My heritage is Scots, Portuguese Jewish, Afro-Jamaican, so fully Jamaican – ‘out of many one people’. My father died when I was 5 leaving my mother, with two young daughters. After a period in hospital she left Jamaica for England. In 1955 we joined her.

Mother met someone who bought the lease on a house in Kensington Church Street, London. She had been running her own fashion business in Jamaica and managed to take over the business registered at the house and began sewing for wealthy ladies. It was made clear to us that we needed to speak correctly since the clients would be affronted by anything other than the Queen’s English. No highly seasoned food could be cooked as the smell might reject clients, so my upbringing from this point was very English middle-class.

When I was 10 a baby brother was born. We girls were sent to a convent in Norwood which ran an ‘orphanage’ alongside a prestigious Grammar school. eventually mother found a way to pay for us to attend a private school. One of the nuns told mother that I, as the elder child, in particular, would not be able to keep up with the education, particularly with languages. If she had money to spend on us, spend it after we had finished our schooling. My mother, a very determined lady, heard and ignored this advice.

In 1962 I entered the convent. Everything was fine until my sister got pregnant aged 16 – my family had lost ‘the good name’ and I was no longer desirable or acceptable. But I had taken my first vows and still went to Teacher Training College. I loved my Church and believed all that was said about Christ’s love for us all, so it was a shock to experience race hate within my community, and the rejection of me was something I could not understand. As soon as I finished college, I was taken away, and dismissed by letter ‘because of my problems’. I found this very hard. I am still a Catholic, with no desire to change, but I take my Church with a very large pinch of salt – my faith is between me and my God.

While teaching I started studying for a B.Mus at night. I was denied a sabbatical to complete the course, so handed in my notice, applied for a mature students grant and continued to study. On completing the degree, I applied to join the BBC. My first job there was as secretary to the then Chief Producer of Opera, a white woman, who was extremely kind to me, I then moved on to a new job as Music Planning Assistant (Forward) for Radio 3. There were lots of young white people, maybe younger than me or about my age, with degrees, who were always questioning why I got the job and not one of them?

Before getting married I managed to purchase the house I shared with an elderly white woman. However, they did not want a black landlord. As a means of creating difficulties over the works needing to be done on the house, I was taken to court by the same Authority who had ordered me to do the work. The hearing was in County Court. The Judge began speaking, but I couldn’t understand anything, and wondered if perhaps it might be Latin. Eventually I caught one word repeated – paapers, and paapers and paapers and suddenly realised the judge had been trying to speak patois to me! And I neither speak nor understand patois. On hearing my voice...how dare I have the same accent as his!...he jumped up and dashed into the back room, forgetting to close the door and had a paddy in full view of the court. The hearing was held in private, but no decision was arrived at. After lunch while waiting to return to court, a young white barrister came and said gently: “Please do not take this to heart, this is the sort of behaviour which gives the courts a bad name”.

My husband and I moved to Leeds and I fell pregnant. I needed to spend a fair amount of time in hospital. My husband is blind and was away a lot in London . So I needed a lot of community support. I naively believed that black people look after their own, but no-one mentioned that incomers were excluded...especially if they speak with a middle class, Kensington Church Street accent!

A white lady I met at Church was largely responsible for my children not ending up in care while I was in hospital. The families who supported me once I brought my youngest home, were all white, one black mid-wife managed to get her boss to write asking for extra leave for my husband, as post-caesarean I was limited in what I could do alone with the children. I was told that maybe one way to get accepted was to change the way I spoke. Following various other abuses, I pointed out that my philosophy in life was never to stoop to the level of my abusers.

I am divorced. After nearly 30 years of marriage my husband decided he needed to be married to an African, and that I cannot be. All I say is love me or hate me – I don’t mind – but leave me to be the me I am truly proud of.