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Kofi Smiles
Kofi Smiles is the BBC Face of Hull for 2017. He was born at Beverley Westwood and is of Ghanaian heritage.
He talks about how African stories like 'Anansi the Spider' ignited his enduring passion for comic heroes such as Spider-man which later inspired him to become a writer himself. His new role in the spotlight has parallels with his earlier experience of inadvertently being at the centre of attention as a minority in first Beverley, Withernsea and then Hull. He talks about how his love for Hull was initially shaped by the excitement of trips into the city which contrasted with his rural environment at home. His hope for next year and beyond is for people to pause, take note and engage with the changes within the city as it continues to transform. |
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Transcription: Kofi smiles
Interview with Kofi Smiles
Interviewer: Jerome Whittingham
Date: 29 November 2016
JW: Well, great, thanks for coming in.
KS: No problem.
JW: It’s nice to catch up with you, Kofi, you’re going to be the face of City of Culture for the BBC, Kofi Smiles. So, Kofi, this project is about peoples’ African heritage.
KS: OK.
JW: So tell us about your connection with Africa.
KS: Well my parents came from Ghana, they’ve been here about, kind of about 35 years maybe a bit more - I think my connection probably stems more towards my mum’s side of the family ‘cos I got a lot of, kind of, education, history and stuff from my mum because I’d be cooking with her a lot, like with growing up in Withernsea so she wouldn’t want us outside all of the time when we were like small, so she’d have my brother like tied on her back, you know, like you do with the cloth and stuff and she were like “Can you pass me that, hand me that,” and asking me “Why do we cook things like that and why do we do it in this order?” I get a lot of knowledge and history through her and it’s quite – it’s quite cheesy but she’d tell me stories as well, other than bedtime ones, stuff like Anansi, I figure about the first Spiderman being black, and stuff like that, obviously in Britain, in the west, where you’ve got Peter Parker, you know from the old Ladybird type stories, there were ones about West African culture and all the majority of the ones I read were about Anansi the Spiderman and him dealing with the Sky God and stuff, so I think that’s where a lot of mine comes from.
JW: Right, OK. So, tell us more about your mum, yeah, whereabouts in Ghana and what was the family involved with jobs wise?
KS: My mum come Kumasi, my grandma she had like a little kitchen in a shop - ‘cos like I should go back, ‘cos you have like plots of land rather than individual houses, so you might have the main house, the out-kitchen and a front house, kind of usually be parallel with the front gates and usually the front house might house a few people or might be used for some sort of service, like my grandma’s place, my grandparent’s place they’d use the front one as a shop and sell, like minerals, that’d be like drinks and which, by the way, if you go to, if you go to Ghana and you have something like a Fanta or a Coke, the sugar levels and sweetness it literally just, it’s like a rocket, it sends you through the roof, me and my sisters drinking it all the time and like, we come back to the UK and we had like Fanta Lemon and it was “Ah, what’s this?” like watered down because it didn’t have enough, having to put our own sugar in just to kind of top it off, but - …
JW: You’ve still got an amazing smile.
KS: Yeah, well, that’s my dad, but yeah, so my grandma she would sell stuff out of the shop and my grandad was a Registrar, so he worked a lot like with the government and universities, just kind of with enrolment, quite a lot of admin just kind of seeing the day to day facilities and he worked a bit at the university but I’m not a hundred percent sure.
JW: Right yeah. Tell us more about the town, what was the town and community like?
KS: I think, I think it was, my mum grew up in Kumasi, I think – this is really bad because I don’t really know - not a hundred percent what I know, all I know is where they’re located now - just outside of Accra. She’s one of, one of nine. Yeah, she’s the oldest - and she seems, I know one thing she said, my mum was always up really early ‘cos she hated doing her chores in the sun, ‘cos she doesn’t like the heat, so she’d always get up, do all her housework then just watch her brothers and sisters having to work in the heat and she’d just like sit watching them, fanning herself down while they were getting their work done, she’s still like that now, she’ll go to bed about midnight and she’d be up 5 or 6 ‘cos it’s just like in her body clock, so...
JW: Right. Tell me about how you came about, then, to be born in the UK?
KS: Dad came over, he did dentistry at Edinburgh, and he did a bit of work in Manchester. Somehow he found himself in Beverley, and then my mum came over to join and she had - Julie in ’83 and then Steph in ’85 but then I think a year after Steph was born they moved out to Withernsea, my dad was working for a - dentist out there and he had the opportunity to take over, so he’s still running it now, and then I was born. I was born in Beverley Westwood.
JW: Beverley Westwood, right.
KS: Which you can keep a cow on the Westwood Grange if you were born in the, in the hospital, not many people know that. Do you guys know that?
JW: So tell me about the young Kofi then, what was school like? What are your earliest memories?
KS: My earliest memory is – definitely like my mum’s waters were breaking from my little brother, when I was literally sat down playing on the radiator with some of my - some toy – toy cars, my mum was like mopping something up near the, near the washing machine and I just remember something hitting the floor and I think I thought it was the washing machine that was leaking, and my mum was like “Go and tell your dad, like, my water’s broken, I’d be like, “Dad, mum says her water’s broken” and he was in his room, like, “What, what?” I said “Mum says her water’s broken” and him just like being “Ohhh! My God” just like the hassle of coming down and then my little brother was born. I told everyone that mum was having twins so she got all these cards and stuff, “Why are we getting cards about twins?” just, like, I don’t know, it’s not my fault, but I think as a kid, it’s really weird you mention that ‘cos I’ve thought about this quite a lot, I don’t think I realised that I knew that I was very different to everyone else in school, like especially when I think when I was, like, five, six it was like, you know there’s something kind of like not quite the same but you can’t pinpoint what it is - obviously on a physical, kind of like, level - I think I was quite, I was very into like, you might even say nothing’s changed – I was very into my comics, like, my superheroes, you know, most little kids are, I really kind of identified with things like the Turtles and Ghostbusters, X-men, Spiderman and stuff, and I was kind of like...
JW: Who was your favourite superhero, then?
KS: My favourite superhero when I was a kid, my sister said I always had, like, two swords, ‘cos I wanted to be like Leonardo and stuff, and – Spiderman and things but, yeah, that was it. I read a lot, I read a lot of books, because my mum was so preoccupied with other stuff, to keep me quiet they’d just give me something to read, and I remember, like, I used to read all the Goosebumps books, every week my dad would reluctantly take me into Hull, he got me like these triple Goosebumps books, 3-in-1, I’d just like fly through them, I just liked to keep, you know, just loved stories to read and I think, like, that took a lot of time up, I didn’t play out as much with other kids other than like for sport and school and things and - yeah, I think that really, that helped me a lot in school like reading and writing and stuff. There was some occasion where I’d written some things and the teachers didn’t believe I’d written it so they had to call my parents in. And like I remember like around GCSE a bit of creative writing piece, the English teacher called my mum and dad in, mum went to see her and I remember, like, do you know, waiting outside listening to her and my mum talk, I couldn’t really hear through the door, and my mum just came out, didn’t say anything, as soon as we got in the car she just, was just like “More of that”, ‘cos she was like that’s what you need to keep doing, just need to keep proving people wrong, that they might have this idea of you and you can be so much more and so yeah.
JW: Was this schooling in Beverley or Withernsea?
KS: Oh this was, that was in Hull ‘cos I went to Withernsea Junior School, then I was at Hull Grammar, Hymers, and then in the upper, - William Wilberforce which was like out of all the best, probably the best.
JW: Wilberforce College?
KS: Yeah, yeah, it was like, I told my mum and dad the money you spent on me at Hymers, Hull Grammar, you should have given that to Wilberforce ‘cos they get kids from the best and worst schools in Hull in the area, get them to a point where they can take the next step, like, the focus, the attention, just the teaching methods, like the people there were just, like, just so good, I probably wouldn’t have gone if I didn’t meet Bax ‘cos like, “You should come to Wilberforce”. I didn’t know what I was going to do, I didn’t know if I was going to uni, didn’t know if I had enough points, enough points for uni, then Bax kind of persuaded me to come there and, like, it was fantastic, we had a really good year, nights at the bar and stuff - yeah, it was crazy, it was good. But I loved it there, I really felt like I came into my own there, met some of my best friends there, so.
JW: You mentioned a short while ago, around about the age of five perhaps, you began to realise that you were different, - racially, to the other kids.
KS: Yeah, it was like, this is going to sound sort of weird, it was things like I noticed that a lot with girls into a lot of guys that had “curtains” and straight hair, so I , like, wanting to relax my hair so it was a bit spikey or summat. It’s like weird, and cringey thinking about this now because, like, obviously you just want to, you want to fit in, don’t you? It’s like just thinking the one thing that’s different between me and the other lot is like, little things like my hair, my skin, and stuff like that. That was never a problem, it’s like the hair thing was the big deal and stuff. But yeah it was like little things, like the hospital in Withernsea at the time had a big open square and sometimes I’d feel a bit anxious when we were called to go from the waiting, like, from the waiting room which was like all the seats were on the outside and there was like a set of doors in front of you, when you were called up you had to go through them and it was always, like, I didn’t want my name to be called out because I know when we get up I’m going to be walking across with my mum and everyone is going to be looking at us, then I’m thinking are they looking at us because we’re black, because sometimes you can feel that in the streets, I’d be walking with my mum and sisters and people would be staring and, like, I was always aware that people were watching and looking but then it was just like I couldn’t figure out why, and then immediately I’d go, like, is it because we don’t look like this. I never thought it was an issue but I always wondered why people thought it was something to look at because we’re no different, do you know what I mean, and that is something that, even the thing about today is, like, why does it have to be something quite startling for people to see someone that looks a bit different from them even though they know that they are people?
JW: Did you ever chat with your parents about how to cope with that?
KS: I spoke to my mum a lot, my uncles, my mum’s brothers were really cool about the stuff, but mainly my mum, my mum was just, she was always referring that it’s not your problem, it’s nothing on you, do you know, it’s – she said it’s nothing to worry about ‘cos she’s always, kind of like, I want to say diverting but she’d always be, like, just focus on school, focus on your books, you know, get the things you need to have behind you and, you know, you’ll have nothing like this to worry about. I can kind of see, kind of see what she was getting at. ‘cos it did make me feel better because it was nice to know that someone else, kind of, would see this type of stuff as well. ‘Cos growing up in Withernsea I didn’t have that many black, well I didn’t have any black friends, but my friends there, there’s like two in particular- who I could speak to about this stuff because, like, - can I say their names? Yeah, like Luke and Gaz, they’re like two of my closest mates, they’ve, like it’s really weird because like from such a young age when they would come round for tea it’s like, oh, they might want, like, the peanut soup or like the chicken and the stew, all the Ghanaian food my mum would cook, my mum would go “Oh no, get them some sausages, bacon, egg, chips” they went “No, no, no, can we try this?” That was one thing I was really cool because it’s like if they can come in, they were so like, I don’t want to say into or fanboy of kind of culture but they were, like, just – they’d just go along with it, they didn’t have any problem with it and they didn’t laugh about it, they just wanted to, do you know, they wanted to try it, which I thought was really nice so, like, I could explain to them things that were an issue, why I wouldn’t want to go to certain parties or hang out with certain people because I didn’t like, it was always, like, I was always worried about what they might say or someone might say something, like, going through these scenarios in my head, I still find myself doing that now sometimes, OK, if I’m going to hang out with these people you’re going to have to be wary because some people, someone, they might say this, how would I answer that, how do I make this potential situation not awkward, not just for me but for them and everyone else in the room, and it’s just talking to other people who, like myself, basically like people of colour, it’s like they might not think about it as often as I do but, yeah, I do think about that but you’ve just got to try not to think about it otherwise it’s going to mess your head up and stuff, so yeah.
JW: So - the young Kofi at school, perhaps say in secondary school – what did you shine at?
KS: Sports, I was good at sport, pretty – my body changed quite a lot, you know, you go through puberty all these changes, your bodies and stuff, I was quite heavy between year 7 and 8, 9 then got to, like, 14, 15 just drop weight ‘cos I was sprinting to school, playing more rugby, really got into my rugby - I got – I was quite, again, I was quite apathetic with a lot of stuff, like, I wasn’t bad at things, I just wasn’t that interested, I averaged out Bs and Cs the majority of the time, so it was just like, it was good coming from, like, Ghanaian household, high expectations, you know what I mean, it was like, you could always do better and if you’re not doing better that’s not good enough, do you know what I mean?, so it was a bit – that I thought was a bit stressful – English was fine, like I said I really enjoyed English, English Literature and English Language, PE, Geography, History – Sciences, which I look back now I regret for not putting more effort into it because I read up a lot on stem cell research, watch all these TED talks, fascinated about chemistry these days, and it’s just like, you know, what was the thing that has attracted me to this stuff now, why I can tap into them, but I did alright, I did alright with that stuff.
JW: You mentioned there parental expectations. Did your parents have any career goals for you?
KS: Yeah. - I think my mum wanted me to do to law, wanted me to me be a lawyer or a pharmacist and like, I kind of wasn’t like, and I decided to make it into journalism. The kind of agreement that we had was like, OK you can do that but then you go and do like teacher training or something afterwards to kind of like balance it out, and I was like “yeah, yeah sure”. But I did English Literature, and I loved it, at Northumbria in Newcastle; great course, great set of friends, great teacher. Honestly, I couldn’t have been pushed enough. And like all the stuff that I am doing now, if I didn’t go to Northumbria or if didn’t have that type of course, I wouldn’t be able to, I wouldn’t be doing it now, do you know what I mean? Because I learned a lot of skills, like I started writing scripts; I’ve always been interested in writing like stories, you know, short adventures and stuff when I was younger. I started to it a lot more with facts and stuff at college like comic scripts in little shorts and things and filming bits with like Luton guys you know, just messing around with his kit.
In the university’s like, we kind of in the last two years, I say we, I made some friends and we really kind of took to the media facilities that we had, like we set up our own kind of student radio. We was going out contacting events and - events organisations promoting it; “can we come and film your like bits of scruff here or - the general rhymer there”; trying to get in anywhere just kind of filming things, trying to make a story out of it and interviewing. It was fantastic. I was like “OK this is the world that I want to be a part of” and yeah it was really just getting focused on trying to work in the media but like not, not be too generic by trying to do the things like you see VICE doing or like Nerdist News. I don’t know where they take their interest and you’re really honing it, but you kind of put it out to your specific type of audience and your kind of nonchalant but kind of almost quite graphic and you know, somewhat provocative way so.
JW: So always more interested in writing fact than fiction?
KS: I don’t know. I think, well the comic, when we got interested in the comic, (well I was always very interested in the, sorry, comic books), I was always interested in the, taking the fiction and then pulling out facts to people and I can use these writers, let’s say I took some from Brian Michael Bendis who was probably one of the biggest comic book writers of his day, maybe taking a few of his works, and like let’s say if he was at a comic book convention, trying to interview him and get his story out to the people and saying “this is why you be reading his stuff, this is his background, this is the type of stuff he is writing, these are the people he is writing for.” But I think probably with fact with music, trying to interview musicians, getting people to check out these new sounds and stuff. So yeah that was, I probably yeah, I’m probably right if that all makes sense.
JW: Who were your icons, or who are your icons? Who do you look up to? Who do you want to be like?
KS: My mum’s a big role model for us. She’s like, a lot of people like her, she’s very relaxed, chilled out and obviously I spend a lot of time with her and - I’ve learned a lot from her. - People like: Joseph P Illidge, Donald Glover, Reginald Hudlin; all these guys are comic book writers and Donald Glover obviously, you might already know this chap, he’s a writer, actor, director, producer - people like Ava Duvernay, do you know who she… - she directed Selma, and she’s just directed the Netflix documentary Thirteen, about the thirteenth amendment and - how it’s ruling control over like - Black people in The States, and obviously how there’s been such a rise in the number of young Black being incarcerated and things so.
Nah, I never really, I never really looked to sports stars or musicians, well some musicians, I never really looked to sports stars and like what people usually would expect young black men to have their role models as, like sports stars and musicians or something. - That’s never always been my focus. It’s been someone or people who’ve done things that have changed people’s lives. And for me that was people like writers, yeah it’s generally been writers I think, some musicians, - I don’t know it’s hard because I mean ‘role model’ it’s quite a big word isn’t it? It’s like who you aspire to and it’s like…
I also admire people like… I look at people even like The Rock or Steve Jobs just because everything they do, they put one hundred percent into it but then it’s like a big part of their personas and what they do as like a back door to kind of like “How can I give some this to other people”. I look at Akon; I’m not a fan of his music, his music is not, I might dance to it when we were in the club like in Position when I was like 18 years old, but like, it’s not something I would listen to, it’s him as a person like. He’s gave up most of his riches, like he’s brought, he’s given like electricity to 16 million people in Africa. And it’s just something, well, I just looked around at my Rolex and my cars and like I don’t need this but there’s so much more I could be doing with who I am and everything else. So it’s just people like that. A bit like philanthropists.
I used to, my Dad used to get Time magazine and when you get the Time One Hundred, I literally get it, and I look through it and I read through it, I still do it now, and I don’t want to set my pedestals too high but I read it and just think; all these people are doing some great things and especially the like, the movers of thinkers, the innovators sections. I just think, you know what I’d love to see myself in there someday, just for kind of using my skills like writing or like public speaking and turning that into something were you can inspire other people to kind of use their time, and their time alone to be able to just kind of help people.
Because I think that, and I know I get a lot of this, sort of; what I’ve got from my mother even when she’s had nothing, or hasn’t had the ability to help people, she’s always found a way to do, not only help us but help her family back home and strangers like, people would come over to the UK or other Black people, or Asian people would come over to this area, not knowing what to do with themselves or where to go. She’s found a way to put them in the right direction of someone or, help them out with something financial, and it’s like, she’s kind of hit home that whole thing about power and responsibility which I know it’s the big thing about Spiderman, but that’s one thing where it kind of hit home that I remember hearing my mum saying a lot of that type of stuff. I read a lot of Spiderman comics and I was like, OK there’s a trend here; superhero comics like if you have the power and ability to do something, you have the responsibility to do it sort of. Yeah!
JW: They say it takes - a good ten years or so to become an overnight success.
KS: Right OK!
JW: And you’ve sort of the opportunity now, haven’t you?
KS: Yeah.
JW: You’ve sort of explained already this journey that you’ve had through your interest in media and your degree course too, and now you are, you’re going to be the face of the City of Culture for the BBC for the next twelve months. I’m interested in how you’re going to be describing Hull to the people you are broadcasting to?
KS: There’s two sides to it. Like there’s the side that I saw as a kid, and the side that I’ve experienced like as an adult/young adult. As a kid, my mum would literally like, pack my sister’s, my little brother and I in this pram, get one the 75 bus because we’d be coming into Hull, and this was like a big deal every weekend. We’d come to Hull, we wouldn’t even buy anything, we’d just literally just walk around the shops, look at stuff, check things out, maybe visit the museum quarter - but it wasn’t like it is today. We’d have a look at old town, just going from like, modern Hull, and then going to the old town. It was like, oh my God, you know like its two completely different places! I remember one time, thinking, are we actually in York? Because I got taken to York once, I was like oh my God it’s just like how it was in York and stuff! And just like, it was our big city do you know what I mean? Like I don’t want to sound like I’m exaggerating, but when you’re a kid 5, 6 or 7 coming out from Withernsea and then coming to York, coming into Hull, it’s like, that’s like our New York do you know what I mean? For me, it’s like; that’s where the cinema is, at that time, that’s where McDonalds is, it’s got Princes Quay’s arcade and it’s just like, wow we don’t get to see this all the time. Even like, even though we weren’t even shopping, it was quite magical.
And as a teen it was like nice because I had friends from school there and you meet other kids from other schools from exploring like the Avenues and all that side of Hull. It was like, really, really adventurous, you know but then after a while you’re in that gap between; we can’t hang out on the streets anymore and in the parks, but we’re not old enough to go out. So that’s when you start to get a bit disgruntled like, and there’s nothing much more for us to do. There’s really not a lot going on and you can’t wait to get out, and do all this type of stuff. But then, when you do finally get out, I always tell people I’m from Hull because Withernsea is too hard to describe, but most people have heard of Hull. It’s like, oh I really miss Hull, I really miss Hull, just the size of it, just the accent, and just like how like, just the general vibe of the people. And like even though you, a lot of people try and run away from Hull, it always ends up inside of them, like we can be quite opinionated: we can be quite passionate. But there’s a really good sense of like family. Like there’s some people, like I said, you’ve known for years, and like you wouldn’t trade that for anything.
If it wasn’t for Hull I wouldn’t have known these guys, and we wouldn’t have done this down this place. And one thing I really realise about this city was like when we was doing the auditions for the Face of Hull, a lot of people were there for like 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 hours and I was chatting to a lot of the guys and people were telling me stories about like, Chants Ave, Princes Avenue, Spiders, Whitefriargate; just things that happened to them down them; good stories, bad stories, you know what I mean like, heart, heartaches you know, like lost loves, you know what I mean, marriages and all this type of stuff. And I was just like wow, I’m learning so much more about the place I’ve spent so many years and it’s just kind of like this city’s got so much more to it. And I learned on that day that there’s more to it than just the world of myself and my friends, and it’s like I’m stood in such a small space; there’s so many people who seem to be disgruntled by it, and I just think, people just need to, you know, talk and communicate with each other.
I think the 2017 like City of Culture‘s going to be so good because we’re going to be able to like shine a spotlight on all the good stuff that’s even there and share it with everyone else. And I was saying to someone like, considering all this, I say kind of like darkness that seems to happening all over the different corners of the globe, because the UK’s eyes are going to be on it. The world’s eye will be on it. This is the chance for us to be like that Superman symbol, that ‘S’, do you know what I mean, that symbol of hope where Hull’s got its problems but look at us now, you know what I mean. We’ve changed. Well I wouldn’t say we we’ve changed. But you’re going to get to see all the parts of us that you might not have seen before. And we want to invite you guys to be part of it because in a lot of people’s eyes Hull is this place that you pass through but now you think…
The Hull Daily Mail, they did this thing like, well they reported this story where the people were the Face of Hull and - it was looking at all the different people from crazy and obscure places in the world like somebody from Japan, Tibet, a lot of people from like West Africa, South America, that people like might consider like more enticing place to live, who had come to Hull, and they stayed. There’s something here that’s obviously making people want to leave their like countries of origin and not speak the language and like stay here, do you know what I mean? That’s like a win, that’s a token. It’s just like finding these little bits that are causing people to do this and I think they’re worth sticking around to kind of like, I think those little moments are worth sticking around to kind of figure out what they are.
JW: There have been changes though in Hull over the last couple of decades hasn’t there. Are any of those changes particularly important too?
KS: - I think it’s diversity definitely. Because you look at, and I think it’s, maybe this is me thinking off my belly but the diversity kind of like sprawled into the pallet of the city and you look at like Spring Bank, you look at Princes Avenue and you even look at Cottingham Road, just at the different types of food that have come out, have changed how people might see themselves because if you’re like wanting to try another culture’s food, you’re willing to open yourself up to another nationality. I think that’s a big step. And like you see people down at like Kurdistan, Petra, Jericho, all the different cuisines you’ve got down Princes Ave, I think that has kind of like shown people, that’s “oh OK” it obviously must be ran by someone who’s not from Hull. If they’re setting up a business here then, do you know what I mean, there must be something in it for them to have reason to start a life here. And it’s like, yeah it’s, it’s been interesting because it’s…
I remember coming back from uni one year and just being like, oh my God where’ve all these brown faces come from? And like, I know a lot of people might not recognise it but when you’re used to being like one of the few, you pick up when there’s more. I feel, I felt more like I could blend in a bit more, rather than standing out. I think it’s, I could only think about good things because I see a younger generation, teams of like mixed bag of kids all having a laugh, bouncing around and you know what I mean. And it’s like, I really like seeing that, do you know what I mean; white kids, brown kids, black kids, do you know what I mean, and it’s just like, I’m like that’s good, that’s good for the city. I feel like its progressing. Yeah.
JW: Yeah. So what about the far-flung future then? Do you know? When you’re sitting with your grandchildren on your knee? What do you want to be telling them?
KS: About Hull?
JW: About you really, your personal achievements? What are your goals?
KS: My goal’s to make sure my family is happy and my friends are safe. I’d like to kind of like, just get people to just feel, think more about, it’s not just about them but about us as a collective. And like, I haven’t put it out there or said it yet, I’m vegan so like, I think as a collective we shouldn’t be thinking in terms of us and them with animals and stuff. I just think we should be thinking as Earthlings and how we need to get these systems back in place were we’re not destroying everything around us that’s trying to be part of our environment and start engaging with each other in a different sense of like, I want people thinking more about needs rather than necessities, if that makes sense. Like, I was listening to the radio this morning and people doing all these … where you buy things on credit, you pay these ridiculous interest, it’s all for TVs computers and you think, is that necessary? I mean I am not one for talking about other people’s live but I think, we think that the structure by the means that we live in, I just want to like think that I’ve done something that has like helped or made the world a better place because I feel that’s what we’re supposed to do while we are here, like leave it better than when we came into it.
Yeah just, if I had grandkids I’d like tell them that you know, to help and not like take credit for stuff like, make sure they have the ethos, like this will of fire to build kind of thing like, I’m not just living life for myself but living it for my family, the world and other people around me so no matter what I do; yeah I’ve to take care of me and mine but then in turn, that has got to take care of everyone else as well. I know it sounds very like, quite hippyish. But I don’t know, I just feel like people would live better if we didn’t feel like we just kind had to look after our own sort of thing; a few more urban gardens, people eat less meat, feeling healthier, because if you feel good about yourself; you want other people to feel good. I mean happiness is contagious. If more people were happy in the sense of, in the right sense of, not even material but you know, just happy from within you want other people to get that feeling when you see someone in the situation were if that were you, you’d think, you would be happy, you would try to like think right let’s try to get their level of comfort and happiness, sort of.
JW: I’m sure that’s going to shine through next year when they see you on the TV and radio.
Interviewer: Jerome Whittingham
Date: 29 November 2016
JW: Well, great, thanks for coming in.
KS: No problem.
JW: It’s nice to catch up with you, Kofi, you’re going to be the face of City of Culture for the BBC, Kofi Smiles. So, Kofi, this project is about peoples’ African heritage.
KS: OK.
JW: So tell us about your connection with Africa.
KS: Well my parents came from Ghana, they’ve been here about, kind of about 35 years maybe a bit more - I think my connection probably stems more towards my mum’s side of the family ‘cos I got a lot of, kind of, education, history and stuff from my mum because I’d be cooking with her a lot, like with growing up in Withernsea so she wouldn’t want us outside all of the time when we were like small, so she’d have my brother like tied on her back, you know, like you do with the cloth and stuff and she were like “Can you pass me that, hand me that,” and asking me “Why do we cook things like that and why do we do it in this order?” I get a lot of knowledge and history through her and it’s quite – it’s quite cheesy but she’d tell me stories as well, other than bedtime ones, stuff like Anansi, I figure about the first Spiderman being black, and stuff like that, obviously in Britain, in the west, where you’ve got Peter Parker, you know from the old Ladybird type stories, there were ones about West African culture and all the majority of the ones I read were about Anansi the Spiderman and him dealing with the Sky God and stuff, so I think that’s where a lot of mine comes from.
JW: Right, OK. So, tell us more about your mum, yeah, whereabouts in Ghana and what was the family involved with jobs wise?
KS: My mum come Kumasi, my grandma she had like a little kitchen in a shop - ‘cos like I should go back, ‘cos you have like plots of land rather than individual houses, so you might have the main house, the out-kitchen and a front house, kind of usually be parallel with the front gates and usually the front house might house a few people or might be used for some sort of service, like my grandma’s place, my grandparent’s place they’d use the front one as a shop and sell, like minerals, that’d be like drinks and which, by the way, if you go to, if you go to Ghana and you have something like a Fanta or a Coke, the sugar levels and sweetness it literally just, it’s like a rocket, it sends you through the roof, me and my sisters drinking it all the time and like, we come back to the UK and we had like Fanta Lemon and it was “Ah, what’s this?” like watered down because it didn’t have enough, having to put our own sugar in just to kind of top it off, but - …
JW: You’ve still got an amazing smile.
KS: Yeah, well, that’s my dad, but yeah, so my grandma she would sell stuff out of the shop and my grandad was a Registrar, so he worked a lot like with the government and universities, just kind of with enrolment, quite a lot of admin just kind of seeing the day to day facilities and he worked a bit at the university but I’m not a hundred percent sure.
JW: Right yeah. Tell us more about the town, what was the town and community like?
KS: I think, I think it was, my mum grew up in Kumasi, I think – this is really bad because I don’t really know - not a hundred percent what I know, all I know is where they’re located now - just outside of Accra. She’s one of, one of nine. Yeah, she’s the oldest - and she seems, I know one thing she said, my mum was always up really early ‘cos she hated doing her chores in the sun, ‘cos she doesn’t like the heat, so she’d always get up, do all her housework then just watch her brothers and sisters having to work in the heat and she’d just like sit watching them, fanning herself down while they were getting their work done, she’s still like that now, she’ll go to bed about midnight and she’d be up 5 or 6 ‘cos it’s just like in her body clock, so...
JW: Right. Tell me about how you came about, then, to be born in the UK?
KS: Dad came over, he did dentistry at Edinburgh, and he did a bit of work in Manchester. Somehow he found himself in Beverley, and then my mum came over to join and she had - Julie in ’83 and then Steph in ’85 but then I think a year after Steph was born they moved out to Withernsea, my dad was working for a - dentist out there and he had the opportunity to take over, so he’s still running it now, and then I was born. I was born in Beverley Westwood.
JW: Beverley Westwood, right.
KS: Which you can keep a cow on the Westwood Grange if you were born in the, in the hospital, not many people know that. Do you guys know that?
JW: So tell me about the young Kofi then, what was school like? What are your earliest memories?
KS: My earliest memory is – definitely like my mum’s waters were breaking from my little brother, when I was literally sat down playing on the radiator with some of my - some toy – toy cars, my mum was like mopping something up near the, near the washing machine and I just remember something hitting the floor and I think I thought it was the washing machine that was leaking, and my mum was like “Go and tell your dad, like, my water’s broken, I’d be like, “Dad, mum says her water’s broken” and he was in his room, like, “What, what?” I said “Mum says her water’s broken” and him just like being “Ohhh! My God” just like the hassle of coming down and then my little brother was born. I told everyone that mum was having twins so she got all these cards and stuff, “Why are we getting cards about twins?” just, like, I don’t know, it’s not my fault, but I think as a kid, it’s really weird you mention that ‘cos I’ve thought about this quite a lot, I don’t think I realised that I knew that I was very different to everyone else in school, like especially when I think when I was, like, five, six it was like, you know there’s something kind of like not quite the same but you can’t pinpoint what it is - obviously on a physical, kind of like, level - I think I was quite, I was very into like, you might even say nothing’s changed – I was very into my comics, like, my superheroes, you know, most little kids are, I really kind of identified with things like the Turtles and Ghostbusters, X-men, Spiderman and stuff, and I was kind of like...
JW: Who was your favourite superhero, then?
KS: My favourite superhero when I was a kid, my sister said I always had, like, two swords, ‘cos I wanted to be like Leonardo and stuff, and – Spiderman and things but, yeah, that was it. I read a lot, I read a lot of books, because my mum was so preoccupied with other stuff, to keep me quiet they’d just give me something to read, and I remember, like, I used to read all the Goosebumps books, every week my dad would reluctantly take me into Hull, he got me like these triple Goosebumps books, 3-in-1, I’d just like fly through them, I just liked to keep, you know, just loved stories to read and I think, like, that took a lot of time up, I didn’t play out as much with other kids other than like for sport and school and things and - yeah, I think that really, that helped me a lot in school like reading and writing and stuff. There was some occasion where I’d written some things and the teachers didn’t believe I’d written it so they had to call my parents in. And like I remember like around GCSE a bit of creative writing piece, the English teacher called my mum and dad in, mum went to see her and I remember, like, do you know, waiting outside listening to her and my mum talk, I couldn’t really hear through the door, and my mum just came out, didn’t say anything, as soon as we got in the car she just, was just like “More of that”, ‘cos she was like that’s what you need to keep doing, just need to keep proving people wrong, that they might have this idea of you and you can be so much more and so yeah.
JW: Was this schooling in Beverley or Withernsea?
KS: Oh this was, that was in Hull ‘cos I went to Withernsea Junior School, then I was at Hull Grammar, Hymers, and then in the upper, - William Wilberforce which was like out of all the best, probably the best.
JW: Wilberforce College?
KS: Yeah, yeah, it was like, I told my mum and dad the money you spent on me at Hymers, Hull Grammar, you should have given that to Wilberforce ‘cos they get kids from the best and worst schools in Hull in the area, get them to a point where they can take the next step, like, the focus, the attention, just the teaching methods, like the people there were just, like, just so good, I probably wouldn’t have gone if I didn’t meet Bax ‘cos like, “You should come to Wilberforce”. I didn’t know what I was going to do, I didn’t know if I was going to uni, didn’t know if I had enough points, enough points for uni, then Bax kind of persuaded me to come there and, like, it was fantastic, we had a really good year, nights at the bar and stuff - yeah, it was crazy, it was good. But I loved it there, I really felt like I came into my own there, met some of my best friends there, so.
JW: You mentioned a short while ago, around about the age of five perhaps, you began to realise that you were different, - racially, to the other kids.
KS: Yeah, it was like, this is going to sound sort of weird, it was things like I noticed that a lot with girls into a lot of guys that had “curtains” and straight hair, so I , like, wanting to relax my hair so it was a bit spikey or summat. It’s like weird, and cringey thinking about this now because, like, obviously you just want to, you want to fit in, don’t you? It’s like just thinking the one thing that’s different between me and the other lot is like, little things like my hair, my skin, and stuff like that. That was never a problem, it’s like the hair thing was the big deal and stuff. But yeah it was like little things, like the hospital in Withernsea at the time had a big open square and sometimes I’d feel a bit anxious when we were called to go from the waiting, like, from the waiting room which was like all the seats were on the outside and there was like a set of doors in front of you, when you were called up you had to go through them and it was always, like, I didn’t want my name to be called out because I know when we get up I’m going to be walking across with my mum and everyone is going to be looking at us, then I’m thinking are they looking at us because we’re black, because sometimes you can feel that in the streets, I’d be walking with my mum and sisters and people would be staring and, like, I was always aware that people were watching and looking but then it was just like I couldn’t figure out why, and then immediately I’d go, like, is it because we don’t look like this. I never thought it was an issue but I always wondered why people thought it was something to look at because we’re no different, do you know what I mean, and that is something that, even the thing about today is, like, why does it have to be something quite startling for people to see someone that looks a bit different from them even though they know that they are people?
JW: Did you ever chat with your parents about how to cope with that?
KS: I spoke to my mum a lot, my uncles, my mum’s brothers were really cool about the stuff, but mainly my mum, my mum was just, she was always referring that it’s not your problem, it’s nothing on you, do you know, it’s – she said it’s nothing to worry about ‘cos she’s always, kind of like, I want to say diverting but she’d always be, like, just focus on school, focus on your books, you know, get the things you need to have behind you and, you know, you’ll have nothing like this to worry about. I can kind of see, kind of see what she was getting at. ‘cos it did make me feel better because it was nice to know that someone else, kind of, would see this type of stuff as well. ‘Cos growing up in Withernsea I didn’t have that many black, well I didn’t have any black friends, but my friends there, there’s like two in particular- who I could speak to about this stuff because, like, - can I say their names? Yeah, like Luke and Gaz, they’re like two of my closest mates, they’ve, like it’s really weird because like from such a young age when they would come round for tea it’s like, oh, they might want, like, the peanut soup or like the chicken and the stew, all the Ghanaian food my mum would cook, my mum would go “Oh no, get them some sausages, bacon, egg, chips” they went “No, no, no, can we try this?” That was one thing I was really cool because it’s like if they can come in, they were so like, I don’t want to say into or fanboy of kind of culture but they were, like, just – they’d just go along with it, they didn’t have any problem with it and they didn’t laugh about it, they just wanted to, do you know, they wanted to try it, which I thought was really nice so, like, I could explain to them things that were an issue, why I wouldn’t want to go to certain parties or hang out with certain people because I didn’t like, it was always, like, I was always worried about what they might say or someone might say something, like, going through these scenarios in my head, I still find myself doing that now sometimes, OK, if I’m going to hang out with these people you’re going to have to be wary because some people, someone, they might say this, how would I answer that, how do I make this potential situation not awkward, not just for me but for them and everyone else in the room, and it’s just talking to other people who, like myself, basically like people of colour, it’s like they might not think about it as often as I do but, yeah, I do think about that but you’ve just got to try not to think about it otherwise it’s going to mess your head up and stuff, so yeah.
JW: So - the young Kofi at school, perhaps say in secondary school – what did you shine at?
KS: Sports, I was good at sport, pretty – my body changed quite a lot, you know, you go through puberty all these changes, your bodies and stuff, I was quite heavy between year 7 and 8, 9 then got to, like, 14, 15 just drop weight ‘cos I was sprinting to school, playing more rugby, really got into my rugby - I got – I was quite, again, I was quite apathetic with a lot of stuff, like, I wasn’t bad at things, I just wasn’t that interested, I averaged out Bs and Cs the majority of the time, so it was just like, it was good coming from, like, Ghanaian household, high expectations, you know what I mean, it was like, you could always do better and if you’re not doing better that’s not good enough, do you know what I mean?, so it was a bit – that I thought was a bit stressful – English was fine, like I said I really enjoyed English, English Literature and English Language, PE, Geography, History – Sciences, which I look back now I regret for not putting more effort into it because I read up a lot on stem cell research, watch all these TED talks, fascinated about chemistry these days, and it’s just like, you know, what was the thing that has attracted me to this stuff now, why I can tap into them, but I did alright, I did alright with that stuff.
JW: You mentioned there parental expectations. Did your parents have any career goals for you?
KS: Yeah. - I think my mum wanted me to do to law, wanted me to me be a lawyer or a pharmacist and like, I kind of wasn’t like, and I decided to make it into journalism. The kind of agreement that we had was like, OK you can do that but then you go and do like teacher training or something afterwards to kind of like balance it out, and I was like “yeah, yeah sure”. But I did English Literature, and I loved it, at Northumbria in Newcastle; great course, great set of friends, great teacher. Honestly, I couldn’t have been pushed enough. And like all the stuff that I am doing now, if I didn’t go to Northumbria or if didn’t have that type of course, I wouldn’t be able to, I wouldn’t be doing it now, do you know what I mean? Because I learned a lot of skills, like I started writing scripts; I’ve always been interested in writing like stories, you know, short adventures and stuff when I was younger. I started to it a lot more with facts and stuff at college like comic scripts in little shorts and things and filming bits with like Luton guys you know, just messing around with his kit.
In the university’s like, we kind of in the last two years, I say we, I made some friends and we really kind of took to the media facilities that we had, like we set up our own kind of student radio. We was going out contacting events and - events organisations promoting it; “can we come and film your like bits of scruff here or - the general rhymer there”; trying to get in anywhere just kind of filming things, trying to make a story out of it and interviewing. It was fantastic. I was like “OK this is the world that I want to be a part of” and yeah it was really just getting focused on trying to work in the media but like not, not be too generic by trying to do the things like you see VICE doing or like Nerdist News. I don’t know where they take their interest and you’re really honing it, but you kind of put it out to your specific type of audience and your kind of nonchalant but kind of almost quite graphic and you know, somewhat provocative way so.
JW: So always more interested in writing fact than fiction?
KS: I don’t know. I think, well the comic, when we got interested in the comic, (well I was always very interested in the, sorry, comic books), I was always interested in the, taking the fiction and then pulling out facts to people and I can use these writers, let’s say I took some from Brian Michael Bendis who was probably one of the biggest comic book writers of his day, maybe taking a few of his works, and like let’s say if he was at a comic book convention, trying to interview him and get his story out to the people and saying “this is why you be reading his stuff, this is his background, this is the type of stuff he is writing, these are the people he is writing for.” But I think probably with fact with music, trying to interview musicians, getting people to check out these new sounds and stuff. So yeah that was, I probably yeah, I’m probably right if that all makes sense.
JW: Who were your icons, or who are your icons? Who do you look up to? Who do you want to be like?
KS: My mum’s a big role model for us. She’s like, a lot of people like her, she’s very relaxed, chilled out and obviously I spend a lot of time with her and - I’ve learned a lot from her. - People like: Joseph P Illidge, Donald Glover, Reginald Hudlin; all these guys are comic book writers and Donald Glover obviously, you might already know this chap, he’s a writer, actor, director, producer - people like Ava Duvernay, do you know who she… - she directed Selma, and she’s just directed the Netflix documentary Thirteen, about the thirteenth amendment and - how it’s ruling control over like - Black people in The States, and obviously how there’s been such a rise in the number of young Black being incarcerated and things so.
Nah, I never really, I never really looked to sports stars or musicians, well some musicians, I never really looked to sports stars and like what people usually would expect young black men to have their role models as, like sports stars and musicians or something. - That’s never always been my focus. It’s been someone or people who’ve done things that have changed people’s lives. And for me that was people like writers, yeah it’s generally been writers I think, some musicians, - I don’t know it’s hard because I mean ‘role model’ it’s quite a big word isn’t it? It’s like who you aspire to and it’s like…
I also admire people like… I look at people even like The Rock or Steve Jobs just because everything they do, they put one hundred percent into it but then it’s like a big part of their personas and what they do as like a back door to kind of like “How can I give some this to other people”. I look at Akon; I’m not a fan of his music, his music is not, I might dance to it when we were in the club like in Position when I was like 18 years old, but like, it’s not something I would listen to, it’s him as a person like. He’s gave up most of his riches, like he’s brought, he’s given like electricity to 16 million people in Africa. And it’s just something, well, I just looked around at my Rolex and my cars and like I don’t need this but there’s so much more I could be doing with who I am and everything else. So it’s just people like that. A bit like philanthropists.
I used to, my Dad used to get Time magazine and when you get the Time One Hundred, I literally get it, and I look through it and I read through it, I still do it now, and I don’t want to set my pedestals too high but I read it and just think; all these people are doing some great things and especially the like, the movers of thinkers, the innovators sections. I just think, you know what I’d love to see myself in there someday, just for kind of using my skills like writing or like public speaking and turning that into something were you can inspire other people to kind of use their time, and their time alone to be able to just kind of help people.
Because I think that, and I know I get a lot of this, sort of; what I’ve got from my mother even when she’s had nothing, or hasn’t had the ability to help people, she’s always found a way to do, not only help us but help her family back home and strangers like, people would come over to the UK or other Black people, or Asian people would come over to this area, not knowing what to do with themselves or where to go. She’s found a way to put them in the right direction of someone or, help them out with something financial, and it’s like, she’s kind of hit home that whole thing about power and responsibility which I know it’s the big thing about Spiderman, but that’s one thing where it kind of hit home that I remember hearing my mum saying a lot of that type of stuff. I read a lot of Spiderman comics and I was like, OK there’s a trend here; superhero comics like if you have the power and ability to do something, you have the responsibility to do it sort of. Yeah!
JW: They say it takes - a good ten years or so to become an overnight success.
KS: Right OK!
JW: And you’ve sort of the opportunity now, haven’t you?
KS: Yeah.
JW: You’ve sort of explained already this journey that you’ve had through your interest in media and your degree course too, and now you are, you’re going to be the face of the City of Culture for the BBC for the next twelve months. I’m interested in how you’re going to be describing Hull to the people you are broadcasting to?
KS: There’s two sides to it. Like there’s the side that I saw as a kid, and the side that I’ve experienced like as an adult/young adult. As a kid, my mum would literally like, pack my sister’s, my little brother and I in this pram, get one the 75 bus because we’d be coming into Hull, and this was like a big deal every weekend. We’d come to Hull, we wouldn’t even buy anything, we’d just literally just walk around the shops, look at stuff, check things out, maybe visit the museum quarter - but it wasn’t like it is today. We’d have a look at old town, just going from like, modern Hull, and then going to the old town. It was like, oh my God, you know like its two completely different places! I remember one time, thinking, are we actually in York? Because I got taken to York once, I was like oh my God it’s just like how it was in York and stuff! And just like, it was our big city do you know what I mean? Like I don’t want to sound like I’m exaggerating, but when you’re a kid 5, 6 or 7 coming out from Withernsea and then coming to York, coming into Hull, it’s like, that’s like our New York do you know what I mean? For me, it’s like; that’s where the cinema is, at that time, that’s where McDonalds is, it’s got Princes Quay’s arcade and it’s just like, wow we don’t get to see this all the time. Even like, even though we weren’t even shopping, it was quite magical.
And as a teen it was like nice because I had friends from school there and you meet other kids from other schools from exploring like the Avenues and all that side of Hull. It was like, really, really adventurous, you know but then after a while you’re in that gap between; we can’t hang out on the streets anymore and in the parks, but we’re not old enough to go out. So that’s when you start to get a bit disgruntled like, and there’s nothing much more for us to do. There’s really not a lot going on and you can’t wait to get out, and do all this type of stuff. But then, when you do finally get out, I always tell people I’m from Hull because Withernsea is too hard to describe, but most people have heard of Hull. It’s like, oh I really miss Hull, I really miss Hull, just the size of it, just the accent, and just like how like, just the general vibe of the people. And like even though you, a lot of people try and run away from Hull, it always ends up inside of them, like we can be quite opinionated: we can be quite passionate. But there’s a really good sense of like family. Like there’s some people, like I said, you’ve known for years, and like you wouldn’t trade that for anything.
If it wasn’t for Hull I wouldn’t have known these guys, and we wouldn’t have done this down this place. And one thing I really realise about this city was like when we was doing the auditions for the Face of Hull, a lot of people were there for like 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 hours and I was chatting to a lot of the guys and people were telling me stories about like, Chants Ave, Princes Avenue, Spiders, Whitefriargate; just things that happened to them down them; good stories, bad stories, you know what I mean like, heart, heartaches you know, like lost loves, you know what I mean, marriages and all this type of stuff. And I was just like wow, I’m learning so much more about the place I’ve spent so many years and it’s just kind of like this city’s got so much more to it. And I learned on that day that there’s more to it than just the world of myself and my friends, and it’s like I’m stood in such a small space; there’s so many people who seem to be disgruntled by it, and I just think, people just need to, you know, talk and communicate with each other.
I think the 2017 like City of Culture‘s going to be so good because we’re going to be able to like shine a spotlight on all the good stuff that’s even there and share it with everyone else. And I was saying to someone like, considering all this, I say kind of like darkness that seems to happening all over the different corners of the globe, because the UK’s eyes are going to be on it. The world’s eye will be on it. This is the chance for us to be like that Superman symbol, that ‘S’, do you know what I mean, that symbol of hope where Hull’s got its problems but look at us now, you know what I mean. We’ve changed. Well I wouldn’t say we we’ve changed. But you’re going to get to see all the parts of us that you might not have seen before. And we want to invite you guys to be part of it because in a lot of people’s eyes Hull is this place that you pass through but now you think…
The Hull Daily Mail, they did this thing like, well they reported this story where the people were the Face of Hull and - it was looking at all the different people from crazy and obscure places in the world like somebody from Japan, Tibet, a lot of people from like West Africa, South America, that people like might consider like more enticing place to live, who had come to Hull, and they stayed. There’s something here that’s obviously making people want to leave their like countries of origin and not speak the language and like stay here, do you know what I mean? That’s like a win, that’s a token. It’s just like finding these little bits that are causing people to do this and I think they’re worth sticking around to kind of like, I think those little moments are worth sticking around to kind of figure out what they are.
JW: There have been changes though in Hull over the last couple of decades hasn’t there. Are any of those changes particularly important too?
KS: - I think it’s diversity definitely. Because you look at, and I think it’s, maybe this is me thinking off my belly but the diversity kind of like sprawled into the pallet of the city and you look at like Spring Bank, you look at Princes Avenue and you even look at Cottingham Road, just at the different types of food that have come out, have changed how people might see themselves because if you’re like wanting to try another culture’s food, you’re willing to open yourself up to another nationality. I think that’s a big step. And like you see people down at like Kurdistan, Petra, Jericho, all the different cuisines you’ve got down Princes Ave, I think that has kind of like shown people, that’s “oh OK” it obviously must be ran by someone who’s not from Hull. If they’re setting up a business here then, do you know what I mean, there must be something in it for them to have reason to start a life here. And it’s like, yeah it’s, it’s been interesting because it’s…
I remember coming back from uni one year and just being like, oh my God where’ve all these brown faces come from? And like, I know a lot of people might not recognise it but when you’re used to being like one of the few, you pick up when there’s more. I feel, I felt more like I could blend in a bit more, rather than standing out. I think it’s, I could only think about good things because I see a younger generation, teams of like mixed bag of kids all having a laugh, bouncing around and you know what I mean. And it’s like, I really like seeing that, do you know what I mean; white kids, brown kids, black kids, do you know what I mean, and it’s just like, I’m like that’s good, that’s good for the city. I feel like its progressing. Yeah.
JW: Yeah. So what about the far-flung future then? Do you know? When you’re sitting with your grandchildren on your knee? What do you want to be telling them?
KS: About Hull?
JW: About you really, your personal achievements? What are your goals?
KS: My goal’s to make sure my family is happy and my friends are safe. I’d like to kind of like, just get people to just feel, think more about, it’s not just about them but about us as a collective. And like, I haven’t put it out there or said it yet, I’m vegan so like, I think as a collective we shouldn’t be thinking in terms of us and them with animals and stuff. I just think we should be thinking as Earthlings and how we need to get these systems back in place were we’re not destroying everything around us that’s trying to be part of our environment and start engaging with each other in a different sense of like, I want people thinking more about needs rather than necessities, if that makes sense. Like, I was listening to the radio this morning and people doing all these … where you buy things on credit, you pay these ridiculous interest, it’s all for TVs computers and you think, is that necessary? I mean I am not one for talking about other people’s live but I think, we think that the structure by the means that we live in, I just want to like think that I’ve done something that has like helped or made the world a better place because I feel that’s what we’re supposed to do while we are here, like leave it better than when we came into it.
Yeah just, if I had grandkids I’d like tell them that you know, to help and not like take credit for stuff like, make sure they have the ethos, like this will of fire to build kind of thing like, I’m not just living life for myself but living it for my family, the world and other people around me so no matter what I do; yeah I’ve to take care of me and mine but then in turn, that has got to take care of everyone else as well. I know it sounds very like, quite hippyish. But I don’t know, I just feel like people would live better if we didn’t feel like we just kind had to look after our own sort of thing; a few more urban gardens, people eat less meat, feeling healthier, because if you feel good about yourself; you want other people to feel good. I mean happiness is contagious. If more people were happy in the sense of, in the right sense of, not even material but you know, just happy from within you want other people to get that feeling when you see someone in the situation were if that were you, you’d think, you would be happy, you would try to like think right let’s try to get their level of comfort and happiness, sort of.
JW: I’m sure that’s going to shine through next year when they see you on the TV and radio.