well so I could relate to the way that he were (sic) breathing and. Just the way that they tret him and the way that. I saw a lot more on that video than what anybody had seen on. Yeah because most people wanted to concentrate on Christopher on the floor but I could see the way the police officers were. Do you know the body language and everything, and to throw his tooth into the custody suite and…
JW: What sort of impact has it had on you know, your family and even your sort of close friends and the like?
JA: Yeah, my family isn’t, they’re not my friends. My family don’t speak to me. My family don’t speak to me - for what reason I don’t know. I think, I really don’t know. I can’t understand you know, how they can go and live their life when something so bad happen and not be bothered about it. Or I don’t understand their way of being bothered. Do you know what I mean. I don’t understand. I find it very hard to understand how you can be bothered but at the same time pretend that it’s not happened. I can’t get my head around it because it’s had such an impact on me that I think it’s absolutely disgusting. Absolutely appalling the way he’s been tret and everything. He hadn’t done anything wrong. He were just protecting his niece.
JW: There’s a great irony surely that Hull as a city that’s know around the globe as, you know, the place that, the birth place of William Wilberforce, the chap that created a better life for so many Blacks that in that very city the death of your brother in custody has raised so many more contemporary questions about, about racism and treatment of Blacks.
JA: Oh yeah, yeah and they don’t want it to come out and this is what I’m saying. You know it’s not just the death of him, it’s the whole treatment of his body and everything. Everything that everybody feels dear about, burying their family, my family don’t deserve it as far as they’re concerned. And each one of them is going about you know with that much contempt and hatred for me because I’m opening my mouth for summat that’s right.
JW: The William Wilberforce Monument Fund has as its tagline for its campaign ‘Light the monument, light the message’. What would your message be?
JA: Stop trying to put the light out. Do you know what I mean, whereas you, we want to light the message, Hull's spending its time trying to put the light out already? You know. And they have been for years.
JW: What of the future? What of the future for Janet?
JA: Yeah, what is the future? - I’m going to write about, well I have – wrote about it. I, hoping to get it into some kind of book form. - I need, I want people to recognise what’s happened. To try and stop it from happening again because its, unless you bring to the forefront of people’s minds what happened, you know that I mean, and this is what gets to me about all the lies, yeah.
When you lie, people can’t move on with things, yeah. You can’t’ find a solution. If I was to say like steal your wallet. And you inside knew it was me and I knew it was me so when you, I saw you again, I’d be like feeling uncomfortable and you’d be feeling uncomfortable, yeah. Now if you says, “to me, Janet, did you steal my wallet,” and I said, “Yeah I did steal it and I’m really sorry, I really need this money. I know this was the wrong thing to do”, this that and the… then you can make your decision about how you deal with me, you know what I mean. You can either not to speak to me again or you can respect me for telling you the truth or you know what I mean. You’ll know not to leave your wallet around me again and things like that, do you know what I mean. Yeah so the situation itself, it would take the stress off you and it would take the stress off me because we know where we’re going.
But when, in a situation like that when people lie like this, it don’t make the situation better, it makes it worse. And it leaves the door open for it to happen again because these people that get away with this now are felling that confident in themselves that they’ve not had to acknowledge what’s happened and all the people around them that’s had dealings with it, they’ve not had to acknowledge what’s happened that it can very easily happen again. You know it’s too late to bring Christopher back, yeah, I understand that and I’ve acknowledged that a long, long time ago so this isn’t about revenge or anything like that, this is about ..This could happen again. This could happen again and it could be happening do you know what I mean anytime. So my future for me now is basically to expose this and then I’m just gonna try and repair my life and get on with it. Because you know, there’s a lot, I’ve put 18 years into this you know, everything that I hold dear to me has had to be put back on the burner, even my children to some extent and everything. And I need to, I’ve got a grandchild now and I need to find some way forward in the future. It’s for the greater good rather than just my family. It’s for everybody, you know what I mean. It’s very important, especially what’s going on with society at the moment you know with these Black Lives Matter and all those, there’s definitely, there’s an issue there that needs to be dealt with.
If Christopher’s death is part of that, I’ve just got to do, and it’s painful for me, it’s not brought me friends or anything like that, it’s kind of isolated me in a lot of ways and it’s made me question myself in a lot of ways and whatsoever, but I’ve got to do it.
Interviewer: Jerome Whittingham
Date: 26 July 2016
JW: For the sake of the listener that are going to be very interested in this particular story, can you introduce yourself?
JA: Yeah, my name is Janet Alder. – I’m the sister of Christopher Alder, the ex-paratrooper, - that died in police custody in 1998.
JW: So this project is all about contemporary voices of Africans that have a connection with Hull or, or the East Riding. So can we go right back to the beginning? Right back to your birthdate and..?
JA: My mother and father are both from Nigeria – and they came here in the 1950s, late 1950s. My father was – a well- traveled man. He was a merchant seaman and, but my mum came from a tiny little village, - in Lagos. They actually settled in Hull, you know, got married and settled in Hull.
JW: But why did he, sort of, choose to settle instead of continuing that, that travelling life.
JA: - I don’t know, he had various jobs, you know, it, it was employment, I think, more than anything else and a better life for us, - he was hoping to have and – as I say, my mum had five children very, very close together, you know. He had got good employment at Reckitt and Coleman’s. I were born in 1961. – I’m the fourth in line. I’m the only girl in the, in the family. Unfortunately, very early on – with my mum having five children close together, I think she had post- natal depression and maybe a little bit of psychiatric illness as well. And each time she had a baby she seemed to end up in psychiatric hospitals and whatsoever, and….
JW: So, what are your very earliest memories?
JA: I can’t remember what my mum looked like. I’ve got a photograph of my mum but I can’t remember what she looked like. I just remember being in a children’s home and it must have been before my youngest brother, and he’s like three years younger than me, actually came to the children’s home. But, I think I went into the children’s home when I was – in 1962, - my brothers’ had been going backwards and forwards, in and out – and then they eventually settled in 1961, they went in and were settled in there. I think they started off in Hessle Homes.
JW: Were you the only black girl?
JA: Yes, we were the only Black family – in the home. We was the only Black family for miles around, you know, that I knew really, so we really didn’t know any other Black people around at that time.
JW: So, if you were two when you were taken into care, you sort of grew up, your sort of very early memories there – what was it like – you know was it, would you say it was a happy childhood – it could, it could still be, surely?
JA: No – I, - I would say the opposite to that we, we all seemed to be settled, I think, at Hessle Homes and then I think what had happened was social services had decided they wanted to put us into a smaller more family orientated place and that’s when we moved to Marlborough Avenue, 71 Marlborough Avenue. No, it’s, it’s not been such happy memories at all, so it’s, it’s really hard to do you know, like, speak about really.
JW: Did you stick together as siblings? Was there some sort of support that you had for each other?
JA: Yeah, we – I think, when you are brought up in a children’s home you, you’re in that situation where you, you realise very early on that everybody’s got to do the same thing. Everybody’s the same and we’re all equal and, so there was plenty white children there as well. I think, there was, like, what, five or six white children living there, at that time and then there was the five, the five of us, do you know, my family, me and my four brothers and so all of us were really close, you know, we all experienced very similar things and whatsoever and – and yes, and I – I was known as the one who was a little bit bossy and you know bossing my brothers about and everybody like that.
JW: Was that because you were the only girl and had to stand up for yourself?
JA: Yeah, well yeah – I mean, you know, when I got my papers from the children’s home, which I have got downstairs, – they shocked me, do you know, the things that they used to say. They very early on, they must have seen that I had that kind of character – that was bossy and – but very friendly with people and whatsoever they said and I was always smiling and things like that and, you know, when the social workers came I was always friendly. I would be the one that would get upon their knee and whatsoever and, - I think that at that time they thought there wasn’t much going on in the children’s home at that time, so that, that had been the way that I’d always coped with everything I think. – my brothers’ were a little bit more reserved and withdrawn and maybe a bit more whingy and, you know they used to cry quite a lot and stuff like that and it just wasn’t what you would expect a children’s home to be like that at that time.
JW: What do you remember of Hull? Any sort of day trips and things you used to get up to?
JA: Yeah, Hull itself I used to think it was absolutely b.., especially the avenues where I lived. – I used to think there were absolutely beautiful, do you know, like all the, all the trees lined down each side and whatsoever, and the big glorious houses and - the big fountains in the centre of the roads and I thought that was absolutely fantastic. And, and Pearson’s Park, you know, we used to go to Pearson’s Park a lot and I really, really used to like it there and whatsoever. Yeah, I really thought that I’d been brought up in a really influential area and stuff like that and, you know, I got on with my, the neighbours quite well and stuff like that. And even our head teacher lived just doors away from us so we could never really get into that much trouble and things like that and ..
JW: So which school did you go to?
JA: I went to Kelvin Hall. I went to, first of all I went to Thoresby – Thoresby Infants School and from then I went to Wyke Senior, - Junior School and from there to Kelvin Hall Senior High School and I really enjoyed my time at school because I used to excel in ath…, athletic sports, gymnastics, anything that I could possibly do – and that seemed to be the pattern of all my, my brothers’ as well. We all used to excel in sports and whether that was a way of releasing any tensions and that that we had in the home but it was, you know, and we used to excel and we used to win medals and you know and we, were well known, the Alder family was well known for you know for being good athletes and whatsoever.
JW: So, - cast your mind back to that period then, say perhaps around your teenage years, what were your ambitions?
JA: - oh, oh I remember walking down the Avenues and there used to be like walls about, I think, they was what, two foot high or something like that and I used to be doing gymnastics on them and then I really thought I was going to be a world class gymnast and things like that, do you know. I, I used to say “You wait till people notice me,” and the other and – yeah just , you know, I really, that was my ambitions definitely to excel in gymnastics. I used to love Olga Korbut, Ludmilla Tourischeva and – Nellie Kim and do you know, people like that and yeah and athletics, just Olympics, I used to love everything like that you know, so..
JW: How far did you go to sort of, you know to realise that dream, or was it just a dream?
JA: No I, I were good. I was the best in school, do you know, as far as gymnastics and athletics were concerned and I joined the Hull Spartans Athletics Club, plus I went to Haltemprice Gymnastics Club, so you know I got quite far as an ordinary kid coming out of a Children’s home and stuff like that. I did quite well.
JW: So by, by - you know work life. What happened after you left school, college?
JA: Yeah, after I left school I started working at Jacksons, do you know, the supermarket? I got a work experience job there and – I started working at Jacksons. I never really wanted to leave school cause I used to really, you know, I used to really, really like school and get on with, do you know what I mean, the staff and the kids at school and whatsoever – you know, as I left there – as I say I, I went to Jacksons on Spring Bank. I worked there for a while. It wasn’t long after that that I actually met my daughter’s father and I ended up moving in there.
JW: So, you know, your, your early adulthood, what was, you know, the feeling of independence and the like, you know, what were your hopes for your daughter?
JA: Yeah, it was strange, at first, because – it were like coming out of a children’s home, it were like, it was like you, you were being thrown into, you know it was kind of exciting but it was also quite scary as well because you’d not been, you know, I’d realised that the kind of upbringing that we’d had is not like the normal everyday family relationship that most people, that I was coming across had had so it was a bit scary and whatsoever, do you know what I mean? And I tend to have latched on to the first person that had paid some attention to me, at that time I think and – it was, obviously, wasn’t the right person, so things were quite difficult there. I, you know, I had a lot of hopes for the future. I really didn’t know what I were going to do – and I really thought that I had the skills to survive but I really didn’t have any great ambitions or wanted to be anybody or do you, it was just a case of getting on with life and – you know freedom, basically, yes.
JW: Hull, back then, would have been a very white city. Certainly, the Spring Bank area, very, very different now.
JA: Very…
JW: What was it like, you know, being a Black family living in..?
JA: It were really, really, it was quite difficult, do you know, like at school and things like that because you didn’t have anybody to relate to. Do you know if you had any issues, at school and that, we kind of, my family kind of lashed out cause we really had not found any coping mechanisms. Nobody had taught us any coping mechanisms. They didn’t seem to, you know if somebody called you a ‘nigger’ or a ‘sambo’ or, you know, things like that. There were nobody to go to so we would lash out and then we’d get into trouble, do you know what I mean? - and – it, it felt as if at the time they didn’t realise the damage that it could do to you emotionally. They was only bothered about the physical effects on the person that you’d hit and I think that was hard to take, do you know, for a long, long time and it took us a long, long time but we did, we, we had to command respect off of people because we were the easy target and at that time you had the films like Tarzan, all the books of Enid Blyton – Little Black Sambo, all these things and children tended to use all that, do you know, like against you and yeah, it were, it were quite difficult, do you know, like when we were younger and whatsoever. You know the, the ones, do you know, the people I did get to understand me, I mean. I made, you know, a couple of real good friends and you know, like Donna Leatham, the Leatham family and that. Her mum and dad kind of shadowed and protected me in quite a lot of ways and they were, they would come to the athletics and the sports and that cause Donna was an athlete and gymnast as well. So, and they would give me the praise as well as Donna. So that was, you know, that was a good thing – yeah but it, you know, I would say it’s not easy, you know, it’s not easy and especially Hull being predominantly white, it was – it was just, it was really, really strange and at that, and when I was young as well there was a lot of skinheads going about and things like that, do you know what I mean and there were situations where I’d got on a bus, do you know, like with my friends and there was about twelve lads come on and they was all like calling us names and, you know, calling me names and I felt so kind of isolated cause I was the only black person on the bus and nobody said anything or anything like that and you know, so yeah, it were quite difficult.
JW: What coping mechanisms sort of kicked into play?
JA: Yeah I think when I were younger it were sports, yeah definitely sports and athletics and pure determination of not to be thret differently do you know and stuff and you build up that resistance that fight back and things like that and I think it were those were coping mechanisms I had as a child and – I you know I be, I wouldn't allow people to make me feel different in whatsoever and...
JW: Did you ever find that being Black you know being that identifiable as an individual you know distinct from so many people around you, did you ever find that an advantage?
JA: No I wouldn't say, no wouldn't say an advantage at all, no it wasn't no we always had to struggle. I remember being – there was my friend Donna and there was myself and we both excelled in sports but we excelled in different sports but I would say we were both on a par, do you know with what went on but when it come to like – the end of the year you would be awarded with a – trophy do you know for the Sportsman of the Year and I never ever, ever got it and I just to really, really try by best and improve in everything and that but I never ever got it, it was always Donna who always got it, do you know what I mean but – I just remember one teacher saying to me – you you're gonna be noticed one day, he said that to me and I didn't have a clue what he was on about or anything like that do you know what I mean but I remember that one teacher saying that so he'd recognised something that were going on but I wouldn't express what. I now know went on you know what I mean, you know cause I think it were a form of racism, a strange form of racism. I mean I notice it now you know like in football do you know like with the England team and that its very rare that there's a Black man that's got the captain’s and it were just very similar to that for some unknown reason wanted this you know it had to be like this a white person that had to be the top of the you know it were a strange kind of feeling but.
JW: Let’s talk about Black icons though all the people over the years that you've you know really taken inspiration from.
JA: mmmm yeah well Mohammed Ali were definitely one. I mean when the way people used to react when, it were so strange because – the way people used to react when he you know won a fight or anything like that were completely different and it would always if, if there was say a footballer do you know like Paul Ince or somebody do you know what I mean that done some sports or whatsoever for a while everything seemed OK for a while do you know what I mean it that person who was in the public eye and things like that, the racism towards us wasn't the same you it it kind of leveled out a bit but then if there was something going on, do you know like say in a different country you know in Africa or something like that and you know all the poverty they show they always tend to show the poverty and it was a way to undermine do you know Black people's achievements and things like that you know, so – cause there was nothing at school that they ever, they never showed us the achievements of black people so much, you know we had to , you know had to find it yourself – yeah so it made if difficult what so ever do you know what I mean even like the way they they schooling on – race – and slavery and things like that it were they never showed you like the rebellion of the slaves or do you know they think the achievements that the slaves did themselves to get them out of those situations and that lot which I found you know that was something I had to learn when I left school and grown up and you gone through my experiences you know that there were groups of slaves out there that were rebelling and do you know what I mean and achieving stuff and that but they never told you things like that but – quite difficult.
JW: Are they any Black women that have inspired you?
JA: Yeah – I mean when I heard about Mary Seacole, you know, that kind of inspired me, she, do you know, because I think that she, what she’d done once again you had Florence Nightingale but Mary Seacole was there and she was at the front of the Crimea War and, do you know what I mean, she was actually on the front line but she was kind of pushed out to , you know, as if she’d hadn’t even exist – things like that kind of inspired me- but when we were younger, you got to understand that it they didn’t, they didn’t show any inspirational Black people really on the TV. Yeah. If they did it was, do you know what I mean, they showed people like the lady who was in Gone, Gone with the Wind, you know, you know that you were brought up with like Tom and Jerry, the big Black fat woman and that’s the type, that’s the reality of how things were when we were younger. They didn’t show you like, you know, we didn’t see the Serena Williams or these people who was, you know that we were there and excelling, we just didn’t see it – so I think that’s something we’ve had to, I’ve had to find as I’ve got older and – I’ve had to partly be my own inspiration than not, just not allowed people to undermine me all the time and stuff like that, you know.
JW: That’s a really good example that you gave there of the Tom and Jerry cartoons
JA: Yeah
JW: The Black lady that you know
JA: Yeah it was
JW: We never even saw her face did we?
JA: No
JW: We heard her talking every now and then.
JA: You know I thought, “Well I don’t speak like that” do you know. And most Black people don’t speak like that.
JW: To what degree do you think it was just a sort of general misunderstanding of the issues that lead to that sort of stereotype? Was it a misunderstanding or was it more orchestrated than that?
JA: I think, I think because slavery, because there’s not been a proper, I don’t believe there’s been a proper acknowledgement of how slavery built Britain and things like that and I feel this is why there’s till racism nowadays because you know, if you look at, most people that everything comes from Tesco, something like that. They don’t think about where, where all your raw materials have come to build this country and things like that so I think it’s, it’s just a perception that’s been carried on and on and on and on – and I think the only way we’re going to change it is by challenging these thing and bringing these things out and showing, educating people, you know, like history is what the victors tell you isn’t it and it’s, I really don’t think its till you leave school that you, that’s when you learning really starts and things like that, and so as a kid most people, you know, as other children it’s not been really, I would say it’s not really been their fault because it’s what they’ve been taught. And as I say there weren’t too many people willing to challenge the ideas and things like that at that time so, I can’t, you know, I can’t really say whether it’s been, I think it’s just been a, it’s a culture that the white culture have been brought up with I think, and they’re just carried it on and on and on. Even nowadays it’s not many people that, you know they take it for granted that everything that they’ve got around them comes from Tesco. Somewhere like that. They don’t really stop and think, and think where’s my sugar come from, where’s my coffee, where’s, you know, where’s my chocolate come, where’s my bananas and all this, all these things, you know, the wood, rubber everything, they don’t, they don’t stop and think about where, where thing have come from. They honestly think, you know that Britain is that Great that it just produces everything, you know and I think that’s where the misconceptions and whatever.
JW: There’s a Rolling Stones' track that I quite like, one of their song, that what is it that they say? - “You don’t always get what you wish for” and that’s what?
JA: You don’t always get what you want.
JW: You don’t always get what you want, yeah. That’s probably very true of you. Life took a dramatic turning point for you and your family.
JA: Yes, I really didn’t expect, I don’t know what I expected, I mean, I always knew that we, we had a really bad childhood in care. I think it was one of those things as well, I don’t think the social workers at the time challenged everything that had gone on and I think the, the house parents had a really old fashioned, this kind of really old fashioned perception of what Black people were, do you know, like even when my father there was no understanding or anything about, like or my mum. Because they even, my mum, they’d gone into my mum’s house , my mum and dad’s house, and my mum must have had a tribal dress on and one of the social workers had wrote down that she had on a curtain wrapped around her. You know it’s just things like that that you know, I mean when I’ve read my, when I’ve read my papers you know from the children’s home which I have got downstairs, it’s kind of shocked me the, the ignorance at that time and that. And I just thought to myself well my mum, she must have come from a tiny little village where they probably didn’t even have a light bulb at that time and she was just surrounded by white people and there was nobody that could understand her or could relate to her, you know what must it have been like postnatal depression or something, she was being tret as though she was, you know, mentally ill, and electric shock treatment and she must have been absolutely petrified and so my father let her go home back to Nigeria so that’s how we ended up in children home but it’s just the lack of understanding and lack of thought process for other people, unless people see people that look like them, yeah, they honestly think that we, we come from a totally different planet or something, but then you look at the history of how Black people have been tret, how they were paraded in museums do you know for you know for people to look at and even now you know you still see the effects of people’s perceptions, then do you know when you think about Serena Williams who is a beautiful, strong, she’s got a body like a, like I don’t know, it’s absolutely fantastic but most people because she’s not this frail looking white woman and that lot do you know what I mean, you know, they call her a monkey or gorilla and things like that and that’s very similar to how Black people were being portrayed then. It’s not really gone away, it’s still there a little bit, you know, and then you look at all these Black men getting shot all the time in America and like Christopher’s death and things like that. They way that people have tret, have dealt with it and it’s very similar, it’s not changed.
JW: It begs the question all the time what have we learnt.
JA: No it really, really, really, really not changed. You knew even the way that I’ve been dealt with because I’ve been asking the question and I’ve been the one that’s been the one that’s been seen as the aggressor and – the, all those stereotypical things that they give to Black people that they're aggressive and, do you know what I mean? - and that – I’m not intelligent enough to understand things and that to me is exactly how things were at time of slavery so it’s not changed. People’s perceptions have not changed and because people don’t question themselves now, and they, some people just think it’s, it’s just natural. Even as far as Grace Kamara somebody from the council who knew Grace Kamara and Grace Kamara lived in Hull. She’d lived in Hull for well 30 or 40 years and – I’ve got it in the interviews, the guy says, “Oh I know Grace Kamara she was typical African woman. She looked like do you know, like that one off the Kia-ora advert and I think this is 2016 and people are still speaking like this and it’s so kind of natural to them. Yeah. I mean I’ve even seen it with Christopher’s killing and things like that – they got, they got a medical expert to give an opinion of why Christopher could have fallen unconscious on the floor and he turned around and said, “Black people have got bigger lips and bigger tongues, no, “negroes” he said, he said “Negroes have bigger lips and bigger tongues so he might have just choked on the floor because of his bigger lips and bigger tongue”.
It’s just gone on and on and on and on. Even though I, because I don’t really give a damn what any colour anybody is. I’m all about what’s in your heart and what’s in your head, it’s how you treat me and whatsoever. But when I come across this, it’s like, is just natural to them. You know. And then I ask myself then why has Hull not changed that much because its not got that many Black people in it compared to Leeds, compared to Bradford, compared to everybody else. What has stopped so many people going to Hull? What, you know, what is it there and – unless we live among white people a lot of them are not going to change their opinions about anything.
JW: Well without getting too political – sort of the whole Brexit thing, wanting to, you know, people voting to leave the EU – has that been a sort of catalyst do you think for the, sort of, doors for racism to fly open again?
JA: Oh yeah, definitely because, I think, don’t get me wrong, I think this, every community has got racism and you think – some of the biggest racists have never had an experience with a different culture and it’s the same in the Black community, and the same as the white community and it’s the same in the Asian community. Yeah. Unless you live among different people of different cultures, how are you going to know anything about those people. And I think to myself, yeah – a lot of people, I think a lot of that was what we’ve been told on the TV. I mean I don’t believe a word that they tell me. I really don’t watch the BBC news ever – I’ve stopped doing all that.
And I think its continuously it’s like day in day out, all we’ve ever heard for last 25 year or so is Muslims have done this, every single day, every single day and to me racism is not, you can have a Polish person walk down the street or an Irish person walk down the street, unless they open their mouths, nobody knows where they’re from. But if you’re a Black person or an Asian person, it’s what people see and 9 times out of 10, that’s, that is what racism is. Racism is what people see and if they see more than two or three Black people, this kind of fear comes up. And then they kind of think, and when they’re speaking about foreigners they’re speaking about what they see. They’re speaking about people of colour even though, you know, it might be Polish people coming in at the time or whatever, or do you know what I mean, like Yugoslavians or Croatians or whatever, their racism comes from what they’re seeing. It doesn’t come from, do you know what I mean, someone speaking or things like that, you know because half the time, half these people have never spoke to someone of a different culture anyhow. And I do, I think the Brexit, but there again I wanted, I wanted us to come out anyway. And the reason I wanted us to come out is purely because I know that all these countries get together and they go warring elsewhere together. And I thought that if were out of it, we're going to find it a little bit easier to hold our Government responsible in such a way that we don’t want to go , you know, and then they’re kind of isolated and there on their own, you know, they’re got to deal with it. But once they’re in the European Union or whatever, they all just follow suit anyhow and we really don’t have any say because, you know, that was the reason why I, it wasn’t anything to do with people coming in, I don’t care as far as I’m concerned every, the world is everybody’s. Nobody’d got a right to tell anybody where they can go and where they can’t go and whatsoever.
JW: You’ve mentioned William Wilberforce creating freedom for so many back then. How free do you, you feel?
JA: Well I have my views about William Wilberforce, I mean he was a politician for one. He’s main interest was to make the conditions for the slaves better on the ships and things like that it wasn’t actually to eradicate slavery because it wouldn’t have been in favour for all his constituents who had businesses, do you know what I mean, things like that – I mean he’s done more than a lot of people have done but he’s not, he’s, I don’t believe that he’s the one and only. There were some really, really good, you know, white people out there that were really, really fighting to abolish slavery completely – but as I say William Wilberforce his were basically to improve the conditions because he couldn’t really go against his constituents. He was an MP after all, do you know what I mean. So yeah. I, when I was a kid and that lot, we all went to Wilberforce’s house; I felt really strange going in there. Because as I say, you know, it’s something you do with school, but it’s skimmed over really, really quick. And when I went, of course I looked like the people that they’ve got in these slave ships and things like that.
JW: So we’re sitting here in your house in Halifax Janet and beautiful decorations. You’ve obviously got something about butterflies in particular,
JA: Yeah freedom
JW: Freedom, yeah, OK. But also now you know, you’ve also just had a delivery of two big boxes of paperwork here
JA: Yeah
JW: And there’s lots of paperwork around
JA: There is
JW: On your coffee table
JA: Yeah this is all the documents from Christopher’s inquest
JW: Yeah so even after all these years Christopher’s death is still having a huge impact on your life?
JA: Eighteen years
JW: Give us a little sense of that really
JA: Yeah - it’s been horrendous. It’s been absolutely horrendous. It’s, I cannot believe that he suffered such a horrific death and everybody’s kind of tried to just close the door or hide it or sweep it under the carpet and kind of tried to project it all, as if it’s just me that’s the problem. When I saw that video – I just thought, “How lonely a death could that be.” And I’m asthmatic as well so I could relate to the way that he were (sic) breathing and. Just the way that they tret him and the way that. I saw a lot more on that video than what anybody had seen on. Yeah because most people wanted to concentrate on Christopher on the floor but I could see the way the police officers were. Do you know the body language and everything, and to throw his tooth into the custody suite and…
JW: What sort of impact has it had on you know, your family and even your sort of close friends and the like?
JA: Yeah, my family isn’t, they’re not my friends. My family don’t speak to me. My family don’t speak to me - for what reason I don’t know. I think, I really don’t know. I can’t understand you know, how they can go and live their life when something so bad happen and not be bothered about it. Or I don’t understand their way of being bothered. Do you know what I mean. I don’t understand. I find it very hard to understand how you can be bothered but at the same time pretend that it’s not happened. I can’t get my head around it because it’s had such an impact on me that I think it’s absolutely disgusting. Absolutely appalling the way he’s been tret and everything. He hadn’t done anything wrong. He were just protecting his niece.
JW: There’s a great irony surely that Hull as a city that’s know around the globe as, you know, the place that, the birth place of William Wilberforce, the chap that created a better life for so many Blacks that in that very city the death of your brother in custody has raised so many more contemporary questions about, about racism and treatment of Blacks.
JA: Oh yeah, yeah and they don’t want it to come out and this is what I’m saying. You know it’s not just the death of him, it’s the whole treatment of his body and everything. Everything that everybody feels dear about, burying their family, my family don’t deserve it as far as they’re concerned. And each one of them is going about you know with that much contempt and hatred for me because I’m opening my mouth for summat that’s right.
JW: The William Wilberforce Monument Fund has as its tagline for its campaign ‘Light the monument, light the message’. What would your message be?
JA: Stop trying to put the light out. Do you know what I mean, whereas you, we want to light the message, Hull's spending its time trying to put the light out already? You know. And they have been for years.
JW: What of the future? What of the future for Janet?
JA: Yeah, what is the future? - I’m going to write about, well I have – wrote about it. I, hoping to get it into some kind of book form. - I need, I want people to recognise what’s happened. To try and stop it from happening again because its, unless you bring to the forefront of people’s minds what happened, you know that I mean, and this is what gets to me about all the lies, yeah.
When you lie, people can’t move on with things, yeah. You can’t’ find a solution. If I was to say like steal your wallet. And you inside knew it was me and I knew it was me so when you, I saw you again, I’d be like feeling uncomfortable and you’d be feeling uncomfortable, yeah. Now if you says, “to me, Janet, did you steal my wallet,” and I said, “Yeah I did steal it and I’m really sorry, I really need this money. I know this was the wrong thing to do”, this that and the… then you can make your decision about how you deal with me, you know what I mean. You can either not to speak to me again or you can respect me for telling you the truth or you know what I mean. You’ll know not to leave your wallet around me again and things like that, do you know what I mean. Yeah so the situation itself, it would take the stress off you and it would take the stress off me because we know where we’re going.
But when, in a situation like that when people lie like this, it don’t make the situation better, it makes it worse. And it leaves the door open for it to happen again because these people that get away with this now are felling that confident in themselves that they’ve not had to acknowledge what’s happened and all the people around them that’s had dealings with it, they’ve not had to acknowledge what’s happened that it can very easily happen again. You know it’s too late to bring Christopher back, yeah, I understand that and I’ve acknowledged that a long, long time ago so this isn’t about revenge or anything like that, this is about ..This could happen again. This could happen again and it could be happening do you know what I mean anytime. So my future for me now is basically to expose this and then I’m just gonna try and repair my life and get on with it. Because you know, there’s a lot, I’ve put 18 years into this you know, everything that I hold dear to me has had to be put back on the burner, even my children to some extent and everything. And I need to, I’ve got a grandchild now and I need to find some way forward in the future. It’s for the greater good rather than just my family. It’s for everybody, you know what I mean. It’s very important, especially what’s going on with society at the moment you know with these Black Lives Matter and all those, there’s definitely, there’s an issue there that needs to be dealt with.
If Christopher’s death is part of that, I’ve just got to do, and it’s painful for me, it’s not brought me friends or anything like that, it’s kind of isolated me in a lot of ways and it’s made me question myself in a lot of ways and whatsoever, but I’ve got to do it.