1
00:00:09,640 --> 00:00:11,500
Right, hello, everybody!

2
00:00:11,560 --> 00:00:13,820


3
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4
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I think you grow your identity
over time.

5
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6
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7
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When I look back over my life,

8
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it feels full of scenes and stories
all knit together.

9
00:00:31,320 --> 00:00:33,580


10
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This is how I used to feel in 1979,
Black and Blue!

11
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(EXPLOSION)

12
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13
00:00:40,200 --> 00:00:41,820
No one notices a little Black girl

14
00:00:41,900 --> 00:00:44,820
sat in a room
full of white older people!

15
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16
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I was NEVER going to be
a nice little white girl!

17
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That is all good!

18
00:00:52,100 --> 00:00:54,220
And that's really
what my family wanted.

19
00:00:56,240 --> 00:00:57,380


20
00:00:57,480 --> 00:01:00,980
My adoptive
parents would just kind of breed
the Black out of you, basically.

21
00:01:01,040 --> 00:01:02,980


22
00:01:03,060 --> 00:01:05,980
The whiter you were,
then the more you were accepted.

23
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I had to get out of my family
to be heard.

24
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25
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26
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Growing up in Essex wasn't easy.

27
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Some members of my family
supported the National Front!

28
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EVERYWHERE was a racist environment!

29
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30
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In fact,

31
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the '70s was complicated
for a Black woman in general.

32
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So, I had to find a new family...

33
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on my radio

34
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Luckily,

35
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it was at a time when the UK
was revolutionising youth culture.

36
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When I moved to Coventry
in my twenties,

37
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I decided to join a ska band,

38
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fusing together popular genres
of punk and reggae at the time

39
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and it changed my life forever!

40
00:02:01,680 --> 00:02:03,500


41
00:02:03,560 --> 00:02:05,020


42
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The Selecter became one
of the biggest acts
of the explosive two-tone movement!

43
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44
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We're a dance band.
We like people to move.

45
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We like people to get involved.
We have things to say as well.

46
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47
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We became the opposition soundtrack
to Thatcher's policies,

48
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which had given rise
to the social and economic problems
in the country.

49
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50
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There was a fundamentally important
move towards diversity

51
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and pop culture in the UK.

52
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(BEAT CONTINUES)

53
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We brought Black and white bands
together forever.

54
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55
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All the guys from the scene
have given us
their version of events.

56
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As a Black woman,
it was always hard to be heard.

57
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Still is.

58
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So now, I want to tell
my side of the story

59
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from MY perspective!

60
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(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
Thank you!

61
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(FADES)

62
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(GENTLE JAZZ)

63
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Once you become 'othered'
then you're on the outside.

64
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You're looking in.

65
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And for some,
that has a privilege of its own

66
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because you can see
what the society you're in is about.

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(GRITTY BEAT)

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My story began
with Arthur and Ivy Vickers,

69
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a mechanic and housewife
from Romford in Essex.

70
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They had four sons.

71
00:04:05,040 --> 00:04:06,740
Ivy Vickers got Bell's palsy.

72
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Half of her face slightly dropped.

73
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She didn't want to go out
'cause people would stare

74
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and she was told by the doctor
that what you need is a baby!

75
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She couldn't produce one herself
because she'd had a hysterectomy.

76
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So, the only place
that you were going to get a baby

77
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was an orphanage.

78
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She drove with her family
to a mother and baby home

79
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in Coggeshall, near Braintree.

80
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That's where my...

81
00:04:36,380 --> 00:04:38,940
My birth mother
had given birth to me.

82
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And they turned up

83
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and it was just really like
a baby supermarket!

84
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Fortunately, they wanted a girl

85
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but there were no white girls
available

86
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so they took me!

87
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They were allowed to take me home.

88
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Uh, I slept in a drawer
'cause there was no crib.

89
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There was no...

90
00:04:59,460 --> 00:05:01,340
There had been no preparation,
as such.

91
00:05:01,420 --> 00:05:05,140
I fetched up in an Essex
white working class home

92
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and I was the only brown girl there.

93
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(BEAT CONTINUES)

94
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I was just there, bundling around

95
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and as far as I can tell
I was a reasonably happy
little girl.

96
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It's very good when you're young,

97
00:05:25,380 --> 00:05:27,340
'cause you're just a cute
little Black kid,

98
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you've got bows in your hair
and all this kind of thing
and people pat you on the head.

99
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I was four-and-a-half, I think.

100
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My adoptive parents
had to tell me I was adopted

101
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because I was a different colour
to all the other kids that they had!

102
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And it was obviously
going to be an issue

103
00:05:43,680 --> 00:05:44,900
by the time I got to school.

104
00:05:46,460 --> 00:05:49,780
My adoptive mother,
she just kind of blurted it out.

105
00:05:49,840 --> 00:05:52,380
"We're not your real mum and dad.

106
00:05:52,460 --> 00:05:55,340
There is somebody else
that was your mum.

107
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She was very young
and she wasn't married.

108
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We don't know anything
about your dad

109
00:06:00,820 --> 00:06:04,460
but this is the reason
why you look different

110
00:06:04,520 --> 00:06:06,260
from everybody else in the family."

111
00:06:06,340 --> 00:06:08,540
And it was a little bit
like being slapped

112
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and I managed to puke
all over my mum's sheets

113
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so she smacked me!

114
00:06:12,400 --> 00:06:13,820
I ran upstairs,

115
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I just looked at myself
for a very long time

116
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and began thinking,

117
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"Well, what I had known to be true
suddenly wasn't true."

118
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And I didn't really know
how to deal with that
at that particular point in time.

119
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When my mother told me
that I was adopted,

120
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the way she said it
told me intrinsically
that being Black was bad,

121
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that these people had come here,

122
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impregnated my mother,
who was a white woman,

123
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and therefore
all Black men were to be avoided!

124
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(INDISTINCT CHATTER AND LAUGHTER)

125
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I think as a child
I just withdrew into myself

126
00:06:53,480 --> 00:06:56,540
and had an interior life

127
00:06:56,620 --> 00:06:59,980
that the people around me
didn't really know that I had.

128
00:07:00,060 --> 00:07:02,220
Because I wasn't part of them
anymore,

129
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or didn't FEEL part of them,

130
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then I felt
that I was in observer mode.

131
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(GENTLE MUSIC)

132
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That's me at school.

133
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(LAUGHS)

134
00:07:15,200 --> 00:07:17,020
Oh, that was very typically me!

135
00:07:18,040 --> 00:07:19,220
In our Morris Minor!

136
00:07:20,140 --> 00:07:22,700
I was suspicious of anybody,
even in those days!

137
00:07:24,000 --> 00:07:28,580
I always remember my mother
being very specific
that I had been chosen,

138
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that, uh, I should be grateful
in some way.

139
00:07:31,840 --> 00:07:33,500
As far as she was concerned,

140
00:07:33,560 --> 00:07:35,140
I had been saved

141
00:07:35,220 --> 00:07:39,500
and I was supposed to
be like them...

142
00:07:39,580 --> 00:07:41,740
I didn't really FEEL that way,
though.

143
00:07:41,840 --> 00:07:45,660
I very much felt
that I'd been placed
in rather a difficult position.

144
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My mother,

145
00:07:50,340 --> 00:07:52,540
she'd always turn round to people
and she'd say,

146
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"She's adopted, you know?"

147
00:07:53,980 --> 00:07:56,940
Because if I'd been
her natural child,

148
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she would have been looked at
in a completely different way
at that time.

149
00:08:01,940 --> 00:08:05,820
So, that was her way of explaining
to anybody who was interested

150
00:08:05,900 --> 00:08:08,140
that she was doing her bit
for the colonies

151
00:08:08,200 --> 00:08:10,060
and yes, she's adopted!

152
00:08:12,580 --> 00:08:15,460
My mum and my dad,
they were always rowing.

153
00:08:16,180 --> 00:08:20,100
My dad worked 12-hour days
and was often out of the house.

154
00:08:20,180 --> 00:08:23,180
I mean, in retrospect,
I think he suffered from depression

155
00:08:23,240 --> 00:08:24,540
and probably quite badly.

156
00:08:30,340 --> 00:08:33,980
This is a sleepy old backwater
of a place, isn't it?

157
00:08:34,040 --> 00:08:36,140
And my parents were bombed out

158
00:08:36,200 --> 00:08:38,180
and they didn't have anywhere to...

159
00:08:38,240 --> 00:08:39,300
To live.

160
00:08:39,360 --> 00:08:41,500
And so, they moved in there.

161
00:08:41,580 --> 00:08:44,180
When I was there,
there were three brothers.

162
00:08:44,260 --> 00:08:47,540
Two brothers shared one room
and I had the little box room.

163
00:08:47,620 --> 00:08:50,380
By the time I was 12,
I was the only one living at home.

164
00:08:51,120 --> 00:08:52,420
The rest had all gone.

165
00:08:52,500 --> 00:08:54,980
So, I was rattling around in there
with my mum.

166
00:08:55,040 --> 00:08:56,020
Yeah...

167
00:08:56,100 --> 00:08:59,140
Most of the Black people
that you would see on the telly

168
00:08:59,200 --> 00:09:03,420
were either slaves or servants.

169
00:09:03,500 --> 00:09:06,420
Showbiz
was the Billy Cotton Band Show,

170
00:09:06,480 --> 00:09:07,980
which was REALLY horrendous,

171
00:09:08,060 --> 00:09:11,140
and regularly had on guests like
The Black and White Minstrels.

172
00:09:11,200 --> 00:09:14,620


173
00:09:14,700 --> 00:09:18,580

to appear in the sky

174
00:09:18,640 --> 00:09:20,660
Or poor old Winifred Atwell,

175
00:09:20,740 --> 00:09:25,260
this large, smiling, Black lady
who's playing pub piano.

176
00:09:26,580 --> 00:09:29,700
Oh, I spent most of my time
in my own world when I lived here.

177
00:09:31,580 --> 00:09:34,260
I just used to read books
and I lived in the world of books,

178
00:09:34,360 --> 00:09:38,700
taking on whatever
particular character
I thought fitted me that week,

179
00:09:38,760 --> 00:09:40,420
depending on what I was reading.

180
00:09:40,520 --> 00:09:43,820
I mean,
I could always see that
there was another world out there.

181
00:09:43,900 --> 00:09:46,260
Um, the only problem
was I wasn't in it!

182
00:09:46,320 --> 00:09:49,500
(ROCK MUSIC)

183
00:09:49,560 --> 00:09:52,220
Essex was homogeneically white.

184
00:09:55,360 --> 00:09:58,980
We can't go into the locals anymore,
they're full up
with noisy foreigners

185
00:09:59,040 --> 00:10:00,380
and we don't like it!

186
00:10:03,120 --> 00:10:04,740
All they'd known is colonialism.

187
00:10:04,800 --> 00:10:07,980
Two world wars had been fought.

188
00:10:08,040 --> 00:10:09,460
They'd lost people in them.

189
00:10:09,520 --> 00:10:12,420
(ROCK CONTINUES)

190
00:10:12,480 --> 00:10:15,460
They had pretty entrenched ideas

191
00:10:15,540 --> 00:10:19,980
about how white Britishness
had dealt with these things.

192
00:10:21,980 --> 00:10:24,260
They thought they were better
than others

193
00:10:24,340 --> 00:10:26,740
and therefore
when people started coming here

194
00:10:26,820 --> 00:10:29,340
from the Caribbean or from Africa
or wherever

195
00:10:29,400 --> 00:10:30,980
they felt that they were invaded.

196
00:10:33,500 --> 00:10:36,340
Skin colour was discussed
an awful lot

197
00:10:36,420 --> 00:10:38,540
by EVERYBODY
who came through the house.

198
00:10:38,620 --> 00:10:42,060
Somebody would just start talking
in a racist way

199
00:10:42,140 --> 00:10:44,060
about something
they'd either observed,

200
00:10:44,120 --> 00:10:45,300
was in the newspaper,

201
00:10:45,380 --> 00:10:47,460
and it was just come at you
like a smack!

202
00:10:49,580 --> 00:10:53,380
I'm among this society
of white folks,

203
00:10:53,440 --> 00:10:54,540
this family...

204
00:10:54,600 --> 00:10:56,740
Uh, they don't like Black people.

205
00:10:56,800 --> 00:10:58,380
Yeah, my Uncle Will, yeah...

206
00:10:58,440 --> 00:11:00,500
He would just openly sort of say

207
00:11:00,580 --> 00:11:03,180
that he thought that
Enoch Powell had the right idea.

208
00:11:03,240 --> 00:11:06,020
(SOFT ROCK CONTINUES)

209
00:11:06,080 --> 00:11:07,300
The National Front...

210
00:11:07,360 --> 00:11:09,500
I just knew that it was wrong

211
00:11:09,580 --> 00:11:11,820
and they didn't like people
who looked like me.

212
00:11:11,880 --> 00:11:16,020
(SOMBRE MUSIC)

213
00:11:16,080 --> 00:11:17,660
When I was about eight or nine,

214
00:11:17,760 --> 00:11:21,380
I was snooping
through the chest of drawers
of my mum as all kids do

215
00:11:21,460 --> 00:11:24,660
and I found these papers
that had my name, Belinda,

216
00:11:24,720 --> 00:11:27,060
and this woman, Eileen Magnus.

217
00:11:27,120 --> 00:11:28,500
That was my mum!

218
00:11:28,580 --> 00:11:34,540
Once I'd found the adoption papers
and I had my mother's name,

219
00:11:34,620 --> 00:11:39,620
I had all the information I needed
to go looking,

220
00:11:39,680 --> 00:11:40,780
really...

221
00:11:40,840 --> 00:11:42,100
And I didn't.

222
00:11:42,180 --> 00:11:44,860
Um, out of deference
to my adoptive mother.

223
00:11:44,940 --> 00:11:46,860
Because she always
used to be telling me,

224
00:11:46,940 --> 00:11:49,260
"It would upset me so much
if you did that!"

225
00:11:50,700 --> 00:11:53,780
My real mother lived six miles
away from here in Dagenham.

226
00:11:53,860 --> 00:11:55,940
But after you were adopted
in those days,

227
00:11:56,020 --> 00:11:59,220
you couldn't have anything
to do with your child.

228
00:11:59,300 --> 00:12:01,540
She used to come and stand
on the corner here

229
00:12:01,640 --> 00:12:04,860
and watch me
either coming out of school
or going to school,

230
00:12:04,940 --> 00:12:07,340
which I found quite heartbreaking,
really.

231
00:12:08,160 --> 00:12:09,620
(TRAFFIC PASSES)

232
00:12:11,180 --> 00:12:13,180
And it was just
tremendously hurtful.

233
00:12:14,560 --> 00:12:16,260
That was my mum!

234
00:12:16,340 --> 00:12:20,780
And you could have some imagining
of what she had felt...

235
00:12:23,140 --> 00:12:26,300
This is Rosedale Road,
I used to walk up this road

236
00:12:26,360 --> 00:12:27,740
to, uh...

237
00:12:29,360 --> 00:12:31,540
Go on Sunday afternoons

238
00:12:31,620 --> 00:12:34,180
to visit the person
who I call The Troll.

239
00:12:35,120 --> 00:12:36,900
He was a family friend

240
00:12:36,980 --> 00:12:39,140
and I was sent there
to help babysit.

241
00:12:41,180 --> 00:12:44,740
Whilst his wife was downstairs
making sandwiches for tea,

242
00:12:44,820 --> 00:12:48,780
this man would think nothing
of having his hands down my pants

243
00:12:48,840 --> 00:12:51,980
standing next to his newborn child

244
00:12:52,040 --> 00:12:53,140
up in a room...

245
00:12:53,220 --> 00:12:55,500
And the pretext was,
to get me up there,

246
00:12:55,580 --> 00:12:58,980
was that the baby was crying
and we were going to console it.

247
00:13:01,540 --> 00:13:03,780
You were too scared
to tell your parents.

248
00:13:05,480 --> 00:13:08,140
But one day, his wife, she was out,

249
00:13:08,200 --> 00:13:10,460
she came back unexpectedly,

250
00:13:10,540 --> 00:13:13,740
she didn't have a key,
she had to knock on the door.

251
00:13:13,800 --> 00:13:14,780
By that time,

252
00:13:14,860 --> 00:13:17,740
I was lying on the floor
and he was straddling me

253
00:13:17,800 --> 00:13:20,980
and when he got up I saw his penis.

254
00:13:21,060 --> 00:13:24,580
I thought this has to stop,
this can't go on any longer!

255
00:13:24,640 --> 00:13:26,340
This cannot go on any longer!

256
00:13:28,240 --> 00:13:29,220
I'm sorry...

257
00:13:32,720 --> 00:13:33,700
(INHALES)

258
00:13:38,920 --> 00:13:39,900
But anyway...

259
00:13:41,620 --> 00:13:44,420
I feigned illness
because I knew that that was wrong

260
00:13:44,480 --> 00:13:46,220
and I had to tell my parents,

261
00:13:46,280 --> 00:13:47,900
so they came and got me,

262
00:13:47,980 --> 00:13:51,460
I went home, I was very distraught
and my mother came in

263
00:13:51,520 --> 00:13:52,500
and...

264
00:13:52,560 --> 00:13:54,060
And I just blurted out to her

265
00:13:54,140 --> 00:13:56,620
and I said, "Look, this has
been going on for two years!

266
00:13:56,700 --> 00:13:58,820
This has to stop!
I can't bear this any more!"

267
00:13:58,900 --> 00:14:01,340
I expected her to give me a hug,
then,

268
00:14:01,400 --> 00:14:02,740
I really did...

269
00:14:02,800 --> 00:14:04,900
I just expected her to give me a hug

270
00:14:04,960 --> 00:14:06,460
and she didn't give me a hug,

271
00:14:06,540 --> 00:14:09,780
she just went in to my father,
who was in another bedroom,

272
00:14:09,840 --> 00:14:10,820
and...

273
00:14:10,880 --> 00:14:12,460
And told him what I'd told her

274
00:14:12,540 --> 00:14:14,940
and the next thing,
they were both in there

275
00:14:15,040 --> 00:14:18,660
and they were staring down at me
as though I had done something
terribly wrong!

276
00:14:18,740 --> 00:14:21,020
My dad wanted to do down there
immediately

277
00:14:21,080 --> 00:14:24,060
and back this guy came with his wife

278
00:14:24,140 --> 00:14:28,220
and I was made to stand there
and tell them what had happened!

279
00:14:28,960 --> 00:14:30,700
Nothing ever seemed hard after that.

280
00:14:31,580 --> 00:14:33,980
The perpetrator said
I was making it all up.

281
00:14:34,040 --> 00:14:36,260
Pretty much said that, you know,

282
00:14:36,320 --> 00:14:38,580
adopted children, well, you know...

283
00:14:38,660 --> 00:14:40,980
Bad blood
and all this kind of thing.

284
00:14:41,060 --> 00:14:44,140
The wife agreed with him
and it was never spoken about again.

285
00:14:45,240 --> 00:14:47,380
(SOMBRE MUSIC)

286
00:14:49,480 --> 00:14:52,940
The relationship
that I had with my mother
from that time onwards

287
00:14:53,000 --> 00:14:54,220
became quite frosty.

288
00:14:54,300 --> 00:14:58,260
I always felt like there was
something between her and myself

289
00:14:58,320 --> 00:15:00,820
that had never, ever been resolved.

290
00:15:00,900 --> 00:15:04,740

D-FLAT MINOR

291
00:15:08,900 --> 00:15:12,140
I was just dead moody
most of the time

292
00:15:12,200 --> 00:15:14,540
because I wasn't really allowed out.

293
00:15:14,620 --> 00:15:17,900
If I went to somebody else's house,
it was all very closely supervised

294
00:15:17,960 --> 00:15:18,940
and...

295
00:15:21,400 --> 00:15:24,540
I was very lonely, it was stifling.

296
00:15:24,620 --> 00:15:26,780

ADAGIO

297
00:15:27,580 --> 00:15:29,620
I used to practise the piano
for hours.

298
00:15:29,680 --> 00:15:31,260
Mozart, Beethoven...

299
00:15:31,320 --> 00:15:32,620
I'd just lose myself.

300
00:15:33,980 --> 00:15:38,060
I think she would have liked it
if I had become a nurse.

301
00:15:38,140 --> 00:15:40,580
She wanted a companion.
She was older.

302
00:15:40,660 --> 00:15:43,220
She saw herself
wobbling off into her dotage,

303
00:15:43,280 --> 00:15:45,100
you know, being 70 years old,

304
00:15:45,180 --> 00:15:48,900
and I would still be there,
looking after her.

305
00:15:48,960 --> 00:15:54,140
(URBAN BEAT)

306
00:15:54,200 --> 00:15:55,740
Growing up in that way,

307
00:15:55,800 --> 00:15:58,380
in a white family in Romford,

308
00:15:58,440 --> 00:16:00,980
it made me mistrustful of people.

309
00:16:03,900 --> 00:16:07,340
A walk down the street
wasn't just a walk down the street.

310
00:16:07,420 --> 00:16:10,420
You'd get stared at a lot.
Microaggressions.

311
00:16:10,480 --> 00:16:12,020
Someone wants to touch your hair.

312
00:16:12,080 --> 00:16:13,060
Why...?

313
00:16:15,760 --> 00:16:17,420
It's all these little things

314
00:16:17,480 --> 00:16:20,420
but they add up to something big

315
00:16:20,480 --> 00:16:23,900
and that is you don't belong!

316
00:16:27,060 --> 00:16:30,460
The National Front
used to sell their newspaper openly

317
00:16:30,520 --> 00:16:31,820
in Romford Market.

318
00:16:33,140 --> 00:16:35,660
I used to glare at them.
They used to glare at me.

319
00:16:35,760 --> 00:16:39,980
The only person
who's ever used the N word at me
happened to be in Romford.

320
00:16:40,060 --> 00:16:43,120
You had to build a bit of armour
around you somehow.

321
00:16:43,300 --> 00:16:47,480

Long Shot Kick De Bucket

322
00:16:47,480 --> 00:16:49,340
I was about 15

323
00:16:49,420 --> 00:16:51,780
and we had a fifth form common room
at school

324
00:16:51,880 --> 00:16:55,660
and we were allowed to play
whatever music
we were particularly into.

325
00:16:55,720 --> 00:16:57,340
There'd be would-be hippies,

326
00:16:57,400 --> 00:16:58,620
they'd play their stuff,

327
00:16:58,700 --> 00:17:01,860
but we also had
a skinhead contingent from Dagenham

328
00:17:01,940 --> 00:17:04,060
and they would be dancing
to Millie Small.

329
00:17:04,860 --> 00:17:07,940
Millie Small had My Boy Lollipop
out at the top of the charts.

330
00:17:09,260 --> 00:17:11,700
Israelites by Desmond Dekker
was a favourite...

331
00:17:12,460 --> 00:17:15,500
But I think my favourite
was The Pioneers,

332
00:17:15,560 --> 00:17:17,140
Long Shot Kick De Bucket.

333
00:17:17,200 --> 00:17:19,660


334
00:17:20,520 --> 00:17:22,460
I liked what I heard.

335
00:17:22,540 --> 00:17:24,420
I really thought,
"This is different!"

336
00:17:27,140 --> 00:17:30,220
My identity
had been shaped by my mother

337
00:17:30,280 --> 00:17:32,380
and her opinions, her views...

338
00:17:32,460 --> 00:17:35,580
But there was only one person
who could unpick all that

339
00:17:35,640 --> 00:17:36,860
and that was me.

340
00:17:36,940 --> 00:17:38,860
Being Black and growing up
in Romford,

341
00:17:38,920 --> 00:17:41,460
I was always in a minority of one.

342
00:17:41,540 --> 00:17:43,580
I didn't have any Black people
in my life.

343
00:17:43,640 --> 00:17:44,820
(SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC)

344
00:17:44,880 --> 00:17:47,180
So, I had to find some...

345
00:17:48,360 --> 00:17:49,380
So, first of all,

346
00:17:49,460 --> 00:17:53,980
they were the people that I found
either in newspapers or on the TV.

347
00:17:58,620 --> 00:18:02,100
I was seeing a whole other side
of life.

348
00:18:02,160 --> 00:18:03,620
CHANTING: We are the people!

349
00:18:03,680 --> 00:18:05,460
Civil rights turned up.

350
00:18:05,520 --> 00:18:07,420
People like Martin Luther King

351
00:18:07,500 --> 00:18:10,340
and you know,
then Malcolm X came along.

352
00:18:10,420 --> 00:18:12,780
When you take 20 million
Black people

353
00:18:12,860 --> 00:18:15,860
and make them fight all your wars
and pick all your cotton

354
00:18:15,920 --> 00:18:18,300
and work all your jobs

355
00:18:18,380 --> 00:18:22,780
and still you NEVER give them
any real, honest recompense

356
00:18:22,880 --> 00:18:27,220
sooner or later
their allegiance towards you
is going to wear thin!

357
00:18:27,280 --> 00:18:29,100
Huge demonstrations happening,

358
00:18:29,180 --> 00:18:31,980
like Selma,
the bombing in Birmingham, Alabama.

359
00:18:32,060 --> 00:18:35,860
Black people were being considered
as second-class citizens.

360
00:18:35,940 --> 00:18:38,980
The world out there
just seemed unjust

361
00:18:39,060 --> 00:18:41,620
if you didn't look like
my parents and my brothers.

362
00:18:42,300 --> 00:18:45,500

Why Can't There Be Love

363
00:18:46,200 --> 00:18:49,780
I was 15. 1968 was everything.

364
00:18:49,840 --> 00:18:52,380
The time seemed full of possibility.

365
00:18:52,460 --> 00:18:55,700

beneath the pale moonlight

366
00:18:55,760 --> 00:18:57,340
The music was wonderful!

367
00:18:57,420 --> 00:19:00,180
You turned on the television,
you saw Ready Steady Go!

368
00:19:00,240 --> 00:19:01,900
You saw Aretha Franklin,

369
00:19:01,960 --> 00:19:03,220
soul, hope...

370
00:19:03,300 --> 00:19:05,140
They were appearing
on Top of the Pops.

371
00:19:06,880 --> 00:19:08,500
Funk music was around...

372
00:19:08,560 --> 00:19:10,540
You know, like Sammy Davis Jr

373
00:19:10,600 --> 00:19:13,060
or Muhammad Ali would surface!

374
00:19:15,240 --> 00:19:16,500
(FLASHING)

375
00:19:16,580 --> 00:19:19,140
Suddenly,
there were REAL Black people

376
00:19:19,220 --> 00:19:22,020
being artistic
and being interviewed!

377
00:19:22,100 --> 00:19:25,420
Poetry, freedom fighters movements,
Black Power or whatever!

378
00:19:25,480 --> 00:19:27,020
I mean, it was feminism as well.

379
00:19:27,080 --> 00:19:28,460
You could get the pill!

380
00:19:28,520 --> 00:19:29,940
But it was all happening

381
00:19:30,020 --> 00:19:31,820
and that was
what was glorious about it!

382
00:19:31,880 --> 00:19:33,020
It was just exciting!

383
00:19:33,100 --> 00:19:36,380

Nowhere To Run

384
00:19:36,440 --> 00:19:37,420
So, I thought,

385
00:19:37,480 --> 00:19:39,180
"I've gotta get a handle on this,

386
00:19:39,240 --> 00:19:40,660
otherwise who the hell am I?!"

387
00:19:41,880 --> 00:19:43,660
(INAUDIBLE)

388
00:19:43,740 --> 00:19:46,420
I can't be a little white girl
for these people

389
00:19:46,480 --> 00:19:48,220
because I patently am not!

390
00:19:48,280 --> 00:19:50,540
So, I was finding an identity!

391
00:19:50,620 --> 00:19:53,380
There were women who were turning up
with these huge afros,

392
00:19:53,460 --> 00:19:56,020
like Angela Davis
and like Marsha Hunt.

393
00:19:56,080 --> 00:19:57,060
And...

394
00:19:57,140 --> 00:19:59,020
And I was mesmerised by this
and thought,

395
00:19:59,080 --> 00:20:00,780
"I could actually look like them!"

396
00:20:02,340 --> 00:20:04,420
You gave yourself an afro,
which I did,

397
00:20:04,500 --> 00:20:06,820
and it freaked
my mother out completely,

398
00:20:06,900 --> 00:20:09,500
who turned around and said
that I looked like a golliwog.

399
00:20:09,560 --> 00:20:12,580
(SINISTER MUSIC)

400
00:20:12,660 --> 00:20:16,060
But when I went to school
there were no Black kids in school

401
00:20:16,140 --> 00:20:19,020
to sort of
share that information with.

402
00:20:23,580 --> 00:20:25,660
The people I happened
to be associated with,

403
00:20:25,760 --> 00:20:29,540
they were looking at Black people
and they weren't liking
what they were seeing.

404
00:20:29,620 --> 00:20:32,180
A lot of those families
would just kind of, you know,

405
00:20:32,260 --> 00:20:34,100
breed the Black out of you,
basically,

406
00:20:34,180 --> 00:20:36,020
and I was trying
to breed it back in!

407
00:20:36,080 --> 00:20:37,060
(LAUGHS)

408
00:20:37,920 --> 00:20:39,020
In MY head,

409
00:20:39,100 --> 00:20:43,500
all I wanted to do was live my life
like Marsha Hunt in Hair

410
00:20:43,580 --> 00:20:45,940
and find out
what marijuana was about.

411
00:20:46,020 --> 00:20:49,540
I just thought to myself,
"Well, I can't stand this...

412
00:20:49,600 --> 00:20:51,580
It's just over-stifling.

413
00:20:51,660 --> 00:20:54,100
They don't seem to like
any of the things that I like."

414
00:20:54,180 --> 00:20:56,780
Even at that age, I thought,
"I've gotta get out of here!"

415
00:20:56,840 --> 00:21:02,820
(REGGAE MUSIC DRIFTING)

416
00:21:12,640 --> 00:21:15,180
Coventry was my destination.

417
00:21:15,260 --> 00:21:19,180
I enrolled at Lanchester Polytechnic
to do a combined science degree

418
00:21:19,240 --> 00:21:22,060
and went on to study radiography.

419
00:21:23,040 --> 00:21:25,060
I was still 17, I was nearly 18.

420
00:21:25,140 --> 00:21:27,340
Coventry was a hundred miles away
from Romford.

421
00:21:27,420 --> 00:21:29,940
You know, my mother
couldn't conveniently get there

422
00:21:30,020 --> 00:21:32,460
but when I got off the train
in Coventry

423
00:21:32,540 --> 00:21:35,860
the people around me just
didn't seem to be really bothered!

424
00:21:35,920 --> 00:21:36,980
They weren't staring,

425
00:21:37,060 --> 00:21:39,420
weren't doing any of the things
they did in Romford!

426
00:21:39,480 --> 00:21:40,660
I felt more comfortable!

427
00:21:40,760 --> 00:21:43,860
There had been
quite heavy immigration
into this area at that time.

428
00:21:43,920 --> 00:21:45,180
The car industry here,

429
00:21:45,260 --> 00:21:47,460
it was a little bit like Detroit,
almost.

430
00:21:48,200 --> 00:21:50,020
And so, it attracted people,

431
00:21:50,080 --> 00:21:53,540
both Irish, Indian, Pakistani,

432
00:21:53,600 --> 00:21:55,460
from, uh, the Caribbean...

433
00:21:55,540 --> 00:21:58,460
People came here
because the work was the magnet.

434
00:21:58,540 --> 00:22:01,260
The making of the cars
was the magnet for everything.

435
00:22:01,340 --> 00:22:04,260
I could feel the difference.
It was almost palpable.

436
00:22:04,320 --> 00:22:06,060
This wasn't like Essex

437
00:22:06,140 --> 00:22:07,820
and I thought,
"I will like it here!"

438
00:22:10,580 --> 00:22:12,660
This was the first place
that I lived in

439
00:22:12,740 --> 00:22:15,540
and I lived here with, uh,
two girls

440
00:22:15,620 --> 00:22:17,580
and it backed on
to the local abattoir.

441
00:22:17,660 --> 00:22:19,660
Look at it!
Look at the space of it!

442
00:22:19,740 --> 00:22:21,900
I mean, you couldn't
swing a cat round in there!

443
00:22:21,980 --> 00:22:26,220
Yeah, this house
was my first taste of freedom ever!

444
00:22:26,300 --> 00:22:28,740
I was just so desperate
to be away from my parents!

445
00:22:28,820 --> 00:22:31,620
I was just so desperate
to be having a life!

446
00:22:31,680 --> 00:22:35,780
(PSYCHEDELIC BEAT)

447
00:22:35,840 --> 00:22:37,540
I just became a hippie, really,

448
00:22:37,620 --> 00:22:39,620
just sort of wandering around
in a caftan,

449
00:22:39,700 --> 00:22:42,180
playing a Jew's harp
in an old moth-eaten fur coat,

450
00:22:42,260 --> 00:22:44,740
listening to things
like Pink Floyd, The Nice

451
00:22:44,800 --> 00:22:46,500
and everybody took mushrooms...

452
00:22:46,580 --> 00:22:49,860
I just fell in with
a load of sort of druggie sorts.

453
00:22:49,940 --> 00:22:52,500
(LAUGHING) And...
And had some fun for once!

454
00:22:53,460 --> 00:22:56,260
A lot of them tended to be
the more middle class students

455
00:22:56,340 --> 00:22:59,460
but they didn't seem to mind
me hanging around.

456
00:22:59,540 --> 00:23:01,500
I found a place
where you could be cool

457
00:23:01,560 --> 00:23:03,220
being the only Black girl in town!

458
00:23:03,280 --> 00:23:06,060
(EASTERN MUSIC)

459
00:23:06,120 --> 00:23:07,340
And it was hippie days

460
00:23:07,420 --> 00:23:09,420
and everyone
was doing Gestalt therapy.

461
00:23:09,500 --> 00:23:12,380
It was a very useful way
of getting people to open up

462
00:23:12,460 --> 00:23:14,460
if trauma had happened
in their life.

463
00:23:14,520 --> 00:23:16,140
It gave me a space,

464
00:23:16,220 --> 00:23:20,100
a space where I felt safe
to talk about things.

465
00:23:20,860 --> 00:23:22,900
Terry was there at the time,
my husband.

466
00:23:22,980 --> 00:23:26,220
He'd kind of
had a troubled childhood as well.

467
00:23:26,280 --> 00:23:27,780
Boy soldier at 15,

468
00:23:27,860 --> 00:23:30,620
became a political animal
of left-wing politics.

469
00:23:30,700 --> 00:23:34,100
He had been made redundant
from Rolls-Royce in Derby

470
00:23:34,160 --> 00:23:36,300
and then he got a job in Coventry.

471
00:23:36,380 --> 00:23:39,980
So, he was just really
casting around for people as well.

472
00:23:40,060 --> 00:23:42,060
Yeah, we just found each other
in that way.

473
00:23:42,140 --> 00:23:45,980
But eventually, Terry and I
just kind of outgrew the meetings

474
00:23:46,060 --> 00:23:49,380
and decided that we would
just get together ourselves.

475
00:23:49,460 --> 00:23:52,380

Selling Out Your Future

476
00:23:53,220 --> 00:23:55,980
Yeah, we had all sorts of, um,
hippie ideas

477
00:23:56,060 --> 00:23:58,900
about formality
and things like that.

478
00:23:58,980 --> 00:24:01,660
I've always hated formality
of any kind, you know?

479
00:24:01,760 --> 00:24:05,900
Well, I think we always had a very
open relationship at the time.
Yeah, yeah.

480
00:24:05,980 --> 00:24:08,620
I slept with other people.
Terry slept with other people.

481
00:24:08,700 --> 00:24:11,020
Didn't have too much
of a problem about any of that.

482
00:24:11,100 --> 00:24:13,580
I got the hump one time when, uh...
Yeah.

483
00:24:13,680 --> 00:24:16,180
Well...
I came home
and she was using my frying pan!

484
00:24:16,240 --> 00:24:17,220
Yeah, yeah...

485
00:24:17,280 --> 00:24:18,820
(BOTH LAUGHING)

486
00:24:20,520 --> 00:24:22,220
I mean, I knew what values were.

487
00:24:22,280 --> 00:24:24,260
I knew what my family's values were.

488
00:24:24,340 --> 00:24:29,540
I suppose we were both looking for
a DIFFERENT set of values!

489
00:24:29,600 --> 00:24:31,820


490
00:24:32,700 --> 00:24:36,740
Meeting Terry, it started
making me think politically.

491
00:24:36,800 --> 00:24:38,700
Working with a left-wing party,

492
00:24:38,780 --> 00:24:41,260
selling newspapers
outside factories...

493
00:24:41,320 --> 00:24:43,500
The unemployment was rife.

494
00:24:43,580 --> 00:24:46,740
The motor industry in the Midlands
was being decimated

495
00:24:46,820 --> 00:24:48,820
and breaking down
all over the place.

496
00:24:48,880 --> 00:24:50,540
We'd had the three-day week.

497
00:24:50,600 --> 00:24:53,380
(ATMOSPHERIC MUSIC)

498
00:24:53,480 --> 00:24:57,380
I want to speak to you
about the grave emergency
now facing our country.

499
00:24:57,860 --> 00:25:02,420
Jobs will be in danger
and take-home pay will be less.

500
00:25:02,500 --> 00:25:06,460
The one thing that I wanted to be
kept getting denied

501
00:25:06,520 --> 00:25:07,980
all the way along!

502
00:25:08,040 --> 00:25:09,780
As I walked down the road,

503
00:25:09,840 --> 00:25:12,460
other people saw a Black person

504
00:25:12,540 --> 00:25:16,260
and I didn't know any Black people
and I really felt that I ought!

505
00:25:16,320 --> 00:25:19,100
(TENDER MUSIC)

506
00:25:19,160 --> 00:25:22,220
My dad, he died in '76, I think.

507
00:25:22,300 --> 00:25:26,060
He was the one in the family
who was mostly into music.

508
00:25:26,120 --> 00:25:27,940
He seemed to like female singers!

509
00:25:28,020 --> 00:25:30,820
So, yeah,
I just started making music

510
00:25:30,880 --> 00:25:32,100
just for processing that,

511
00:25:32,160 --> 00:25:33,500
because I did miss him.

512
00:25:33,560 --> 00:25:35,260
I missed him a great deal.

513
00:25:38,860 --> 00:25:41,020
I actually started learning
the guitar.

514
00:25:41,680 --> 00:25:43,900
I found the Leonard Cohen songbook

515
00:25:43,960 --> 00:25:46,100
and I just started strumming away

516
00:25:46,180 --> 00:25:48,580
and eventually
taught myself to play

517
00:25:48,660 --> 00:25:50,820
and used to spend hours
in the kitchen there

518
00:25:50,900 --> 00:25:53,700
kind of, uh,
singing and stuff like that.

519
00:25:53,760 --> 00:25:55,940
(INDISTINCT JAMMING)

520
00:25:56,000 --> 00:25:59,180


521
00:25:59,260 --> 00:26:01,740
John Armatrading,
she was around at that time

522
00:26:01,800 --> 00:26:03,380
and I loved what she did.

523
00:26:03,460 --> 00:26:05,780
You know, I loved Joni Mitchell
equally as well.

524
00:26:05,860 --> 00:26:08,260
The politics I think that I had
at the time

525
00:26:08,340 --> 00:26:12,220
tended to move me
towards something that was...

526
00:26:13,240 --> 00:26:15,140
Well, certainly wasn't love songs!

527
00:26:15,220 --> 00:26:19,460
It was something that was more
socially and politically aware!

528
00:26:21,940 --> 00:26:25,540
I'd started going to a pub,
playing some songs there

529
00:26:25,620 --> 00:26:28,620
and eventually somebody wanted
to give me some money for it!

530
00:26:29,620 --> 00:26:32,340
Why he happened to be there
in a folk club

531
00:26:32,400 --> 00:26:34,060
I have absolutely no idea

532
00:26:34,140 --> 00:26:37,100
but I met, uh,
somebody called Lawton Brown.

533
00:26:37,180 --> 00:26:39,380
He was from Jamaica, yeah,
he was a Black student

534
00:26:39,440 --> 00:26:40,420
and he said,

535
00:26:40,520 --> 00:26:43,700
"Oh, you should come
and write some songs with me!"
Which is what I did!

536
00:26:43,760 --> 00:26:45,300


537
00:26:47,900 --> 00:26:51,380
Lawton lived in a house with a guy
from the Ivory Coast called Hubert

538
00:26:51,440 --> 00:26:53,780
and Charley 'Aitch' Bembridge

539
00:26:53,860 --> 00:26:56,740
and we used to sit around
in Lawton's front room

540
00:26:56,820 --> 00:27:00,060
and I was just introduced
to Black music

541
00:27:00,120 --> 00:27:02,180
that I DIDN'T know about!

542
00:27:02,240 --> 00:27:04,700
The Last Poets, Gil Scott-Heron,

543
00:27:04,760 --> 00:27:05,940
blues artists,

544
00:27:06,000 --> 00:27:07,500
people like Lightnin' Hopkins.

545
00:27:07,600 --> 00:27:13,300
I hadn't really met anybody before
who knew his way around
reggae music.

546
00:27:13,360 --> 00:27:15,140
(REGGAE BEAT)

547
00:27:15,220 --> 00:27:18,860
And I and Lawton
tried to start a reggae band.

548
00:27:21,160 --> 00:27:23,620
Punk had started in the early '70s

549
00:27:23,680 --> 00:27:27,740
as an antidote to the Pink Floyds

550
00:27:27,820 --> 00:27:29,980
and that whole kind
of prog rock era.

551
00:27:30,040 --> 00:27:33,660
(UPBEAT ROCK)

552
00:27:33,740 --> 00:27:37,220
Kids who were into punk
were also into reggae

553
00:27:37,320 --> 00:27:42,060
because somebody called Bob Marley
was making the most amazing
reggae music!

554
00:27:42,120 --> 00:27:46,820
(REGGAE JAM)

555
00:27:46,900 --> 00:27:50,980
Society was changing in schools,
in youth clubs...

556
00:27:51,060 --> 00:27:55,700
Black and white were already finding
a mixed place to be.

557
00:27:55,760 --> 00:27:57,260
Pauline Black was finding that.

558
00:28:00,860 --> 00:28:03,460
The white kids were playing
old Trojan Records.

559
00:28:03,540 --> 00:28:06,900
Here was the first time,
in the history of British music,

560
00:28:06,980 --> 00:28:11,180
an opportunity to blend the cultures
of different styles,

561
00:28:11,260 --> 00:28:15,860
of the Caribbean Island style
with the white punk style.

562
00:28:15,920 --> 00:28:18,380


563
00:28:20,320 --> 00:28:21,780
The people that were here,

564
00:28:21,880 --> 00:28:26,420
the parents of these children
had come here
with their ska records,

565
00:28:26,500 --> 00:28:28,740
all the blue beat
and all the rock steady and stuff

566
00:28:28,800 --> 00:28:30,540
and when punk came along

567
00:28:30,620 --> 00:28:33,180
it could kind of pivot
and do anything it wanted!

568
00:28:33,240 --> 00:28:36,060


569
00:28:36,140 --> 00:28:39,180
Bands like The Clash,
they could have a punk ethos

570
00:28:39,260 --> 00:28:42,020
but nonetheless they could take
quite a lot of reggae

571
00:28:42,100 --> 00:28:44,260
and amalgamate it
into their own music!

572
00:28:44,900 --> 00:28:48,900

police and thieves!

573
00:28:48,980 --> 00:28:50,900
Then you had Steel Pulse
in Birmingham,

574
00:28:50,960 --> 00:28:52,060
not so far away.

575
00:28:52,120 --> 00:28:55,220


576
00:28:55,280 --> 00:28:57,580
You'd got The Beat, you'd got UB40.

577
00:28:57,640 --> 00:28:58,980
Steel Locks...

578
00:28:59,040 --> 00:29:00,420
But they were reggae bands.

579
00:29:00,500 --> 00:29:03,140
They were playing around
all the pubs and stuff like that.

580
00:29:03,220 --> 00:29:07,060
It was a transition
to embrace multiculturalism

581
00:29:07,140 --> 00:29:10,660
and through that
make something which is new!

582
00:29:12,840 --> 00:29:15,340
'76, '77...

583
00:29:15,400 --> 00:29:17,620
I'd met a few people from Coventry.

584
00:29:17,700 --> 00:29:21,380
We had a band called Hard Top 22
and it was reggae music...

585
00:29:21,440 --> 00:29:23,100
And at the time,

586
00:29:23,180 --> 00:29:26,020
The Specials were called
Coventry Automatics!

587
00:29:26,740 --> 00:29:29,300
And we used to have
a residential play

588
00:29:29,360 --> 00:29:31,540
at this club called Mr George's

589
00:29:31,620 --> 00:29:33,660
and we used to play there
every Monday night.

590
00:29:33,720 --> 00:29:39,180
(INDISTINCT JAM)

591
00:29:39,900 --> 00:29:42,500
Hard Top 22,
they were all my friends.

592
00:29:42,580 --> 00:29:45,740
And I think Pauline
was with this other guy,

593
00:29:45,820 --> 00:29:47,860
they were doing sort of folk stuff,
you know?

594
00:29:50,140 --> 00:29:55,940
Hard Top 22 loomed large
in a young girl's life in Coventry

595
00:29:56,020 --> 00:29:57,820
because, you know,
you'd got Charley,

596
00:29:57,880 --> 00:29:59,220
who looked like Bob Marley!

597
00:29:59,300 --> 00:30:01,660
Uh, you know,
there was you in all your finery!

598
00:30:01,720 --> 00:30:03,300
I wanted to know about reggae!

599
00:30:03,360 --> 00:30:06,780
(SLOW REGGAE)

600
00:30:06,880 --> 00:30:11,220
The first time I saw Pauline
was at a place called
The Queen's Pub.

601
00:30:11,300 --> 00:30:13,540
She was playing a guitar
and sitting on a stool,

602
00:30:13,600 --> 00:30:16,780
and I thought, "Oh, she's nice!"

603
00:30:18,940 --> 00:30:21,780
They definitely fancied Pauline!
Yeah, they did!

604
00:30:21,840 --> 00:30:23,460
(LAUGHS)

605
00:30:24,440 --> 00:30:25,420
There was a queue!

606
00:30:25,480 --> 00:30:27,020
(BOTH LAUGHING)

607
00:30:27,080 --> 00:30:28,940


608
00:30:29,000 --> 00:30:30,300


609
00:30:31,120 --> 00:30:33,420


610
00:30:33,480 --> 00:30:34,700


611
00:30:35,560 --> 00:30:37,300
In 1976,

612
00:30:37,380 --> 00:30:39,700
during a gig
at the Birmingham Odeon,

613
00:30:39,780 --> 00:30:43,180
Eric Clapton
said during a drunken rant,

614
00:30:43,260 --> 00:30:45,940
"Stop Britain
from becoming a Black colony!

615
00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:47,500
Get the foreigners out!

616
00:30:47,560 --> 00:30:50,660
Get the wogs out! Get the coons out!

617
00:30:50,720 --> 00:30:52,340
Keep Britain white!"

618
00:30:53,200 --> 00:30:54,180


619
00:30:54,960 --> 00:30:59,060
Rock Against Racism is triggered
by the Eric Clapton statement
in Birmingham.

620
00:30:59,140 --> 00:31:04,060
It triggered this coming together
of Black and white bands

621
00:31:04,140 --> 00:31:07,100
in the name of
kick racism out of music.

622
00:31:07,180 --> 00:31:09,540
A seminal moment
in British popular music history.

623
00:31:11,720 --> 00:31:13,020
At Victoria Park,

624
00:31:13,100 --> 00:31:17,020
we had nearly 100,000 young people
turn up.

625
00:31:17,080 --> 00:31:19,020
Up until Rock Against Racism,

626
00:31:19,100 --> 00:31:21,980
you had Black musical events,
you had white events

627
00:31:22,080 --> 00:31:25,980
but you didn't promote
Black and white bands
on the same bill!

628
00:31:28,640 --> 00:31:30,420
We were working with punk bands.

629
00:31:30,480 --> 00:31:32,900
The music on one hand is reggae

630
00:31:32,980 --> 00:31:34,980
and then there's
this AGGRESSIVE noise

631
00:31:35,040 --> 00:31:36,660
and we're on the same bill

632
00:31:36,740 --> 00:31:39,180
and we had the same audience,
is the point!

633
00:31:42,300 --> 00:31:44,260
Rock Against Racism and all that,
right,

634
00:31:44,340 --> 00:31:47,580
make England a better country,
unite people.

635
00:31:47,660 --> 00:31:50,940
The punk scene,
a lot of people saw anarchy, right?

636
00:31:51,000 --> 00:31:52,740
But out of that come unity!

637
00:31:52,800 --> 00:31:58,740
(SLOW REGGAE)

638
00:31:58,840 --> 00:32:02,700
Jerry Dammers,
he has been influenced
by Rock Against Racism.

639
00:32:02,780 --> 00:32:08,740
So, Jerry consciously looks
amongst the musicians in Coventry

640
00:32:08,820 --> 00:32:12,620
to find Black people
and to find white people

641
00:32:12,700 --> 00:32:16,940
to bring them together into a band
that will become The Specials.

642
00:32:17,020 --> 00:32:20,460
He also grows the idea
of his own label

643
00:32:20,520 --> 00:32:22,980
and a home for other musicians

644
00:32:23,060 --> 00:32:27,860
and he'll bring that sense
of the cooperative into two-tone.

645
00:32:27,920 --> 00:32:31,980


646
00:32:33,620 --> 00:32:39,100
Yeah, the birth of two-tone
is Gangsters in the spring of 1979.

647
00:32:42,640 --> 00:32:44,460
We recorded, um, Gangsters.

648
00:32:44,520 --> 00:32:47,500
We had £500 to make the record

649
00:32:47,560 --> 00:32:48,740
and we, you know...

650
00:32:48,800 --> 00:32:49,940
We just ran out of funds!

651
00:32:50,000 --> 00:32:51,580
A nice piece of mohair!

652
00:32:52,840 --> 00:32:54,700
(LAUGHTER)

653
00:32:54,780 --> 00:32:58,020
It was only by luck
that The Specials...

654
00:32:58,100 --> 00:33:00,940
They ran out of money
when they were making Gangsters

655
00:33:01,020 --> 00:33:03,180
and didn't have enough money
for the B-side

656
00:33:03,240 --> 00:33:06,060
so rang up Neol Davies and said,

657
00:33:06,160 --> 00:33:10,300
"Haven't you got a track
that's sitting around
on somebody's shelf at the moment

658
00:33:10,380 --> 00:33:12,980
that you recorded two years ago
called Kingston Affair?

659
00:33:13,060 --> 00:33:14,940
Do you fancy
putting it on the other side?

660
00:33:15,000 --> 00:33:16,580
Let's rename it The Selecter!"

661
00:33:16,660 --> 00:33:19,860
So, Jerry asked Neol
to put a ska beat on that track

662
00:33:19,920 --> 00:33:21,740
and that's basically what happened!

663
00:33:21,800 --> 00:33:26,500
(SKA BEAT)

664
00:33:26,580 --> 00:33:29,460
The first single,
The Selecter versus The Specials.

665
00:33:29,540 --> 00:33:31,820
Unique record,
two bands on one record.

666
00:33:33,420 --> 00:33:36,140
Out it went,
started climbing the charts...

667
00:33:36,220 --> 00:33:39,100
And of course
that then made Neol Davies think,

668
00:33:39,160 --> 00:33:41,140
"Well, I should get a band together

669
00:33:41,220 --> 00:33:43,140
because maybe we can
do something here!"

670
00:33:43,200 --> 00:33:45,900
(REGGAE BEAT)

671
00:33:45,980 --> 00:33:48,900
I remember that we had a meeting
at Charley's house.

672
00:33:48,980 --> 00:33:52,140
Yeah, Jerry Dammers
with Lynval Golding says,

673
00:33:52,220 --> 00:33:56,740
"You have to change your name
from Hard Top 22 to The Selecter."

674
00:33:56,820 --> 00:33:59,060
They told us
they'd like Pauline to join

675
00:33:59,120 --> 00:34:00,620
and also Neol Davies.

676
00:34:00,700 --> 00:34:03,180
Neol, apart from being
an excellent songwriter,

677
00:34:03,240 --> 00:34:05,660
his guitar had a unique sound.

678
00:34:05,720 --> 00:34:06,940
We thought, "Great!

679
00:34:07,020 --> 00:34:09,740
We can have, like,
reggae-based music

680
00:34:09,800 --> 00:34:13,180
with a rock guitar going over it!"

681
00:34:13,240 --> 00:34:14,900
And we became The Selecter!

682
00:34:14,960 --> 00:34:19,220


683
00:34:19,300 --> 00:34:22,900
In 1979, The Selecter
officially formed.

684
00:34:22,960 --> 00:34:25,260
I had no idea at the time

685
00:34:25,340 --> 00:34:28,860
that two-tone
would change EVERYTHING for me!

686
00:34:28,920 --> 00:34:31,740


687
00:34:32,080 --> 00:34:34,740


688
00:34:35,760 --> 00:34:37,620
I came into this from a...

689
00:34:37,700 --> 00:34:40,380
I suppose, a folk,
bluesy sort of background,

690
00:34:40,440 --> 00:34:41,660
what I was doing,

691
00:34:41,740 --> 00:34:46,100
and, um, the others came in
from sort of a reggae background.

692
00:34:46,180 --> 00:34:50,100
We have, um, the old ska rhythm
and we have reggae.

693
00:34:50,540 --> 00:34:53,220
We have blues
and there's a bit of funk

694
00:34:53,300 --> 00:34:57,180
and of course we have ja Neol
playin' his rock!

695
00:34:57,240 --> 00:34:58,220
Pow!

696
00:34:58,280 --> 00:34:59,620
(LAUGHTER)

697
00:34:59,700 --> 00:35:02,180
The Selecter is made up
of seven members.

698
00:35:02,240 --> 00:35:04,820
Six are Black, one guy is white

699
00:35:04,900 --> 00:35:08,300
and the lead singer
is, uh, of mixed heritage.

700
00:35:08,360 --> 00:35:09,460
When we're onstage,

701
00:35:09,540 --> 00:35:11,580
all we put out, really,
is sort of our music

702
00:35:11,640 --> 00:35:13,540
and the basic feelings behind it

703
00:35:13,620 --> 00:35:15,940
and we can't play
unless we move at the same time.

704
00:35:16,000 --> 00:35:17,220
I just remember thinking,

705
00:35:17,280 --> 00:35:19,220
"Well, half of me is Black,

706
00:35:19,280 --> 00:35:21,380
half of me is white...

707
00:35:21,440 --> 00:35:23,300
This is a perfect fit for me!

708
00:35:23,380 --> 00:35:27,740
I feel as though I can go into this
and it will have some substance!"

709
00:35:30,260 --> 00:35:32,580
Jerry had the vision
to get it together

710
00:35:32,640 --> 00:35:35,980
and some sort of business acumen.

711
00:35:36,040 --> 00:35:37,220
We knew this was a chance!

712
00:35:37,320 --> 00:35:40,700
I mean, yeah, we were Black people,
for goodness' sake!
Yeah!

713
00:35:40,800 --> 00:35:43,580
This wasn't
gonna come knocking again
without Jerry Dammers

714
00:35:43,640 --> 00:35:45,220
and toeing that whole line.

715
00:35:45,320 --> 00:35:50,700
We knew that unless
you've got somebody white
who's handling the business

716
00:35:50,780 --> 00:35:53,940
then you'd
hardly get anywhere as Black...

717
00:35:54,000 --> 00:35:55,340
A Black unit.

718
00:35:55,420 --> 00:35:58,260
So, we were, um,
more than happy to take that route.

719
00:36:01,140 --> 00:36:03,900
My identity at that time
was a woman

720
00:36:03,980 --> 00:36:05,980
who worked
in the National Health Service.

721
00:36:06,040 --> 00:36:07,220
I mean, that's what I did.

722
00:36:07,300 --> 00:36:09,780
I was still trying
to hold down a job

723
00:36:09,860 --> 00:36:13,980
with the possibility of promotion
as well to senior radiographer,

724
00:36:14,060 --> 00:36:16,620
knowing that actually
I wanted to do something else!

725
00:36:19,700 --> 00:36:22,860
I'd played in front of people,
50 at most.

726
00:36:22,920 --> 00:36:24,700
I didn't have any confidence.

727
00:36:24,780 --> 00:36:26,980
We just had to learn
very, very quickly

728
00:36:27,040 --> 00:36:29,140
and we had to write from day one.

729
00:36:32,200 --> 00:36:34,180
We started supporting The Specials

730
00:36:34,260 --> 00:36:37,300
and then we went out
and did little dates of our own.

731
00:36:37,380 --> 00:36:40,820
Then we got about £1,000
from Jerry Dammers

732
00:36:40,880 --> 00:36:42,780
to go and record three songs.

733
00:36:42,840 --> 00:36:43,900
That's right, yeah.

734
00:36:43,960 --> 00:36:44,940


735
00:36:46,280 --> 00:36:47,540


736
00:36:49,360 --> 00:36:50,340


737
00:36:52,640 --> 00:36:53,860


738
00:36:55,820 --> 00:36:58,540
When I went in the studio,
I'd never been in a studio before!

739
00:36:58,600 --> 00:37:00,700


740
00:37:00,780 --> 00:37:02,940
Pauline would write a song
and she would go,

741
00:37:03,000 --> 00:37:04,340
"That's your part

742
00:37:04,420 --> 00:37:06,860
and you've got to find
the lyrics for that!"

743
00:37:06,920 --> 00:37:07,980
The first time I did it,

744
00:37:08,040 --> 00:37:09,700
Pauline was quite pleased about it

745
00:37:09,760 --> 00:37:10,740
and so was I!

746
00:37:10,800 --> 00:37:12,340
So, that was very encouraging.

747
00:37:12,440 --> 00:37:16,780
Pauline, she would question things
that she's not comfortable about
in my lyrics

748
00:37:16,840 --> 00:37:18,740
and then she would suggest...

749
00:37:18,800 --> 00:37:20,340
It just got easier and easier.

750
00:37:21,200 --> 00:37:22,540


751
00:37:24,520 --> 00:37:25,780


752
00:37:27,760 --> 00:37:29,020


753
00:37:30,100 --> 00:37:34,060
And then the record companies
were kind of after us, weren't they?

754
00:37:34,120 --> 00:37:43,560
Yeah.

755
00:37:43,560 --> 00:37:44,860
This is Pioneer House.

756
00:37:44,920 --> 00:37:46,620
This is where I used to live.

757
00:37:46,680 --> 00:37:48,460
It was very hard to get work.

758
00:37:50,000 --> 00:37:51,740
You know, there would be jobs there

759
00:37:51,820 --> 00:37:53,900
and there would be
all kind of excuses

760
00:37:53,960 --> 00:37:55,580
why they wouldn't give you the job.

761
00:37:55,660 --> 00:37:57,860
And you know that
there was only one reason

762
00:37:57,940 --> 00:37:59,940
but there's nothing
you can do about it!

763
00:38:01,920 --> 00:38:04,380
It started out as a hobby, really.

764
00:38:04,460 --> 00:38:07,340
Charley and other members
of Hard Top 22,

765
00:38:07,440 --> 00:38:12,820
we all used to congregate in my flat
and listen to different music,
you know?

766
00:38:12,900 --> 00:38:14,860
And then you guys
would hang out here a bit

767
00:38:14,920 --> 00:38:16,860
and do stuff as well for Selecter?

768
00:38:16,940 --> 00:38:20,140
Yeah... I mean, in the early days
of The Selecter, yeah.

769
00:38:20,220 --> 00:38:23,940
And just down there,
we used to have, like, a green...

770
00:38:24,000 --> 00:38:25,540
We used to call it The Green.

771
00:38:25,620 --> 00:38:27,820
That's where we used to have
sound systems

772
00:38:27,900 --> 00:38:29,660
and everybody
on a hot summer's day...

773
00:38:29,740 --> 00:38:33,260
Everybody used to congregate
down there and have a good time.

774
00:38:33,340 --> 00:38:36,860
And just down there is when...
It's the first time I met Pauline.

775
00:38:36,920 --> 00:38:38,500
The rest of it is history!

776
00:38:44,940 --> 00:38:47,020
Still pretty much the same!
Yeah!

777
00:38:47,100 --> 00:38:49,300
It's still pretty much the same
as I remember!

778
00:38:49,400 --> 00:38:52,380
And as you can see,
it's very, very busy, isn't it?
Yeah.

779
00:38:52,460 --> 00:38:55,140
And very multicultural,
the way that it always used to be.

780
00:38:55,240 --> 00:39:00,580
I mean, this used to be THE place
if you wanted to meet people
from other places!

781
00:39:01,720 --> 00:39:05,380
Well, yeah... It's all good!

782
00:39:07,080 --> 00:39:08,860


783
00:39:08,920 --> 00:39:10,220
At first, it was On My Radio,

784
00:39:10,280 --> 00:39:12,060
which was written by Neol Davies.

785
00:39:12,800 --> 00:39:16,140


786
00:39:16,200 --> 00:39:17,620


787
00:39:17,680 --> 00:39:19,580
All musicians want to be famous!

788
00:39:19,680 --> 00:39:22,780
Basically, you just wanna be
on Top of the Pops in those days?
Yeah!

789
00:39:22,860 --> 00:39:25,820

but he loved the beat

790
00:39:27,400 --> 00:39:31,820
If you got on Top of the Pops,
that meant you had made it!
Yeah, that's it!

791
00:39:31,900 --> 00:39:34,540
And within about a month of that,
we were on Top of the Pops!

792
00:39:35,320 --> 00:39:38,100


793
00:39:38,780 --> 00:39:41,540

a-go-go, a-go-go

794
00:39:41,620 --> 00:39:45,020

down in the streets

795
00:39:46,100 --> 00:39:48,780
I was always conscious
of the fact that I was Black

796
00:39:48,840 --> 00:39:50,500
and that I was a woman

797
00:39:50,560 --> 00:39:51,620
and that...

798
00:39:51,680 --> 00:39:53,100
You HAD to be conscious of it!

799
00:39:53,200 --> 00:39:55,900
We were playing to white people,
in the main!
Mmm, yeah!

800
00:39:55,960 --> 00:39:56,940


801
00:39:57,020 --> 00:39:59,700

on my radio!

802
00:39:59,780 --> 00:40:02,580
Black and white musicians
playing together...

803
00:40:02,660 --> 00:40:05,260
It wasn't like we were the first lot
who did that

804
00:40:05,320 --> 00:40:07,940
but somehow we did it,

805
00:40:08,000 --> 00:40:10,540
putting the social aspect of it

806
00:40:10,620 --> 00:40:13,820
and the political aspect of it, um,
to the forefront.

807
00:40:14,520 --> 00:40:15,740


808
00:40:17,440 --> 00:40:19,060


809
00:40:20,260 --> 00:40:23,060
I suppose, because of the way
that we performed onstage,

810
00:40:23,140 --> 00:40:26,420
people thought
we were just perennially angry!

811
00:40:26,500 --> 00:40:28,300
Um, and there was a lot
to be angry about!

812
00:40:28,360 --> 00:40:29,420


813
00:40:29,480 --> 00:40:31,380


814
00:40:32,220 --> 00:40:36,060
Britain in the '70s
was a social battleground,

815
00:40:36,120 --> 00:40:38,020
endless marches,

816
00:40:38,100 --> 00:40:40,900
an increasingly popular
National Front

817
00:40:40,980 --> 00:40:44,780
meeting in opposition
the Anti-Nazi League

818
00:40:44,880 --> 00:40:49,900
and a generation
who wanted to stand against
a right-wing organisation

819
00:40:50,000 --> 00:40:55,900
and Margaret Thatcher
spoke of the fear of being swamped
of people from another culture

820
00:40:55,980 --> 00:40:58,980
to bring National Front support
to the Conservative Party.

821
00:41:02,020 --> 00:41:04,700
Skinheads go around here now
fighting the rude boys.

822
00:41:04,800 --> 00:41:08,620
They didn't have to fight
unless there was something
to fight about.

823
00:41:08,700 --> 00:41:11,820
Coventry was an industrial city
with all the factories,

824
00:41:11,880 --> 00:41:13,020
everything there,

825
00:41:13,100 --> 00:41:15,940
but it also was
a very, very violent city as well.

826
00:41:16,020 --> 00:41:18,060
You go into town and, man,
somebody...

827
00:41:18,140 --> 00:41:21,060
You've gotta fight your way through.
It was really horrible.

828
00:41:21,140 --> 00:41:25,300
I mean, I got chased at night
and I got beaten up in Foleshill.

829
00:41:25,380 --> 00:41:27,900
I got stabbed.
That was a racist attack.

830
00:41:31,140 --> 00:41:32,860
Saturday night
was a battlefield.

831
00:41:32,940 --> 00:41:35,860
It was not only a battlefield
in terms of coming from the station

832
00:41:35,940 --> 00:41:37,780
to get to someone's home
or to get to a gig

833
00:41:37,860 --> 00:41:40,820
but sometimes it was a battlefield
in the gig itself!

834
00:41:40,880 --> 00:41:44,020
(REGGAE BEAT OVER COMMOTION)

835
00:41:44,100 --> 00:41:47,220
Where there is discord,
may we bring harmony.

836
00:41:47,900 --> 00:41:50,620
Where there is error,
may we bring truth.

837
00:41:50,700 --> 00:41:53,860
Where there is doubt,
may we bring faith.

838
00:41:56,920 --> 00:41:58,940
What did we get in 1979?

839
00:41:59,020 --> 00:42:01,820
A Conservative government
with a brief

840
00:42:01,900 --> 00:42:04,300
which was basically
to bust up the trade unions.

841
00:42:04,400 --> 00:42:07,820
It started with the miners first
and all of those things
that unravelled.

842
00:42:07,880 --> 00:42:09,460
We were at the start of that.

843
00:42:12,980 --> 00:42:14,940
There were still sus laws
on the street,

844
00:42:15,020 --> 00:42:17,140
so you could be picked up
if you were Black, um,

845
00:42:17,200 --> 00:42:18,980
and hustled off down the cop shop.

846
00:42:21,420 --> 00:42:24,620
And when you get stopped
by the cops EVERY single week,

847
00:42:24,700 --> 00:42:27,060
which used to happen
under this sus law,

848
00:42:27,120 --> 00:42:28,460
you know...

849
00:42:28,540 --> 00:42:30,460
It made me kind of
militant and political

850
00:42:30,520 --> 00:42:32,420
and I was forced to get proactive

851
00:42:32,500 --> 00:42:34,700
but it was because of the way
I was treated

852
00:42:34,800 --> 00:42:37,940
and I couldn't switch off
and then, you know,
become something else.

853
00:42:38,000 --> 00:42:39,220
I was ALWAYS Black!

854
00:42:41,500 --> 00:42:43,780
For Caribbeans,
Thatcher was the enemy.

855
00:42:43,860 --> 00:42:46,740
She was creating policies
that broke up families.

856
00:42:46,820 --> 00:42:49,340
It was the miners' strikes,
it was all kinds of strikes.

857
00:42:49,420 --> 00:42:51,140
People were being fired
at the time.

858
00:42:51,220 --> 00:42:53,060
If you fell into
the Black community,

859
00:42:53,120 --> 00:42:55,580
you were the first to lose your job.

860
00:42:55,660 --> 00:42:57,780
So, people were losing
their houses.

861
00:42:57,840 --> 00:43:00,100
This finds its way into your music.

862
00:43:00,160 --> 00:43:04,260


863
00:43:06,440 --> 00:43:08,580


864
00:43:09,760 --> 00:43:11,380
You know, there is unemployment,

865
00:43:11,460 --> 00:43:14,460
so we do a song which is
every day things are getting worse,

866
00:43:14,520 --> 00:43:16,100
you know, dog and all a look work,

867
00:43:16,180 --> 00:43:18,860
you know, which is sort of
a Jamaican expression for...

868
00:43:18,940 --> 00:43:20,940
You know,
there's just no damn work at all.

869
00:43:21,020 --> 00:43:23,020
So, everyone's just gotta go out,
you know?

870
00:43:23,100 --> 00:43:25,660
And, um, we've got another one,
Danger,

871
00:43:25,740 --> 00:43:30,380
which I suppose sort of applies
to the sus laws

872
00:43:30,440 --> 00:43:32,140
and things like that, you know?

873
00:43:32,780 --> 00:43:37,020

when the red light's shining bright

874
00:43:39,240 --> 00:43:41,420


875
00:43:42,300 --> 00:43:44,180

a terrible fight!

876
00:43:44,280 --> 00:43:48,380
The people who come to see us
are not so far removed
from what our beginnings were

877
00:43:48,440 --> 00:43:50,140
sort of, you know, six months ago.

878
00:43:50,240 --> 00:43:54,060
All we're doing is just sort of
placing their life
in some kind of perspective,

879
00:43:54,160 --> 00:43:56,620
you know,
just sort of setting it to music,
if you like,

880
00:43:56,700 --> 00:43:59,580
in sort of the songs we have,
like Street Feeling or Danger,

881
00:43:59,640 --> 00:44:01,180
and things like that, you know?

882
00:44:01,260 --> 00:44:04,060
And so they can directly relate
to the music you're playing.

883
00:44:04,120 --> 00:44:06,300


884
00:44:07,720 --> 00:44:09,180


885
00:44:10,300 --> 00:44:14,940

I don't wanna care!

886
00:44:15,440 --> 00:44:18,940
Our music isn't for sort of
banging your head against a wall,
you know?

887
00:44:19,020 --> 00:44:22,660
It's for actually THINKING about
what's going on around you

888
00:44:22,740 --> 00:44:25,060
and hopefully
doing something about it.

889
00:44:25,120 --> 00:44:26,820


890
00:44:28,200 --> 00:44:30,780
It's all musical reportage.

891
00:44:30,840 --> 00:44:32,460
It's all social commentary.

892
00:44:32,520 --> 00:44:33,980


893
00:44:34,040 --> 00:44:35,300


894
00:44:36,740 --> 00:44:39,780
I was a bit of a force of nature
when I was younger

895
00:44:39,860 --> 00:44:43,020
and it was like no one
was really going to challenge me

896
00:44:43,080 --> 00:44:44,380
and nobody ever did!

897
00:44:44,440 --> 00:44:46,300


898
00:44:47,400 --> 00:44:49,780


899
00:44:51,140 --> 00:44:53,940
When she walks into the room,
you know it's Pauline.

900
00:44:54,020 --> 00:44:56,140
She stood out
because she was strong,

901
00:44:56,200 --> 00:44:58,940
very bright, very intelligent

902
00:44:59,020 --> 00:45:01,420
and dealing with a bunch of guys,
you know!

903
00:45:01,480 --> 00:45:03,540
She was just perfect for that role!

904
00:45:03,620 --> 00:45:06,580
Any other girls, they wouldn't
have been able to cope with it!

905
00:45:06,640 --> 00:45:09,100


906
00:45:09,160 --> 00:45:11,780


907
00:45:11,860 --> 00:45:14,820
I can certainly remember
the first time I saw her.

908
00:45:14,880 --> 00:45:16,260
It was probably on the telly

909
00:45:16,340 --> 00:45:19,140
and I was knocked out 'cause she had
this kind of androgynous,

910
00:45:19,200 --> 00:45:21,220
rude boy-girl thing going on!

911
00:45:21,300 --> 00:45:23,460
She rocked a fedora
like no one else

912
00:45:23,540 --> 00:45:27,060
and the lyrical content
of what she was saying...

913
00:45:27,600 --> 00:45:29,220


914
00:45:29,280 --> 00:45:30,660
Spoke to me in volumes!

915
00:45:30,720 --> 00:45:32,820


916
00:45:34,080 --> 00:45:35,540


917
00:45:35,600 --> 00:45:37,460
Pauline is the first rude girl.

918
00:45:37,540 --> 00:45:39,940

can't think straight

919
00:45:40,000 --> 00:45:41,540


920
00:45:42,220 --> 00:45:45,820
Pauline Black onstage
is nothing short of magnificent.

921
00:45:45,900 --> 00:45:50,620
A front person taking on
six male behind her

922
00:45:50,700 --> 00:45:55,540
and taking it to the audience
with an incredibly powerful vocal

923
00:45:55,620 --> 00:45:59,740
that she takes up in registers
at different points, you know...

924
00:45:59,800 --> 00:46:02,300
Countering what Gaps is saying.

925
00:46:02,380 --> 00:46:07,540

I would fly away

926
00:46:08,260 --> 00:46:11,220
She has a unique
and a brilliant, magical voice.

927
00:46:11,300 --> 00:46:13,220
You recognise it's her
straight away.

928
00:46:13,300 --> 00:46:15,140
And also,
it's her singing out of here,

929
00:46:15,220 --> 00:46:16,980
not just here,
it's coming out of here.

930
00:46:17,040 --> 00:46:18,340


931
00:46:20,000 --> 00:46:23,260
Her upbringing and her heritage

932
00:46:23,340 --> 00:46:27,100
has been a very important part
of forming what she's all about

933
00:46:27,180 --> 00:46:30,340
and that's why her voice,
it has this strength in it.

934
00:46:30,420 --> 00:46:32,620
I won't use the word anger,
but power.

935
00:46:32,700 --> 00:46:35,500
An artist
responding to their situation.

936
00:46:35,580 --> 00:46:37,940

I'm not a fool

937
00:46:38,840 --> 00:46:41,420


938
00:46:41,500 --> 00:46:44,820
You can't keep your eyes off her
because she's from left to right

939
00:46:44,880 --> 00:46:45,860
to left to right,

940
00:46:45,920 --> 00:46:48,820
dancing, always smiling!

941
00:46:48,880 --> 00:46:52,620
She EXUDES confidence and warmness,

942
00:46:52,680 --> 00:46:55,540
you want to be part of her gang!

943
00:46:55,620 --> 00:46:58,460

and take me away...

944
00:46:59,220 --> 00:47:02,260
The music we listened to
and the clothes we wore

945
00:47:02,340 --> 00:47:04,820
were the only means
of empowerment,

946
00:47:04,900 --> 00:47:08,300
having any kind of, um, identity
and finding your tribe.

947
00:47:08,380 --> 00:47:10,660
So, they became crucial
to our lives.

948
00:47:10,740 --> 00:47:13,700
And again, you know,
we turned that shit into an art form

949
00:47:13,780 --> 00:47:17,900
and two-tone is a prime example
of that stuff working in harmony.

950
00:47:17,980 --> 00:47:20,260
You can't underestimate
that combination,

951
00:47:20,320 --> 00:47:21,300
style and music,

952
00:47:21,360 --> 00:47:22,420
for the working class!

953
00:47:22,480 --> 00:47:23,460
It's all we got!

954
00:47:23,520 --> 00:47:26,580


955
00:47:26,660 --> 00:47:29,420
The influence of clothing
on two-tone

956
00:47:29,500 --> 00:47:34,460
was a direct result of people
coming from the Caribbean Islands.

957
00:47:34,520 --> 00:47:36,340


958
00:47:37,100 --> 00:47:40,740
The whole Walt Jabsco look
definitely came from Jerry.

959
00:47:40,820 --> 00:47:43,180
What he was referencing was,
you know,

960
00:47:43,260 --> 00:47:46,100
the early blue beat rude boy look
from Jamaica.

961
00:47:46,160 --> 00:47:48,020
It is all about being sharp!

962
00:47:48,100 --> 00:47:50,140

that I was dumb

963
00:47:50,760 --> 00:47:54,540
But they could go down
to Far Gosford Street
in the centre of Coventry

964
00:47:54,620 --> 00:47:57,140
and find suits
that would make you look brilliant

965
00:47:57,220 --> 00:48:00,140
and then raised trousers
so you could see the sock line.

966
00:48:00,200 --> 00:48:01,700


967
00:48:01,760 --> 00:48:03,220
Pauline took that and thought,

968
00:48:03,300 --> 00:48:05,340
"Well, if it's good enough
for the guys

969
00:48:05,400 --> 00:48:07,540
then I am going to own that too

970
00:48:07,600 --> 00:48:09,500
and in many ways do it better!"

971
00:48:09,560 --> 00:48:12,220
(ATMOSPHERIC BEAT)

972
00:48:12,300 --> 00:48:15,300
Dressing in a suit
brought with it a certain power.

973
00:48:15,380 --> 00:48:17,580
Putting on a hat
added to that power

974
00:48:17,660 --> 00:48:20,940
but it also created questions
around sexuality.

975
00:48:23,060 --> 00:48:26,940
Pauline takes her identity
with her clothing

976
00:48:27,020 --> 00:48:30,740
to project
a certain androgynous portrayal.

977
00:48:32,580 --> 00:48:34,780
You've got the jacket.
You've got the trousers.

978
00:48:34,860 --> 00:48:37,420
People see that and they see it
as a very male silhouette

979
00:48:37,500 --> 00:48:40,100
and I think it has
an automatic authority about it.

980
00:48:40,160 --> 00:48:41,740
Look like a man,

981
00:48:41,820 --> 00:48:44,380
stand like a man,
own your space like a man!

982
00:48:45,460 --> 00:48:49,300
Pauline used society's own visuals
back at them

983
00:48:49,380 --> 00:48:52,060
so that she would then
be heard and not be dismissed.

984
00:48:52,120 --> 00:48:56,940


985
00:48:57,000 --> 00:48:58,780
I don't really think about gender.

986
00:48:58,860 --> 00:49:01,780
I don't really think of myself
as male or female or anything.

987
00:49:01,840 --> 00:49:03,020
I never really have done.

988
00:49:03,080 --> 00:49:04,460
In my head, I'm just me.

989
00:49:04,520 --> 00:49:06,900


990
00:49:06,960 --> 00:49:08,620
Always have a pair of loafers!

991
00:49:08,700 --> 00:49:11,460
Always have a pair
of brown Doc Martens!

992
00:49:11,540 --> 00:49:14,580
This is a hat
which has seen great service!

993
00:49:14,640 --> 00:49:17,980
I bought this in Argentina!

994
00:49:19,260 --> 00:49:22,780
If you need zhoosh
then I tend to go for that...

995
00:49:24,800 --> 00:49:25,780
That I do like!

996
00:49:26,440 --> 00:49:27,500
Black suit jacket...

997
00:49:30,340 --> 00:49:33,060
I like hidden buttons,
a hanky in the pocket.

998
00:49:38,180 --> 00:49:41,140
This, it's still
probably my favourite blouse!

999
00:49:41,220 --> 00:49:44,700
I bought that to go on
the first American tour we did.

1000
00:49:44,760 --> 00:49:46,580
That was bought in CandA!

1001
00:49:46,640 --> 00:49:47,660
(LAUGHS)

1002
00:49:48,280 --> 00:49:50,260
(BEAT CONTINUES AND FADES)

1003
00:49:52,100 --> 00:49:55,740
Pauline came across
like the first lady of two-tone!

1004
00:49:55,800 --> 00:49:57,780
She was fearless and had to be,

1005
00:49:57,880 --> 00:50:02,420
'cause back in those days
they got a very mixed reception
from a lot of her audiences

1006
00:50:02,520 --> 00:50:06,700
but she stood firm
and I think that's got a lot to do
with her upbringing.

1007
00:50:07,380 --> 00:50:10,940
Pauline was the only darky
in the village in Romford.

1008
00:50:11,000 --> 00:50:13,260
She was forced to be strong.

1009
00:50:13,340 --> 00:50:15,580
Because of the struggles
she went through,

1010
00:50:15,660 --> 00:50:19,340
that couldn't help
but inform the person she became.

1011
00:50:19,440 --> 00:50:24,260
Because there's a big gap between
Belinda Magnus
becoming Pauline Black

1012
00:50:24,320 --> 00:50:25,940
via Pauline Vickers.

1013
00:50:27,140 --> 00:50:30,620
As a confident,
powerful front person

1014
00:50:30,700 --> 00:50:33,380
leading this band
with hit singles,

1015
00:50:33,460 --> 00:50:37,540
I discover that she's somebody
that doesn't know who she is.

1016
00:50:37,600 --> 00:50:40,060
(SEARCHING BEAT)

1017
00:50:40,140 --> 00:50:44,540
She hasn't got an identity
that has been given to her

1018
00:50:44,600 --> 00:50:47,420
by a family that makes sense to her.

1019
00:50:48,060 --> 00:50:51,340
She's the wrong colour
in the wrong place

1020
00:50:51,400 --> 00:50:53,220
and things don't fit.

1021
00:50:56,720 --> 00:51:02,260
All these combinations
that would have felt
internally unsettling

1022
00:51:02,360 --> 00:51:06,780
to that incredible moment
when she's in the room
with Charley Anderson

1023
00:51:06,860 --> 00:51:08,980
and they're saying,
"What shall we call you?

1024
00:51:09,040 --> 00:51:10,100
What are you?

1025
00:51:10,160 --> 00:51:12,220
Pauline... Pauline, you're Black.

1026
00:51:12,280 --> 00:51:13,260
Black... Black!"

1027
00:51:13,340 --> 00:51:17,860
And Pauline literally shrieks,
"Black! That's what I am!"

1028
00:51:23,740 --> 00:51:26,140
I was always told,
"You're not Black!

1029
00:51:26,200 --> 00:51:27,300
You're coloured!"

1030
00:51:27,380 --> 00:51:32,420
So, the very first opportunity I had
to rename myself,

1031
00:51:32,500 --> 00:51:35,220
you know, it was almost like
getting rid of a slave name,

1032
00:51:35,280 --> 00:51:38,140
a real kind of rite of passage!

1033
00:51:38,220 --> 00:51:40,220
Using the word Black
as your surname,

1034
00:51:40,320 --> 00:51:44,700
I mean, that was just like
dropping a bomb into my family
and I've never really been forgiven.

1035
00:51:44,780 --> 00:51:47,340
Right, who here gets up
at 7:00 in the morning?

1036
00:51:47,400 --> 00:51:48,380
All: Yeah!

1037
00:51:48,440 --> 00:51:49,860
Do you work in factories?

1038
00:51:51,040 --> 00:51:52,740
Now she has an identity

1039
00:51:52,800 --> 00:51:54,140
and there's a strength

1040
00:51:54,220 --> 00:51:56,900
and I think a lot of that strength
is coming out of the fact

1041
00:51:56,980 --> 00:51:59,660
that she's saying
down the barrel of the lens,

1042
00:51:59,720 --> 00:52:02,260
"I am Black and I am Pauline Black!

1043
00:52:02,320 --> 00:52:03,540
Now, get a load of this!"

1044
00:52:03,620 --> 00:52:06,340

and you're on your way home

1045
00:52:06,420 --> 00:52:09,420

with that endless grey drone

1046
00:52:09,480 --> 00:52:12,420


1047
00:52:12,500 --> 00:52:15,700

I wanna be!

1048
00:52:15,760 --> 00:52:17,700
The marriage of style and music,

1049
00:52:17,780 --> 00:52:21,700
it was that that helped
push two-tone across the line

1050
00:52:21,780 --> 00:52:24,500
because all of a sudden
a lot of working class kids...

1051
00:52:24,560 --> 00:52:26,020
"Yeah, we can relate to that!"

1052
00:52:26,100 --> 00:52:29,740
You know, the punk thing, Mohawk,
safety pins and that, nah, nah, nah!

1053
00:52:29,800 --> 00:52:33,420


1054
00:52:33,480 --> 00:52:34,820
You had the energy of punk...

1055
00:52:36,280 --> 00:52:37,940
The danceability of reggae.

1056
00:52:38,000 --> 00:52:41,340


1057
00:52:41,420 --> 00:52:43,660
It was music for your mind
and your feet, man!

1058
00:52:43,720 --> 00:52:45,380
And it was ABSOLUTELY huge!

1059
00:52:45,460 --> 00:52:49,260
I don't think people realise
how big a movement two-tone was!

1060
00:52:49,320 --> 00:52:51,380
This is a two-tone takeover tonight!

1061
00:52:51,480 --> 00:52:54,100
If you've got
any colour television sets,
get rid of them!

1062
00:52:54,160 --> 00:52:56,340
Pure black and white! I'm Pauline!

1063
00:52:56,400 --> 00:52:58,060
And I'm James! I mean, Gaps!

1064
00:52:58,140 --> 00:53:00,180
(LAUGHTER)
This is the rest of The Selecter!

1065
00:53:00,240 --> 00:53:04,900
(ATMOSPHERIC BEAT)

1066
00:53:04,980 --> 00:53:07,660
What's really incredible
about two-tone,

1067
00:53:07,720 --> 00:53:09,780
by the summer of 1980,

1068
00:53:09,860 --> 00:53:14,420
two-tone has proved that it is more
commercially successful than punk.

1069
00:53:14,480 --> 00:53:16,140
It has number one records.

1070
00:53:16,220 --> 00:53:18,820
It's selling singles
in the quarter a million,

1071
00:53:18,880 --> 00:53:19,860
half a million.

1072
00:53:19,920 --> 00:53:22,020
These are ENORMOUS sales.

1073
00:53:22,100 --> 00:53:24,860
They're on Top of the Pops.
They're in the top ten.

1074
00:53:24,940 --> 00:53:27,860
These are things you couldn't say
about The Clash, for example,

1075
00:53:27,920 --> 00:53:29,140
or maybe even The Pistols.

1076
00:53:29,220 --> 00:53:31,460

just the way I want

1077
00:53:31,540 --> 00:53:34,020

by the National Front

1078
00:53:34,840 --> 00:53:36,740


1079
00:53:36,800 --> 00:53:38,500


1080
00:53:39,320 --> 00:53:43,580
I was just the right age when
it all kind of started to happen
for two-tone bands.

1081
00:53:43,660 --> 00:53:46,340
They were the best bands
on the Top of the Pops.

1082
00:53:46,400 --> 00:53:47,500
I absolutely loved 'em.

1083
00:53:47,560 --> 00:53:50,340
The shoes, the shirts, the haircuts,

1084
00:53:50,400 --> 00:53:52,460
the music, the imagery...

1085
00:53:52,540 --> 00:53:56,780
I had endless kind of sort of
copies of their logos and stuff

1086
00:53:56,840 --> 00:53:58,540
on my schoolbooks!

1087
00:53:58,620 --> 00:54:01,060
These bands
were incredibly important to me.

1088
00:54:01,140 --> 00:54:03,460
That was...
Yeah, that was the future.

1089
00:54:03,540 --> 00:54:07,300

when I told you all that stuff

1090
00:54:07,360 --> 00:54:10,380


1091
00:54:10,460 --> 00:54:12,980
Two-tone was a thing,
it was a movement.

1092
00:54:13,060 --> 00:54:17,500
Suddenly, it was like we just
came along from absolutely nowhere,

1093
00:54:17,560 --> 00:54:19,060
seemingly to them,

1094
00:54:19,140 --> 00:54:22,220
and we were just there,
invading Top of the Pops!

1095
00:54:22,280 --> 00:54:24,220
And it was a progressive movement!

1096
00:54:24,280 --> 00:54:26,380
We made people talk about racism,

1097
00:54:26,440 --> 00:54:27,500
we made people...

1098
00:54:27,580 --> 00:54:30,460
Well, I made people
talk about sexism

1099
00:54:30,520 --> 00:54:32,060
or how Black women fitted into...

1100
00:54:32,120 --> 00:54:33,100
Into society.

1101
00:54:34,880 --> 00:54:36,620


1102
00:54:38,200 --> 00:54:40,220


1103
00:54:40,280 --> 00:54:42,300
Two-tone was very important to me

1104
00:54:42,380 --> 00:54:45,500
because I was raised
in a reggae household,

1105
00:54:45,580 --> 00:54:47,820
so, shall
that was the music of my childhood.

1106
00:54:48,680 --> 00:54:51,020


1107
00:54:51,100 --> 00:54:53,180

missing words

1108
00:54:53,260 --> 00:54:58,820
And then here comes this music
that's very, very familiar

1109
00:54:58,900 --> 00:55:02,380
but there's this angsty
kind of punky attitude to it

1110
00:55:02,460 --> 00:55:05,140
and I was very attracted
to the energy.

1111
00:55:05,220 --> 00:55:08,260

the way you did

1112
00:55:08,340 --> 00:55:12,340
Then comes Pauline Black along
with, like, a trilby and a suit

1113
00:55:12,420 --> 00:55:15,780
and it blew my mind
because she was Black!

1114
00:55:15,840 --> 00:55:16,900
And I hadn't...

1115
00:55:16,980 --> 00:55:21,100
I hadn't seen a Black woman
dress like that, attitude like that

1116
00:55:21,160 --> 00:55:22,260
or be like that.

1117
00:55:22,340 --> 00:55:24,380
You know,
I wanted to be Pauline Black!

1118
00:55:24,440 --> 00:55:28,340
(ATMOSPHERIC BEAT)

1119
00:55:28,420 --> 00:55:30,420
At the height
of my Selecter success,

1120
00:55:30,480 --> 00:55:32,860
NME invited me to a photoshoot

1121
00:55:32,940 --> 00:55:35,300
celebrating women
in punk and new wave

1122
00:55:35,360 --> 00:55:38,380
featuring Debbie Harry from Blondie,

1123
00:55:38,440 --> 00:55:40,940
Poly Styrene from X-Ray Spex,

1124
00:55:41,000 --> 00:55:43,100
Chrissie Hynde from The Pretenders,

1125
00:55:43,160 --> 00:55:45,020
Viv Albertine from The Slits

1126
00:55:45,080 --> 00:55:46,380
and Siouxsie Sioux.

1127
00:55:47,200 --> 00:55:49,940
The infamous tea party photo!

1128
00:55:50,000 --> 00:55:51,420
Or The Rock Goddesses,

1129
00:55:51,500 --> 00:55:54,060
as it was called at the time
for the NME!

1130
00:55:54,140 --> 00:55:57,060
You've got these kind of
glamorous white kind of rock chicks,

1131
00:55:57,120 --> 00:55:58,300
Chrissie and Debbie,

1132
00:55:58,360 --> 00:56:00,060
who absolutely owned it

1133
00:56:00,140 --> 00:56:02,940
and were very confident
in their role in that.

1134
00:56:03,000 --> 00:56:05,020
And if you look at the photo,

1135
00:56:05,100 --> 00:56:07,780
you've got Pauline
and Poly Styrene,

1136
00:56:07,860 --> 00:56:09,900
both of them
looking a bit uncomfortable.

1137
00:56:09,960 --> 00:56:11,860
(EMOTIONAL MUSIC)

1138
00:56:11,940 --> 00:56:14,700
When you're two Black women
and certainly mixed race women

1139
00:56:14,780 --> 00:56:18,260
in a room with a whole load
of other white ladies

1140
00:56:18,340 --> 00:56:20,540
and one of them
happens to be Debbie Harry

1141
00:56:20,600 --> 00:56:22,940
it's intimidating for anybody!

1142
00:56:23,020 --> 00:56:25,660
Chrissie Hynde absolutely
dominated the conversation!

1143
00:56:25,720 --> 00:56:26,820
I can't speak for Poly,

1144
00:56:26,920 --> 00:56:30,460
but I can see
from the expression on her face
we knew what was going down!

1145
00:56:31,260 --> 00:56:34,620
I just felt that life
was so much easier for them.

1146
00:56:34,680 --> 00:56:37,580
Somehow, they were MUCH more open,

1147
00:56:37,660 --> 00:56:40,180
MUCH more talkative
between each other.

1148
00:56:42,780 --> 00:56:44,900
You're looking at people who,
on occasions,

1149
00:56:44,960 --> 00:56:46,660
you'll feel had an easier life.

1150
00:56:46,740 --> 00:56:49,540
No matter how difficult
it is in the music industry,

1151
00:56:49,600 --> 00:56:51,700
they had opportunities I didn't.

1152
00:56:51,760 --> 00:56:54,180
I'm not equal... Why?

1153
00:56:55,000 --> 00:56:56,220
And will this ever change?

1154
00:56:56,300 --> 00:56:58,060
I wanna be here
but I'm uncomfortable.

1155
00:56:58,140 --> 00:57:00,020
I don't wanna leave
but I need to be here.

1156
00:57:00,080 --> 00:57:01,860
It's... It's a paradox.

1157
00:57:04,500 --> 00:57:07,900
Pauline, you can tell just
wasn't sure about being part of it

1158
00:57:07,980 --> 00:57:12,260
and she did not understand
or recognise her own power

1159
00:57:12,340 --> 00:57:16,100
and her own importance
and her own place in that pantheon.

1160
00:57:16,720 --> 00:57:18,140
The insecurity was there

1161
00:57:18,240 --> 00:57:21,820
and I don't think
she ever understood
how incredibly attractive she was!

1162
00:57:24,260 --> 00:57:27,220
You have a vague
imposter syndrome thing going on.

1163
00:57:27,280 --> 00:57:28,940
Should I really be here?

1164
00:57:29,020 --> 00:57:31,180
Because these are people
I've seen on TV

1165
00:57:31,240 --> 00:57:32,700
and stuff like that.

1166
00:57:32,780 --> 00:57:35,500
And that's always how it felt
when I was growing up...

1167
00:57:35,580 --> 00:57:38,350
Like, should I be here?
I don't know!

1168
00:57:38,350 --> 00:57:44,260
(SEARCHING MUSIC)

1169
00:57:44,320 --> 00:57:45,460
and I didn't know

1170
00:57:45,540 --> 00:57:49,100
that she used to keep it
until after she died.

1171
00:57:50,100 --> 00:57:52,020
I think she was quite proud
of what I'd done

1172
00:57:52,100 --> 00:57:54,780
because she put it all
in Sainsbury's carrier bags

1173
00:57:54,860 --> 00:57:57,620
and if she went to a wedding
or a funeral or anything like that

1174
00:57:57,700 --> 00:57:59,620
she'd carry them with her
and take them out

1175
00:57:59,700 --> 00:58:01,860
and show people and say,
"This is my daughter!"

1176
00:58:05,620 --> 00:58:09,060
If anything, that showed
how much things had moved on,

1177
00:58:09,160 --> 00:58:12,580
that my mother could now
actually embrace
something like that.

1178
00:58:12,640 --> 00:58:16,340
(REGGAE BEAT)

1179
00:58:16,400 --> 00:58:17,380
Hello!

1180
00:58:17,440 --> 00:58:19,980
(LAUGHTER)

1181
00:58:22,260 --> 00:58:24,100
How the devil are you, madam?
All right!

1182
00:58:24,180 --> 00:58:27,100
I was just passing!
I bet you were!

1183
00:58:27,180 --> 00:58:30,220
You're always just passing
in the obscure hotel corridors!

1184
00:58:30,280 --> 00:58:31,620
(LAUGHING)

1185
00:58:31,680 --> 00:58:33,020
So, when did we first meet?

1186
00:58:33,120 --> 00:58:36,340
It was The Bodysnatchers'
second ever gig.
Right.

1187
00:58:36,420 --> 00:58:39,260
At the Windsor Castle
up Harrow Road.

1188
00:58:39,320 --> 00:58:41,940
You came with Juliet and Jerry

1189
00:58:42,020 --> 00:58:44,860
and we were looking for a band
to come on tour with us.

1190
00:58:44,940 --> 00:58:48,340
But my main overriding
kind of recollection...

1191
00:58:48,420 --> 00:58:50,380
Because I was the female
in the band,

1192
00:58:50,440 --> 00:58:52,540
I never had a dressing room.

1193
00:58:52,620 --> 00:58:56,740
I remember
scurrying in the toilet one time

1194
00:58:56,800 --> 00:58:58,700
and I was in there getting changed

1195
00:58:58,780 --> 00:59:01,100
and all of The Bodysnatchers
came in

1196
00:59:01,160 --> 00:59:04,180
and started stripping off in there!

1197
00:59:04,260 --> 00:59:07,340
I'm in a locked cubicle!
(BOTH LAUGHING)

1198
00:59:07,420 --> 00:59:09,340
Trying to change!
Like this!

1199
00:59:09,400 --> 00:59:10,380
And I came out

1200
00:59:10,460 --> 00:59:14,380
and I remember the first thing I saw
were your rosy-tipped breasts!

1201
00:59:14,460 --> 00:59:15,660
Oh!
I know!

1202
00:59:16,520 --> 00:59:17,820
I have no memory of that!

1203
00:59:17,900 --> 00:59:21,340
And I remember thinking,
"Whoa, never seen that before!"

1204
00:59:21,400 --> 00:59:24,940
(ORGAN MUSIC)

1205
00:59:25,020 --> 00:59:27,900
Certainly,
things were different after punk,

1206
00:59:27,980 --> 00:59:30,540
because punk was very matriarchal,
I think.

1207
00:59:30,600 --> 00:59:32,580
And so, after that,

1208
00:59:32,660 --> 00:59:34,580
there were lots of strong women
around

1209
00:59:34,640 --> 00:59:36,540
who said what they thought.

1210
00:59:36,600 --> 00:59:38,860
And then it came to two-tone

1211
00:59:38,920 --> 00:59:40,500
and it was kind of me and you.

1212
00:59:40,580 --> 00:59:44,020

Let's Do Rocksteady

1213
00:59:45,540 --> 00:59:50,020
Both of us fronted bands
as, you know, Black females.

1214
00:59:50,100 --> 00:59:52,620
No one really wanted
to hear that story, particularly,

1215
00:59:52,680 --> 00:59:53,660
then.

1216
00:59:53,720 --> 00:59:55,020


1217
00:59:56,760 --> 00:59:58,620
You know, who else was there?

1218
00:59:58,720 --> 01:00:01,100
Well, I mean,
there was Poly Styrene,
wasn't there?

1219
01:00:01,160 --> 01:00:03,180
(CONTINUES)

1220
01:00:03,680 --> 01:00:08,940
I think that possibly we both feel
slightly ambivalent
about what went before

1221
01:00:09,020 --> 01:00:12,220
in respect of the fact
that here we are,

1222
01:00:12,300 --> 01:00:17,340
still kind of doing
the kind of music that we did

1223
01:00:17,400 --> 01:00:18,620
at first in...

1224
01:00:18,700 --> 01:00:21,060
Yeah, but it wasn't the music.
In a different guise.

1225
01:00:21,160 --> 01:00:24,220
It wasn't the music.
It was the personnel.
Yeah, it was the people.

1226
01:00:24,320 --> 01:00:27,380
It wasn't the music at all.
The music was fine. Was always fine.
Mmm.

1227
01:00:27,440 --> 01:00:29,820


1228
01:00:30,940 --> 01:00:33,540
It was just being in bands
with people

1229
01:00:33,600 --> 01:00:35,340
who you didn't really get on with!

1230
01:00:35,400 --> 01:00:36,780
We're both women.

1231
01:00:36,860 --> 01:00:40,820
Being in something which is largely,
I suppose, a male...

1232
01:00:40,880 --> 01:00:42,460
Sausage fest!

1233
01:00:42,560 --> 01:00:45,820
I wouldn't go as far
as a sausage fest!
I would! (LAUGHS)

1234
01:00:45,900 --> 01:00:48,540
Maybe you know more
about the sausages than I do!

1235
01:00:48,620 --> 01:00:50,780
But it's... (LAUGHING)
No!

1236
01:00:50,860 --> 01:00:53,260
Music business, yeah.
It's a lot of things.

1237
01:00:53,360 --> 01:00:55,740
I mean,
it's not just a sausage fest...
No.

1238
01:00:55,820 --> 01:00:58,180
There's a whole class aspect to it
as well.

1239
01:00:58,260 --> 01:01:00,940
And as two Black women,
I think that, uh...

1240
01:01:01,000 --> 01:01:01,980
(LAUGHTER)

1241
01:01:02,040 --> 01:01:04,100
We are, we're two Black women!

1242
01:01:04,160 --> 01:01:05,500
Yeah, as two Black women,

1243
01:01:05,580 --> 01:01:08,140
I think that we found ourselves
kind of on the...

1244
01:01:08,220 --> 01:01:10,340
Back of the bus!
Yeah, the back of the bus!

1245
01:01:10,400 --> 01:01:14,860


1246
01:01:17,180 --> 01:01:21,020
This is how I used to feel in 1979,
Black and Blue!

1247
01:01:25,160 --> 01:01:27,580


1248
01:01:27,660 --> 01:01:30,620

showed her

1249
01:01:30,680 --> 01:01:33,300


1250
01:01:33,380 --> 01:01:36,500

in the back row

1251
01:01:36,940 --> 01:01:39,380

she had all the answers

1252
01:01:39,440 --> 01:01:42,180


1253
01:01:42,820 --> 01:01:45,500

on a Friday night

1254
01:01:45,560 --> 01:01:48,300


1255
01:01:49,180 --> 01:01:52,060

life knocks you about

1256
01:01:52,480 --> 01:01:55,420


1257
01:01:55,500 --> 01:01:58,900

life knocks you about

1258
01:01:58,960 --> 01:02:01,100


1259
01:02:01,960 --> 01:02:02,940


1260
01:02:07,140 --> 01:02:11,260
I always went out onstage
ready for a fight with ANYBODY!

1261
01:02:11,340 --> 01:02:14,340
I mean, we were playing
mainly to white folks

1262
01:02:14,420 --> 01:02:17,220
but they were
all tribally different.

1263
01:02:17,300 --> 01:02:19,340
There were punks,
there were rude boys,

1264
01:02:19,420 --> 01:02:21,380
there were plain old hippies
sometimes.

1265
01:02:21,440 --> 01:02:23,300


1266
01:02:24,220 --> 01:02:27,420
Skinheads used to come along
and some of them were NF

1267
01:02:27,480 --> 01:02:29,100
and they were just troublemakers,

1268
01:02:29,180 --> 01:02:31,940
not like what I would like to call
sort of the real skinheads,

1269
01:02:32,040 --> 01:02:35,460
white working class youth
who were working on the docks
in the East End

1270
01:02:35,520 --> 01:02:37,500
who admired rude boys,

1271
01:02:37,560 --> 01:02:39,020
people from the Caribbean,

1272
01:02:39,100 --> 01:02:41,540
the whole way they dressed
and all this new music.

1273
01:02:41,600 --> 01:02:43,900


1274
01:02:43,960 --> 01:02:45,340
When skinheads started,

1275
01:02:45,420 --> 01:02:47,700
it was a mashup
of white mod culture

1276
01:02:47,760 --> 01:02:49,860
with Jamaican rude boy culture.

1277
01:02:49,940 --> 01:02:53,140
And for a short while,
it was a beautiful thing!

1278
01:02:53,200 --> 01:02:54,180
People forget that

1279
01:02:54,260 --> 01:02:56,020
'cause it was hijacked
by the racists,

1280
01:02:56,080 --> 01:02:57,940
the National Front in the '70s.

1281
01:03:00,640 --> 01:03:02,700
There's always an element that...

1282
01:03:02,780 --> 01:03:05,140
Like the music but they hate
the people that...

1283
01:03:05,200 --> 01:03:06,180
That make it.

1284
01:03:06,260 --> 01:03:08,860
When you're faced
at Hammersmith Palais

1285
01:03:08,940 --> 01:03:12,820
with thousands of skinheads
Sieg Heil-ing at you

1286
01:03:12,900 --> 01:03:15,060
and then stopping
when the music starts

1287
01:03:15,140 --> 01:03:17,140
that kind of takes
a lot of processing!

1288
01:03:20,360 --> 01:03:21,580
I mean, I've been in a band,

1289
01:03:21,660 --> 01:03:23,380
I've been in
a lot of tough situations

1290
01:03:23,460 --> 01:03:25,420
but I CANNOT imagine
what it would be like

1291
01:03:25,500 --> 01:03:27,540
to have to deal with something
like that!

1292
01:03:27,620 --> 01:03:31,540
The weight on the shoulders
of people like Pauline,

1293
01:03:31,640 --> 01:03:34,660
it seemed like people
were just about
getting their heads around

1294
01:03:34,720 --> 01:03:36,380
the sort of mixed race bands

1295
01:03:36,460 --> 01:03:39,540
but I think because
they were mostly Black

1296
01:03:39,600 --> 01:03:40,860
and she was female

1297
01:03:40,920 --> 01:03:42,380
that's double trouble!

1298
01:03:42,440 --> 01:03:44,380
They had it extra hard!

1299
01:03:44,460 --> 01:03:47,460
I mean, I think they got
more Sieg Heils than anybody else!

1300
01:03:50,620 --> 01:03:53,020
I always remember
playing in Bristol

1301
01:03:53,080 --> 01:03:55,180
and we went into a pub

1302
01:03:55,260 --> 01:03:58,500
and the landlady shouted out
to both of us...

1303
01:03:58,580 --> 01:04:00,540
"Not your sort in here!"
Mmm.

1304
01:04:01,400 --> 01:04:03,260
Somebody says, "You a wog!"

1305
01:04:04,480 --> 01:04:06,540
Dance, you are here to dance!

1306
01:04:07,180 --> 01:04:09,660
Oh, you remember
the first BBC thing,

1307
01:04:09,740 --> 01:04:12,940
when they wouldn't let Charley
into the bar afterwards

1308
01:04:13,000 --> 01:04:14,700
because he was wearing a hat?

1309
01:04:14,780 --> 01:04:16,500
And he had his locks
under his hat...

1310
01:04:16,580 --> 01:04:18,660
I remember going
into the make-up booth

1311
01:04:18,740 --> 01:04:21,140
and the woman turned around
and said,

1312
01:04:21,200 --> 01:04:22,900
"Well, you know, I mean...

1313
01:04:22,980 --> 01:04:25,380
I've only got make-up
for ordinary people!"

1314
01:04:25,460 --> 01:04:28,820
So, I asked her, quite clearly,
"So, I'm extraordinary, am I?"

1315
01:04:28,880 --> 01:04:29,940
(BOTH LAUGHING)

1316
01:04:30,020 --> 01:04:31,860

if you're all right

1317
01:04:32,920 --> 01:04:34,220


1318
01:04:35,540 --> 01:04:38,180
We were third on the bill
of the two-tone tour

1319
01:04:38,240 --> 01:04:40,020
but we'd had a hit

1320
01:04:40,100 --> 01:04:42,860
and we were going on
to have other hits!

1321
01:04:42,940 --> 01:04:45,940
I think all of us
were more vulnerable, definitely,

1322
01:04:46,000 --> 01:04:47,100
than was perceived.

1323
01:04:47,160 --> 01:04:48,140


1324
01:04:51,160 --> 01:04:55,900
I think that people thought
that we were far more savvy
than what we actually were,

1325
01:04:55,960 --> 01:04:57,980
both about the business

1326
01:04:58,060 --> 01:05:00,860
and about
how we presented ourselves

1327
01:05:00,940 --> 01:05:03,140
and in terms of
writing music as well.

1328
01:05:03,200 --> 01:05:05,180
And we had internal conflicts...

1329
01:05:05,280 --> 01:05:08,020
I understand
that you're pretty turned on
by Billie Holiday

1330
01:05:08,100 --> 01:05:10,620
and some of the blues singers
of the '20s and '30s?

1331
01:05:11,240 --> 01:05:13,060
No, just Billie Holiday, really.

1332
01:05:13,120 --> 01:05:16,060
And Janis Joplin. And Mick Jagger.

1333
01:05:16,120 --> 01:05:18,260
(LAUGHING)

1334
01:05:18,320 --> 01:05:19,460
Can you edit that out?

1335
01:05:19,520 --> 01:05:21,580
(JAMMING)

1336
01:05:22,640 --> 01:05:23,700
Within The Selecter,

1337
01:05:23,780 --> 01:05:26,300
it was a little bit like
we were living out the microcosm

1338
01:05:26,380 --> 01:05:29,140
of what was going on racially
out in the world.

1339
01:05:29,220 --> 01:05:31,860
We had three members
from Jamaica,

1340
01:05:31,920 --> 01:05:33,460
Gaps Hendrickson,

1341
01:05:33,540 --> 01:05:36,220
he was from one of
the smaller islands, Saint Kitts.

1342
01:05:36,300 --> 01:05:40,380
And you know, there's bad blood
between Jamaicans and Kittitians

1343
01:05:40,460 --> 01:05:43,620
and we had this white guy
who wrote the songs.

1344
01:05:43,700 --> 01:05:45,900
You know, well,
the ones that were hits, anyway!

1345
01:05:45,960 --> 01:05:48,620
There were SO many issues at foot!

1346
01:05:48,680 --> 01:05:51,220
That made for a lot of tension!

1347
01:05:54,980 --> 01:05:59,500
You've got a tour bus
full of young men and two women.

1348
01:05:59,580 --> 01:06:01,980
Clouds of sort of, you know,
dope smoke.

1349
01:06:02,040 --> 01:06:03,500
That's all going on up the back.

1350
01:06:03,580 --> 01:06:05,700
Pauline, up until
The Selecter and two-tone,

1351
01:06:05,780 --> 01:06:08,860
she'd never really spent much time
with Black men.

1352
01:06:08,920 --> 01:06:10,940
She, uh, couldn't speak patois.

1353
01:06:11,020 --> 01:06:12,740
That made her feel
very, very left out

1354
01:06:12,820 --> 01:06:14,700
and made her feel
she wasn't Black enough

1355
01:06:14,780 --> 01:06:16,860
and she suddenly, I think,
became hyperaware

1356
01:06:16,940 --> 01:06:21,100
of how little of that culture
she'd really been exposed to

1357
01:06:21,160 --> 01:06:23,820
and been allowed to own for herself.

1358
01:06:23,900 --> 01:06:29,100
So, she turns inward
and she becomes isolated and...

1359
01:06:29,180 --> 01:06:31,060
But also wants
to be taken seriously!

1360
01:06:33,980 --> 01:06:37,500
There was too many things
going on in that band.

1361
01:06:37,580 --> 01:06:39,740
Everybody wanted to be a leader,
I suppose!

1362
01:06:41,840 --> 01:06:44,180
You're on tour with them, 24-7.

1363
01:06:44,240 --> 01:06:46,100
There is envy, competitiveness.

1364
01:06:46,180 --> 01:06:49,620
Who's up front?
Who is the media talking to?

1365
01:06:49,700 --> 01:06:51,620
For Pauline,
it would have been difficult

1366
01:06:51,680 --> 01:06:53,460
because, one, you're not a bloke,

1367
01:06:53,540 --> 01:06:56,580
so there's the thought processes,
how can you speak for me?

1368
01:06:56,660 --> 01:07:01,940
You place a woman
into this male vortex of egos

1369
01:07:02,000 --> 01:07:03,580
and it's extremely challenging.

1370
01:07:03,640 --> 01:07:08,020


1371
01:07:08,100 --> 01:07:10,580
The place was just swarming
with blokes, you know?

1372
01:07:10,660 --> 01:07:13,220
And I mean,
there was no real thought given

1373
01:07:13,280 --> 01:07:15,340
that there was a woman in the band

1374
01:07:15,420 --> 01:07:18,700
and maybe they might need a space
or a room to change in.

1375
01:07:19,580 --> 01:07:23,500

every day

1376
01:07:23,580 --> 01:07:25,900
Boys,
if they get any degree of success,

1377
01:07:25,960 --> 01:07:28,340
turn up to gigs to get pissed,

1378
01:07:28,400 --> 01:07:29,620
play music

1379
01:07:29,680 --> 01:07:30,980
and, three, get laid!

1380
01:07:31,040 --> 01:07:32,940
It's different for girls in bands.

1381
01:07:33,020 --> 01:07:36,220
People would have those words,
you know, like slag or slut...

1382
01:07:36,280 --> 01:07:37,740
So, whatever you do,

1383
01:07:37,820 --> 01:07:39,740
you tend to
keep relatively underground

1384
01:07:39,820 --> 01:07:42,340
but that makes
for a fairly lonely existence.

1385
01:07:44,560 --> 01:07:46,660


1386
01:07:46,740 --> 01:07:49,540
I don't really think
that guys in bands

1387
01:07:49,620 --> 01:07:53,580
ever really know what's going on
with a female within their midst.

1388
01:07:53,660 --> 01:07:56,500

to the marketplace

1389
01:07:56,580 --> 01:07:59,540
I was more or less oblivious
to what was going on.

1390
01:07:59,620 --> 01:08:01,860
I suppose I was, um,
one of the lads,

1391
01:08:01,920 --> 01:08:03,540
never really take any notice

1392
01:08:03,620 --> 01:08:06,180
'cause I thought
she was one of the lads as well!

1393
01:08:06,260 --> 01:08:10,340
But then you start to take notice
of what a female goes through

1394
01:08:10,420 --> 01:08:12,460
when they're in a man's world,
really...

1395
01:08:12,540 --> 01:08:14,780
You were always the coolest
out of all of them!

1396
01:08:14,860 --> 01:08:18,300
Gaps was always very respectful
in ways that others weren't!

1397
01:08:18,360 --> 01:08:20,340
(BOTH LAUGHING)

1398
01:08:22,220 --> 01:08:24,380
Sometimes the Black guys
didn't like it

1399
01:08:24,460 --> 01:08:27,060
if I got more attention
than anyone else in the band.

1400
01:08:27,140 --> 01:08:29,380
Feminism was something
to be frowned upon.

1401
01:08:29,440 --> 01:08:30,900
They really didn't trust me

1402
01:08:30,980 --> 01:08:32,940
because where on earth
was I coming from?

1403
01:08:33,000 --> 01:08:34,180
I had a white husband!

1404
01:08:34,260 --> 01:08:37,060
Their wives or partners
would normally ring up Terry, say,

1405
01:08:37,140 --> 01:08:40,060
"Can you take us to the gig?
Because they haven't invited us!"

1406
01:08:40,160 --> 01:08:44,420
And the reason was because
they had some other girlfriend
who was coming along that night!

1407
01:08:44,480 --> 01:08:47,100
That caused for a lot of diplomacy

1408
01:08:47,180 --> 01:08:50,660
and I'm not the most
diplomatic person in the world!

1409
01:08:50,720 --> 01:08:54,340
(SOMBRE MUSIC)

1410
01:08:54,420 --> 01:08:58,220
You'd find some tearful young ladies
sometimes in the hotel corridors.

1411
01:08:58,300 --> 01:09:00,740
I mean, there were
disturbing things that happened.

1412
01:09:00,820 --> 01:09:06,060
If we had had access to the whole of
the Me Too generations' backup,

1413
01:09:06,140 --> 01:09:09,740
women from my generation would all
have a lot of stories to tell.

1414
01:09:09,800 --> 01:09:12,860
In retrospect, I felt unprotected.

1415
01:09:15,160 --> 01:09:18,140
She's very reserved, very contained.

1416
01:09:18,220 --> 01:09:21,100
So, I think a lot of people
found that quite intimidating

1417
01:09:21,160 --> 01:09:23,780
and she very much had a sense of...

1418
01:09:23,840 --> 01:09:25,780
"This is my space,

1419
01:09:25,860 --> 01:09:28,220
and sort of don't cross it
unless invited!"

1420
01:09:28,280 --> 01:09:30,660
(INAUDIBLE)

1421
01:09:30,740 --> 01:09:34,540
Because of the way I grew up,
I had problems trusting people

1422
01:09:34,640 --> 01:09:38,140
and withdrawing
was the default setting
for dealing with life.

1423
01:09:38,220 --> 01:09:42,540
This new environment on the road
triggered this withdrawal again

1424
01:09:42,600 --> 01:09:44,220
and I felt like an outsider.

1425
01:09:45,020 --> 01:09:47,860
Again,
I had to rely on myself entirely

1426
01:09:47,920 --> 01:09:49,700
but this time it was harder...

1427
01:09:49,760 --> 01:09:52,100
EVERYONE made assumptions.

1428
01:09:52,180 --> 01:09:56,260
They thought they knew the real me
but they didn't.

1429
01:09:57,680 --> 01:09:58,820
By that time,

1430
01:09:58,920 --> 01:10:03,980
the interpersonal
kind of relationships
within the band,

1431
01:10:04,040 --> 01:10:05,980
they weren't really going anywhere.

1432
01:10:06,040 --> 01:10:07,140
And it wasn't just that,

1433
01:10:07,220 --> 01:10:09,060
you then had to look
outside yourself.

1434
01:10:09,120 --> 01:10:11,340


1435
01:10:11,920 --> 01:10:14,620


1436
01:10:15,060 --> 01:10:17,820
This band,
they were showing so much promise.

1437
01:10:17,900 --> 01:10:21,540
A band that had only formed
11 months earlier

1438
01:10:21,600 --> 01:10:23,980
and a succession of hit singles

1439
01:10:24,040 --> 01:10:25,620
leading up to The Whisper,

1440
01:10:25,680 --> 01:10:28,060
which doesn't fare as well

1441
01:10:28,140 --> 01:10:31,100
but is as equally strong
as anything they've done before.

1442
01:10:32,720 --> 01:10:34,300


1443
01:10:34,360 --> 01:10:35,340


1444
01:10:36,400 --> 01:10:37,580


1445
01:10:37,640 --> 01:10:38,620


1446
01:10:39,680 --> 01:10:41,100
And then suddenly,

1447
01:10:41,180 --> 01:10:43,460
there's an argument
within the band,

1448
01:10:43,520 --> 01:10:45,140
a real power struggle.

1449
01:10:49,140 --> 01:10:54,980
Desmond's and my relationship
became a bit strange after a while.

1450
01:10:55,040 --> 01:10:56,620
We always got along very well,

1451
01:10:56,700 --> 01:11:00,340
in terms of the way that we, uh,
worked onstage together.

1452
01:11:00,400 --> 01:11:01,380
But offstage,

1453
01:11:01,460 --> 01:11:04,300
I would never say that we had
any kind of relationship.

1454
01:11:04,380 --> 01:11:06,740
I just think women
were a mystery to him at that time

1455
01:11:06,800 --> 01:11:08,260
and certainly, a woman like me,

1456
01:11:08,360 --> 01:11:12,020
I think he looked at me
with probably suspicion
at that time.

1457
01:11:13,200 --> 01:11:14,700
But it just got worse and worse

1458
01:11:14,760 --> 01:11:15,740
until, in the end,

1459
01:11:15,820 --> 01:11:17,620
he launched himself at me
on a tour bus,

1460
01:11:17,680 --> 01:11:19,060
put his hands around my throat

1461
01:11:19,140 --> 01:11:20,940
and decided
he was going to strangle me

1462
01:11:21,020 --> 01:11:23,540
'cause he just couldn't bear
looking at me anymore!

1463
01:11:24,500 --> 01:11:27,500
Sixteen stone of person just kind of
launched themselves at me

1464
01:11:27,580 --> 01:11:30,620
with their hands around my throat
and just started throttling me!

1465
01:11:30,680 --> 01:11:31,860
"You ain't no queen!"

1466
01:11:31,940 --> 01:11:34,100
It was awkward, wasn't it?
Yeah.

1467
01:11:34,180 --> 01:11:35,620
It was awkward.
Yeah, yeah.

1468
01:11:38,520 --> 01:11:40,180
And people had to drag him off.

1469
01:11:40,260 --> 01:11:44,060
I think that there was a lot
to unpack there for him

1470
01:11:44,120 --> 01:11:45,780
and for me as well.

1471
01:11:48,400 --> 01:11:49,620
They lose two members

1472
01:11:49,700 --> 01:11:55,380
and with it they lose
a fundamental identity and chemistry

1473
01:11:55,460 --> 01:11:59,860
that dictates the sound
and the look of The Selecter.

1474
01:11:59,940 --> 01:12:01,820
I think
that was incredibly difficult.

1475
01:12:03,820 --> 01:12:08,380
I was really, REALLY unhappy
about a lot of things by that time

1476
01:12:08,460 --> 01:12:11,420
but I could also see
that the boat had sailed...

1477
01:12:11,480 --> 01:12:12,460
Yeah.

1478
01:12:12,520 --> 01:12:14,660
..as far as two-tone was concerned.

1479
01:12:16,620 --> 01:12:18,740
Too Much Pressure
had been very successful.

1480
01:12:18,800 --> 01:12:20,740
Celebrate the Bullet wasn't so.

1481
01:12:20,800 --> 01:12:22,620


1482
01:12:23,580 --> 01:12:28,140

but you don't have to pull it

1483
01:12:28,220 --> 01:12:31,380
Celebrate the Bullet
came out at a time when, uh,

1484
01:12:31,440 --> 01:12:33,180
John Lennon had just been shot,

1485
01:12:33,260 --> 01:12:35,660
President Reagan had been shot
but he hadn't died.

1486
01:12:35,740 --> 01:12:38,980
There was absolutely no appetite
to play such a song.

1487
01:12:40,280 --> 01:12:43,540
Irony does not play well on records

1488
01:12:43,620 --> 01:12:46,580
and outside,
New Romantics was coming along.

1489
01:12:46,680 --> 01:12:49,860
At the record company,
people were no longer wearing
black and white.

1490
01:12:49,920 --> 01:12:51,220
They were wearing kilts

1491
01:12:51,280 --> 01:12:53,300
and they'd signed Spandau Ballet

1492
01:12:53,380 --> 01:12:55,380
so you could see
the writing was on the wall.

1493
01:12:55,440 --> 01:12:56,420


1494
01:12:58,860 --> 01:13:01,420
You'd also got the advent
of synthesisers.

1495
01:13:01,500 --> 01:13:03,820
Why have seven people in the band?
You can have two!

1496
01:13:03,900 --> 01:13:06,180
You can have Yazoo!
No trouble there!

1497
01:13:06,240 --> 01:13:08,340
Seven people, lots of trouble!

1498
01:13:08,420 --> 01:13:11,980
So, I thought...
"I'm just gonna jump ship!"

1499
01:13:14,720 --> 01:13:16,740
(BUZZING)

1500
01:13:16,820 --> 01:13:18,980
From The Selecter,
the whole of two-tone,

1501
01:13:19,040 --> 01:13:20,020
it's goodnight!

1502
01:13:21,660 --> 01:13:25,500
When the band split
at the height of their popularity,

1503
01:13:25,560 --> 01:13:27,740
it must have been devastating!

1504
01:13:34,760 --> 01:13:35,900
What about the future?

1505
01:13:35,960 --> 01:13:37,180
What do you hope to do then?

1506
01:13:37,260 --> 01:13:39,340
There's varying things
I'd like to do, I...

1507
01:13:39,440 --> 01:13:43,060
I think that I'd like to sort of
get involved maybe
with some kind of acting thing

1508
01:13:43,120 --> 01:13:44,100
or something.

1509
01:13:44,200 --> 01:13:47,540
If you took up acting,
would you carry on singing or what?
Oh, yes, yes!

1510
01:13:47,600 --> 01:13:49,220
I think I'd always carry on singing

1511
01:13:49,300 --> 01:13:52,100
'cause it's a good way of sort of
giving vent to your feelings.

1512
01:13:52,180 --> 01:13:54,700
You have the freedom
to step on a stage somewhere

1513
01:13:54,780 --> 01:13:56,940
and just get a whole load of stuff
off your chest

1514
01:13:57,020 --> 01:13:58,540
and nobody's
really gonna complain too much!

1515
01:14:03,440 --> 01:14:07,300
(CHEERING)

1516
01:14:08,640 --> 01:14:12,260


1517
01:14:13,040 --> 01:14:16,980


1518
01:14:17,820 --> 01:14:19,980

I'm all in a rut

1519
01:14:20,040 --> 01:14:22,060


1520
01:14:22,140 --> 01:14:24,660
There are genres
that are here and gone

1521
01:14:24,720 --> 01:14:26,500
with just a few hit singles.

1522
01:14:26,560 --> 01:14:28,020
Two-tone was bigger than that.

1523
01:14:30,240 --> 01:14:32,020
(BEAT CONTINUES)

1524
01:14:32,100 --> 01:14:36,300
It was sufficiently big
to sustain several bands

1525
01:14:36,360 --> 01:14:38,780
over that three-year period

1526
01:14:38,860 --> 01:14:42,740
and then what tends to happen
is the bands fall apart

1527
01:14:42,800 --> 01:14:44,180
because of all the pressures

1528
01:14:44,240 --> 01:14:46,140
and one member survives.

1529
01:14:46,200 --> 01:14:50,340
(CONTINUES)

1530
01:14:51,240 --> 01:14:52,900
And it's normally the front person,

1531
01:14:52,980 --> 01:14:54,860
if they've managed
to hold it together.

1532
01:14:57,760 --> 01:14:59,100
So, I think...

1533
01:15:00,020 --> 01:15:04,580
Just to keep going
is a major achievement!

1534
01:15:04,640 --> 01:15:07,340


1535
01:15:09,240 --> 01:15:12,500


1536
01:15:15,000 --> 01:15:18,140
I am outshone!
No, you're not!
Yes, I am!

1537
01:15:18,220 --> 01:15:19,820
Couldn't do anything else
with it!

1538
01:15:19,920 --> 01:15:22,820
I think it's all right
and the girls will all get a thrill,
so...

1539
01:15:23,440 --> 01:15:24,420


1540
01:15:32,720 --> 01:15:33,700


1541
01:15:33,760 --> 01:15:35,460
(CHEERING)

1542
01:15:35,920 --> 01:15:38,500
Back in 1979, in The Selecter,

1543
01:15:38,580 --> 01:15:41,100
that had all fallen apart
and it just didn't work.

1544
01:15:41,180 --> 01:15:43,220
I mean,
everything was stacked against us.

1545
01:15:43,300 --> 01:15:46,700
I just thought,
"Well, all of that is now dust...

1546
01:15:46,780 --> 01:15:48,660
So, you have to do
something else now."

1547
01:15:48,740 --> 01:15:50,820
And if there's one thing I am,
it's adaptable!

1548
01:15:50,880 --> 01:15:54,620
(UPBEAT A CAPPELLA)

1549
01:15:55,060 --> 01:15:57,700
That's when Alan Edward
steps into the picture.

1550
01:15:57,780 --> 01:16:01,860

and a ball of heat

1551
01:16:02,740 --> 01:16:05,740
He was working on someone else
called Ian Grant at the time

1552
01:16:05,820 --> 01:16:07,540
and I believe they had
Hazel O'Connor

1553
01:16:07,600 --> 01:16:08,900
and were managing her.

1554
01:16:08,980 --> 01:16:12,020
Alan approached me and said,
"We would like to manage you!

1555
01:16:12,100 --> 01:16:14,180
And we'll set you up
with a solo career!"

1556
01:16:14,260 --> 01:16:18,500

I can see ya comin'

1557
01:16:18,580 --> 01:16:21,660

but you won't catch me!

1558
01:16:22,320 --> 01:16:24,060
The whole album got made

1559
01:16:24,160 --> 01:16:27,260
but Chrysalis
didn't really like the direction
that it had gone in.

1560
01:16:27,680 --> 01:16:29,660


1561
01:16:29,720 --> 01:16:31,540


1562
01:16:31,600 --> 01:16:34,660


1563
01:16:34,720 --> 01:16:37,100
The, um, record company dropped me.

1564
01:16:37,160 --> 01:16:39,100


1565
01:16:39,160 --> 01:16:42,140


1566
01:16:42,220 --> 01:16:44,980
And it was a big blow,
being dropped by a record company,

1567
01:16:45,060 --> 01:16:47,260
particularly
when you'd had a solo deal

1568
01:16:47,340 --> 01:16:49,980
and you really hadn't kind of
exploited it

1569
01:16:50,040 --> 01:16:51,540
maybe as best as you could.

1570
01:16:51,620 --> 01:16:57,060

for nothin' left to lose

1571
01:16:57,120 --> 01:16:58,100


1572
01:16:58,180 --> 01:17:01,300

that Bobby left me

1573
01:17:02,480 --> 01:17:04,660
That then led into TV presenting,

1574
01:17:04,740 --> 01:17:07,780
which is always the graveyard
of anyone who's been an ex-pop star!

1575
01:17:08,720 --> 01:17:10,420
I didn't particularly enjoy that.

1576
01:17:10,480 --> 01:17:11,860
I did enjoy, though,

1577
01:17:11,940 --> 01:17:13,980
doing a programme
called Black on Black.

1578
01:17:14,040 --> 01:17:18,260


1579
01:17:18,340 --> 01:17:20,940
Now, this year's reggae awards
were dominated by one man

1580
01:17:21,040 --> 01:17:24,060
who managed to walk off
with every award
for which he was eligible!

1581
01:17:24,120 --> 01:17:26,340
(APPLAUSE)

1582
01:17:28,900 --> 01:17:31,580
Aswad is a band
who write about reality, you know?

1583
01:17:31,660 --> 01:17:33,700
We write about love songs as well,
you know,

1584
01:17:33,760 --> 01:17:35,100
but we write about reality.

1585
01:17:35,200 --> 01:17:38,740
So, what you're talking about
is your lyrics
are politically orientated?

1586
01:17:40,300 --> 01:17:43,660
Everyone seems to be labelling you
as the face of '84

1587
01:17:43,740 --> 01:17:47,060
and Billie Holiday's second coming
and all these kind of things.

1588
01:17:47,140 --> 01:17:49,020
I mean,
how do you actually see yourself?

1589
01:17:49,080 --> 01:17:51,180
Well, I see myself as me!

1590
01:17:51,260 --> 01:17:54,420
I mean, I'm not in any way
trying to be retrospective!

1591
01:17:54,480 --> 01:17:56,540
(MELANCHOLIC MUSIC)

1592
01:17:56,600 --> 01:17:58,900
This whole process of popstarism,

1593
01:17:58,980 --> 01:18:02,340
being in a band,
becoming semi-famous,

1594
01:18:02,420 --> 01:18:06,060
you know, having a few hit singles
and everything that comes with that,

1595
01:18:06,120 --> 01:18:07,780
nothing prepares you for failure.

1596
01:18:07,860 --> 01:18:10,380
When you are no longer
the flavour of the month

1597
01:18:10,440 --> 01:18:12,340
or the next big thing

1598
01:18:12,420 --> 01:18:15,540
and whatever audience
you had built up

1599
01:18:15,600 --> 01:18:17,620
falls out of favour with you...

1600
01:18:17,680 --> 01:18:18,660
They've moved on!

1601
01:18:18,720 --> 01:18:20,140
That's it from me tonight.

1602
01:18:20,200 --> 01:18:21,500
So, back to you, Louise.

1603
01:18:21,580 --> 01:18:23,980
The TV series that I was in,
Black on Black,

1604
01:18:24,040 --> 01:18:25,260
that had come to an end

1605
01:18:25,360 --> 01:18:27,980
and it wasn't
going to be commissioned
for anything else.

1606
01:18:28,700 --> 01:18:31,580
I thought, "Well, what do I do?
Do I go back to my day job?"

1607
01:18:31,660 --> 01:18:33,620
Which was a radiographer
at that time.

1608
01:18:33,720 --> 01:18:36,860
And I thought,
"How on earth am I gonna go
and be back doing that?"

1609
01:18:36,920 --> 01:18:39,460
(SOFT MUSIC)

1610
01:18:39,520 --> 01:18:40,700
I began acting...

1611
01:18:43,560 --> 01:18:46,220
I started off at Riverside Studios

1612
01:18:46,280 --> 01:18:48,660
with a director called Trevor Laird

1613
01:18:48,740 --> 01:18:51,340
who plays the pill-popping
rude boy in Quadrophenia.

1614
01:18:51,400 --> 01:18:54,180
We did a play by Farrukh Dhondy.

1615
01:18:54,260 --> 01:18:56,900
I was lucky enough to play
a Black Cleopatra

1616
01:18:56,960 --> 01:18:59,980
on the stage with a white Antony

1617
01:19:00,060 --> 01:19:03,340
but people were far happier
if you played something

1618
01:19:03,420 --> 01:19:06,100
they could solidly feel
you were gonna be REALLY great in

1619
01:19:06,180 --> 01:19:08,540
and that was, you know,
a play about Billie Holiday.

1620
01:19:13,760 --> 01:19:15,020
I was going to do

1621
01:19:15,100 --> 01:19:17,940
the Billie Holiday
biographical play.

1622
01:19:18,020 --> 01:19:20,860
We'd started to hold, um,
open auditions

1623
01:19:20,940 --> 01:19:25,700
and Pauline Black came along
and sang a cappella.

1624
01:19:29,580 --> 01:19:33,020
And she blew us away
and so I offered her the part.

1625
01:19:33,080 --> 01:19:34,380
So, she was luminescent

1626
01:19:34,460 --> 01:19:37,620
and you went through
an emotional journey watching her.

1627
01:19:46,540 --> 01:19:49,820
And she gave herself to the part
and the audiences loved her

1628
01:19:49,900 --> 01:19:52,220
and she won a Time Out award
for the performance,

1629
01:19:52,280 --> 01:19:53,260
quite rightly,

1630
01:19:53,360 --> 01:19:57,020
but I think it was much
more difficult
being a Black actor at the time.

1631
01:19:57,100 --> 01:20:01,020
I mean, I was on something called
the Afro-Asian Committee of Equity.

1632
01:20:01,080 --> 01:20:03,060
We had to oppose the BBC

1633
01:20:03,140 --> 01:20:05,340
because they were doing
the Shakespeare cycle,

1634
01:20:05,400 --> 01:20:06,820
all 40 plays in one year,

1635
01:20:06,900 --> 01:20:10,420
and they didn't cast
any Black people in any of them.

1636
01:20:12,060 --> 01:20:14,660
It is Julius Caesar.
A modern version, yeah.

1637
01:20:14,720 --> 01:20:17,060
Shakespeare as Shakespeare intended.

1638
01:20:17,120 --> 01:20:18,500
Or nothing at all...

1639
01:20:24,180 --> 01:20:28,380
Some of the first roles I got
were a cleaner, a prostitute,

1640
01:20:28,460 --> 01:20:31,220
somebody actually on The Bill
who wasn't a prostitute

1641
01:20:31,300 --> 01:20:33,260
but was the daughter
of a prostitute!

1642
01:20:33,340 --> 01:20:35,300
That's what
you're having to contend with!

1643
01:20:35,360 --> 01:20:37,060
Well, it couldn't have been easy...

1644
01:20:37,140 --> 01:20:40,220
Havin' a brass for a mother?
No, it wasn't!

1645
01:20:40,880 --> 01:20:42,700
And I don't want her money, either!

1646
01:20:42,780 --> 01:20:45,860
I mean, and that REALLY
is what being Black is about!

1647
01:20:45,940 --> 01:20:50,100
You've got this extra LAYER
to get through all the time

1648
01:20:50,160 --> 01:20:51,260
and then you have to say,

1649
01:20:51,340 --> 01:20:53,580
"Well, there's something rotten
in that system.

1650
01:20:53,640 --> 01:20:55,300
That's just institutionalised."

1651
01:20:56,420 --> 01:20:59,700
You'd go for an audition
all the way to Liverpool,

1652
01:20:59,760 --> 01:21:01,540
for Brookside,

1653
01:21:01,620 --> 01:21:05,700
and there would be
every other Black actress

1654
01:21:05,760 --> 01:21:07,420
probably in the country

1655
01:21:07,480 --> 01:21:09,460
there chasing one role

1656
01:21:09,540 --> 01:21:13,940
and they can't really decide
between someone who is 60

1657
01:21:14,000 --> 01:21:15,940
or someone who is 18.

1658
01:21:16,020 --> 01:21:19,340
That is just a dereliction of duty
among casting.

1659
01:21:19,400 --> 01:21:21,900
They had a lot of catching up to do.

1660
01:21:21,980 --> 01:21:25,420
I'm afraid Bridgerton
was NOT on the cards then!

1661
01:21:25,500 --> 01:21:28,380
Nobody was cross-casting
or any of those kinds of things.

1662
01:21:28,440 --> 01:21:29,980
It was just frustrating...

1663
01:21:32,880 --> 01:21:34,580
So, that's why I stopped acting.

1664
01:21:36,440 --> 01:21:38,620
I mean, you do get depressed, yes.

1665
01:21:38,700 --> 01:21:41,180
You know, I mean, there's still
a lot of things to learn

1666
01:21:41,260 --> 01:21:43,220
and I don't think
you really stop learning.

1667
01:21:43,280 --> 01:21:44,660
You can process it in two ways.

1668
01:21:44,760 --> 01:21:48,420
It can either make you stronger
or, you know,
you end up sort of having to take...

1669
01:21:49,560 --> 01:21:52,980
Tranquillisers
or something like this, you know,
to get through the day!

1670
01:21:55,320 --> 01:21:57,340
I very clearly remember...

1671
01:21:57,400 --> 01:21:58,740
It was quite a hot day,

1672
01:21:58,820 --> 01:22:01,100
but there were threatening
black clouds

1673
01:22:01,160 --> 01:22:02,700
and I was in London.

1674
01:22:02,760 --> 01:22:05,260
I stopped off at Selfridges

1675
01:22:05,340 --> 01:22:07,260
'cause it was getting
a bit chilly by then

1676
01:22:07,340 --> 01:22:09,140
and I had a jacket
that I had bought

1677
01:22:09,220 --> 01:22:11,820
and I thought, "I'll go in there
and I'll just slip it on."

1678
01:22:11,880 --> 01:22:13,820
So, I went up to the toilets,

1679
01:22:13,880 --> 01:22:16,460
took the jacket out and popped it on

1680
01:22:16,520 --> 01:22:18,740
when suddenly I heard this voice...

1681
01:22:18,800 --> 01:22:20,580
"What on earth you doing?!

1682
01:22:20,660 --> 01:22:24,580
Come on, there's no toilet paper
in these toilets!"

1683
01:22:24,680 --> 01:22:28,820
It suddenly dawned on me
that she thought
that I was the lavatory attendant!

1684
01:22:28,900 --> 01:22:31,460
And I said,
"Who the fuck do you think I am?"

1685
01:22:32,380 --> 01:22:34,900
She said,
"Well, I thought you worked here!"

1686
01:22:34,960 --> 01:22:35,940
And I said,

1687
01:22:36,040 --> 01:22:40,980
"Don't assume
that every Black person that you see
is here to serve you!"

1688
01:22:41,060 --> 01:22:43,260
It just completely
and utterly shocked me

1689
01:22:43,320 --> 01:22:45,420
and I remember thinking then...

1690
01:22:45,500 --> 01:22:49,620
"What the FUCK do I have to do
in this society

1691
01:22:49,700 --> 01:22:53,660
just to be seen as a person,
a human being?"

1692
01:22:56,020 --> 01:22:58,460
And I remember standing
on Bond Street tube station

1693
01:22:58,520 --> 01:23:01,180
and it was just an empty platform.

1694
01:23:01,240 --> 01:23:02,620
It was one of those times...

1695
01:23:02,700 --> 01:23:06,060
And I thought, "No one really cares
whether I'm here or not...

1696
01:23:07,760 --> 01:23:09,300
I could just end it all here."

1697
01:23:09,360 --> 01:23:12,780
(HURTLING)

1698
01:23:14,400 --> 01:23:15,580
Then a train came through

1699
01:23:15,660 --> 01:23:17,340
and I didn't have the bottle
to do it

1700
01:23:17,400 --> 01:23:19,380
but it was a cathartic moment.

1701
01:23:19,440 --> 01:23:22,980
(GENTLE MUSIC)

1702
01:23:23,040 --> 01:23:24,700
And I remember thinking,

1703
01:23:24,760 --> 01:23:26,620
"You know what you have to do!"

1704
01:23:27,660 --> 01:23:30,180
I knew that I had to go
and find my mother

1705
01:23:30,240 --> 01:23:33,020
and, by extension, find my father.

1706
01:23:33,900 --> 01:23:38,220
I needed to know the man
who coloured me Black.

1707
01:23:44,040 --> 01:23:45,260
And then I went looking...

1708
01:23:46,180 --> 01:23:48,940
When I found my birth mother,
I was 42 by then.

1709
01:23:49,020 --> 01:23:52,940
She had emigrated to...
To Australia.

1710
01:23:57,420 --> 01:24:00,900
I found out that her heritage
was Jewish,

1711
01:24:00,960 --> 01:24:03,180
which made me Jewish.

1712
01:24:04,440 --> 01:24:07,700
She told me
that she had a nervous breakdown
after my birth

1713
01:24:07,760 --> 01:24:09,340
and she wasn't married.

1714
01:24:09,420 --> 01:24:11,460
My mother had produced
a Black child.

1715
01:24:11,520 --> 01:24:13,220
She didn't want to give me up

1716
01:24:13,280 --> 01:24:14,900
but in those days

1717
01:24:15,000 --> 01:24:18,020
it was considered
that you were better off
if you were adopted

1718
01:24:18,080 --> 01:24:21,300
and preferably by a white family.

1719
01:24:22,640 --> 01:24:23,620
She fell apart...

1720
01:24:24,820 --> 01:24:27,180
And often took the bus to Romford
to look for me.

1721
01:24:28,140 --> 01:24:31,780
And on a couple of occasions,
she saw me with my adoptive mother,

1722
01:24:31,840 --> 01:24:33,140
Ivy,

1723
01:24:33,220 --> 01:24:35,580
but legally she couldn't
make herself known to me.

1724
01:24:37,220 --> 01:24:39,900
And it took her about two years
to get back on her feet

1725
01:24:39,960 --> 01:24:42,260
and then she married an Irishman

1726
01:24:42,340 --> 01:24:47,340
and she had my brother and my sister
with him.

1727
01:24:48,420 --> 01:24:50,940
And I wasn't too sure
how to unravel all of that

1728
01:24:51,000 --> 01:24:53,060
and I just thought, "Wow...!"

1729
01:24:54,360 --> 01:24:57,060
And then... A bombshell!

1730
01:24:58,020 --> 01:25:00,420
I finally get to know
who my father was!

1731
01:25:02,780 --> 01:25:05,380
My mother tells me
he was an engineering student

1732
01:25:05,440 --> 01:25:06,500
from Nigeria

1733
01:25:06,560 --> 01:25:08,260
who was studying in London.

1734
01:25:09,340 --> 01:25:13,020
A little investigation
led me to a second wife,

1735
01:25:13,100 --> 01:25:17,300
who showed me a photo
which changed my life forever.

1736
01:25:17,360 --> 01:25:22,900
(EMOTIONAL MUSIC)

1737
01:25:27,720 --> 01:25:33,700
(INTENSIFIES AND FADES)

1738
01:25:35,420 --> 01:25:39,620
My father
was Prince Gordon Oladosu Adenle,

1739
01:25:39,700 --> 01:25:44,340
the first-born of a tribal king,
Samuel Adenle I,

1740
01:25:44,420 --> 01:25:47,300
the ruler of a fiefdom
within the Yoruba Tribe.

1741
01:25:49,780 --> 01:25:52,540
I had NO idea
my grandfather was a king,

1742
01:25:52,620 --> 01:25:57,180
making me, my father's first born,
a princess.

1743
01:26:01,180 --> 01:26:04,100
Tragically, my father had died
only the year before.

1744
01:26:06,420 --> 01:26:09,380
But when I looked into the eyes
of the man in the photo,

1745
01:26:09,460 --> 01:26:11,780
it was like looking into my own
in the mirror.

1746
01:26:12,500 --> 01:26:14,620
I felt a physical connection
with him.

1747
01:26:16,320 --> 01:26:18,380
For the first time in my life,

1748
01:26:18,460 --> 01:26:21,900
I was perfectly comfortable
in my Black skin!

1749
01:26:22,660 --> 01:26:26,500
If it was good enough for my father,
then it was good enough for me!

1750
01:26:33,700 --> 01:26:37,660
That is the first time
I think in her whole life

1751
01:26:37,740 --> 01:26:40,060
she finally gets that last piece
where it's,

1752
01:26:40,120 --> 01:26:42,620
"OK, I have found my Blackness!

1753
01:26:42,700 --> 01:26:45,300
And it makes me feel wonderful
and I am proud of it

1754
01:26:45,360 --> 01:26:46,420
and I can own it

1755
01:26:46,500 --> 01:26:49,780
and I finally know
this whole other side of me,

1756
01:26:49,840 --> 01:26:50,940
who I am!"

1757
01:26:51,000 --> 01:26:54,540
(EMOTIONAL MUSIC CONTINUES)

1758
01:26:54,620 --> 01:26:59,980
I've only started feeling whole
since I found out who my father is.

1759
01:27:00,040 --> 01:27:02,460
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

1760
01:27:02,520 --> 01:27:04,180
Hello, Wembley!

1761
01:27:05,340 --> 01:27:08,420
The difference between myself
performing today

1762
01:27:08,500 --> 01:27:12,820
is that I'm much more sure
about what I'm doing,

1763
01:27:12,880 --> 01:27:13,860
who I am!

1764
01:27:18,740 --> 01:27:21,500
I'm not in an identity crisis
anymore.

1765
01:27:21,580 --> 01:27:25,420
I know who Pauline Black is
when she steps onstage,

1766
01:27:25,480 --> 01:27:26,540
what she does.

1767
01:27:27,320 --> 01:27:32,380
(MUSIC CONTINUES)

1768
01:27:42,100 --> 01:27:45,580
Often, after a really good show
with The Selecter,

1769
01:27:45,660 --> 01:27:49,460
I lie in bed at night
trying to calm down and relax

1770
01:27:49,540 --> 01:27:53,340
before sleeping
in some anonymous hotel by myself

1771
01:27:53,420 --> 01:27:56,780
and I wonder
how my life might have turned out

1772
01:27:56,860 --> 01:27:59,820
if I'd been allowed
to stay with my birth mother

1773
01:27:59,900 --> 01:28:03,620
and, more importantly,
had known my birth father.

1774
01:28:04,640 --> 01:28:06,340
Would it have been so different?

1775
01:28:06,400 --> 01:28:10,940
(CONTINUES AND FADES)

1776
01:28:18,520 --> 01:28:24,140


1777
01:28:25,880 --> 01:28:30,580


1778
01:28:31,680 --> 01:28:37,660


1779
01:28:38,200 --> 01:28:44,060


1780
01:28:47,440 --> 01:28:51,420


1781
01:28:51,480 --> 01:28:54,220


1782
01:28:55,240 --> 01:28:58,940


1783
01:28:59,000 --> 01:29:01,540


1784
01:29:02,880 --> 01:29:06,740


1785
01:29:07,600 --> 01:29:09,700


1786
01:29:10,420 --> 01:29:16,100

from that kind of fun

1787
01:29:18,080 --> 01:29:21,540


1788
01:29:22,160 --> 01:29:25,500


1789
01:29:25,580 --> 01:29:31,540

cold, fading stones

1790
01:29:33,400 --> 01:29:37,020


1791
01:29:37,080 --> 01:29:39,940


1792
01:29:41,000 --> 01:29:44,580


1793
01:29:44,640 --> 01:29:47,860