Theresa Fyle
Theresa Fyle is of Sierra Leonean and Irish heritage. She speaks about her memories of her father Dennis Fyle, a well known Equality Campaigner in Hull who died three months ago. She recalls the valuable lessons her father taught her on racism and acceptance, and the concept that we each have a moral responsibility to challenge injustice. Theresa describes her future plans and how that continues to be shaped by the qualities instilled in her throughout her life.
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Transcription: Theresa Fyle Interview
Interview with Theresa Fyle
Interviewer: Jerome Whittingham
Date: 7 October 2016
JW: Yes, so tell me a little bit about yourself, what do you actually do for a living?
TF: I’m not working at the moment – obviously with my dad passing away I’ve spent a lot of time in Hull the last few months, I haven’t really been home, but before, when I was in Peterborough – I was – I went down there to do immigration.
JW: Let’s go right back to the beginning, then.
TF: OK.
JW: Your date of birth and what is your connection, let’s get this clear, your connection with Africa?
TF: I’m 43, I was born 14 September 1973, - my connection with Africa is obviously through my father – he came over in ’61, he was born ’38 so I think he was 22, 23 – he met my mum in Manchester.
JW Where was he born sorry?
TF: Sierra Leone.
JW: Sierra Leone?
TF Yeah, and he met my mum in Manchester and they dotted about from city to city, in the northern area, and then they settled in Hull, I think because it’s twinned with Freetown, Sierra Leone where he’s from, so that was probably an attraction to come and live here, and he was here ever since, never left.
JW: Right, and what was his reason for coming?
TF: To study.
JW: To study?
TF: At Warwick University, so I didn’t realise, but when, my dad was a very humble person, he never used to speak about his life and what he did – but going through all his documents which I’ve kept, I didn’t know he had a degree at Hull University as well, so – he was one of those, me dad, he never, he never talked about life, he just got on with it and helped others, always stayed in the background - so I’ve learnt quite a lot of stuff about him since his passing which he never told me when he was alive.
JW: So tell us, share a little bit of something about your dad.
TF: – Something about my dad – he was big on race equality – he was the chairperson of the Hull and East Riding Race Equality Council and he got me involved in that when I was 13, so the first things I used to do with me dad, was he used to take me on demos against the BNP, so part of the Anti-Nazi League, - I was only a youngster, my mum didn’t like me going, but we used to go we used to stop them all, go to the train station, I remember there was an incident – where there was about – thirty people coming from Bradford to march against ethnic minorities in Hull, and we did the – the link of the chain, and we stopped them from coming and we got police support, and I think that’s one of the first times I did anything with my dad, and since then I was side by side with him doing the race equality stuff up until I was about 23, so I did that with him for ten years and I was on the committees and the treasurer of the Hull and East Riding Race Equality Council with me dad. We didn’t always agree, so it wasn’t a thing where I sat and agreed with everything he said, we did disagree and then, obviously, when we went home that was the end of it – and then I made my own way a little bit after that and did my own thing, and then my dad got me a job heading-up New Deal Ethnic Minorities with the Hull and East Riding Job Centres, we set that project up, I did that for a few years, worked in the civil service, regrettably, well not regrettably, met somebody on-line, relocated to Peterborough for ten years and did immigration, so I’ve been away from Hull for quite a – quite a little bit, but then all my friends are still here, so every time I come home it just, it doesn’t feel I’ve been away, really, and that’s why I want to come back to, come back to Hull.
JW: So what do you think of – is there a general English attitude – towards race and inequality?
TF: I think so, even still, I mean, when my dad passed away, obviously my, I mean I’ve got, me mum’s Irish my dad’s African, so I’ve got a bit of an African and Irish temper, I’ve always grown up with that, so I’m short-fused.
JW: So let’s dig into that, that’s fascinating, so how would you describe, what of you is Irish, what of you is African, what are the main characters?
TF: Well actually, I’m a bit more of a mix, I’ve got Romany Gypsy in me - obviously, the Irish, English and African. My household growing up was like my mum and dad were like two dinosaurs at it, like, every five minutes, so I grew up with that, but I’ve got fire in my belly, and my dad always said, at his eulogy, one of his things, because Alan Johnson spoke at his funeral as well, because he was big friends of my dad, my dad said “If you’re not part of the solution you’re part of the problem”, he always said that, and that’s resonated with me every time, so when he passed away I remember I was with my partner and we were on the back of a bus, and there was two teenagers, I think they were teenagers, they looked teenagers, - and there were two Nigerians talking in their native tongue, Yoruba , and - these two teenagers were sat there going “Nigger, nigger, nigger, nigger, nigger” and like they were saying things, like it sounds like the start of a motorbike, and I had my headphones in but one wasn’t working, so I think they thought I couldn’t hear, because I was sat right directly behind them and then when I did hear, I won’t tell you what I said to them – not on tape, anyway – but basically I got them moved off the bus, I thought they were going to move seats, I didn’t realise they were going to get off the bus, ‘cos they were quite fearful of me, but, obviously, I’d just lost my dad and my temper was up and the first thing I said to them, talking about like the English attitude, “I cannot understand, particularly your age group, how, in this day and age, people can still be racist”, because even my age group I grew up with lots mixes, my dad always socialised me with older, all my friends are averaging about twenty years older than me, I’ve always mixed with older people, a lot of my friends were white growing up, I had a few black friends growing up but then my dad’s friends were my friends and they still are now, but I just can’t understand that particular age group to still be like that and, obviously, I said to them “You’ve got it off your parents” because I don’t think it’s initially your school, you get it from who you live with and I actually said to them “I’d love to meet your parents and educate them”, ‘- cos my mum’s 80, she was 80 a couple of weeks ago, and one of my friends who’s 56 his dad still refers to black people as “darkies” and apparently he’s not being racist it’s just a terminology he grew up with, and me and my friend argue all the time, because I said to him my mum is more or less the same age as your father, his father is 84, and, obviously, my mum had black children in the ‘50s because she was married to two Africans, so my sister’s 60, she’s quite a bit older than me, and she would never, maybe because she’s got black children, and she would never, even before, use that sort of terminology, and I still can’t understand how somebody who’s 80 and someone who’s 18 are poles apart, but that person is more equality-minded who’s 80 than somebody who’s 18, and there’s like a cycle that’s going round again, and it’s like we’ve gone back to the ‘70s now and I don’t know if it’s because we’re coming out of Europe, I don’t know if that’s made it worse, obviously there’s a change in, in government, I don’t know if that’s made it worse, or just climate, I just do not know, but it just, it beggars belief, I just don’t understand it.
JW: You’re not the first of our interviewees actually say that they feel, you know, that we’ve taken a step backwards.
TF: Yeah.
JW: That it’s gone backwards thirty years or so.
TF: Yeah, I think so.
JW: Yeah, even they, they suggest it might be Brexit or a backlash against Brexit.
TF: Yeah, it could be, or the fact that race equality still isn’t really at the forefront in schools, I don’t think they look at history as much, I think they do a little bit – a little bit more but I don’t think many schools still really cover black history, I don’t think, - I mean, I used to work in immigration and I used to be a Capacity Officer so I used to have 30 volunteers and we used to do Black history every year, we’d do racial incentives, obviously we’d do citizenship in Peterborough with the city council, so people who’d obviously been there for quite a long time, we use to make a big thing about it to let Peterborians know that these people are here, and they are part of your city, I don’t know if Hull do that because I’ve been out of the city for 10 years, and I don’t know if it’s particularly worse in Hull than other areas, Peterborough’s quite bad because we have quite a big Asian community, here the biggest community used to be Chinese but you don’t see them, so I just think it’s whoever comes in gets targeted, I think years ago we used to have quite a lot of people from the Congo who’ve relocated here, ‘- cos me and me dad used to work with them, funnily enough we never used to get a problem back then, ‘cos I mean I wasn’t much older than the kids themselves, but there’d be maybe 20 or 30 of us going down the streets, taking a tour round Hull, we never used to get anyone shouting at us, or comment, but I think if I did that now, this day and age, I think there would be comments, it’s just strange how it’s, I think you’re right, I think we’re going back 10, 20 ,30 years.
JW: I think you might have answered the question I was going to ask you. You’ve been away from Hull for a decade or so, you’ve been back several months, have you sort of noticed any changes?
TF: I have with me, but maybe that’s because – maybe I notice it more because my awareness is more heightened, because, obviously, I’m following the path of my father, me dad had very strict morals and there was a lot of people who he disagreed with and I never used to get involved with it, not because I wasn’t interested but it wasn’t my fight, but it’s strange now that my dad’s not here, I’ve took on his morals and his ethos, I had it before but I’ve took it on more, and the people who he didn’t like for certain reasons, I’ve actually met up with some of those people, I’d had a few disagreements with them and I’ve realised my father, I mean they always say my dad was always right, actually, I’m not just saying that ‘cos he was my dad, but he was, he was really knowledgeable and he was really fair, never judged, really fair-minded person and he always gave people the benefit of the doubt, you’d have to push him maybe eight or nine times before he’d sort of like disconnected a friendship with them, but I know what he was saying now and it’s funny that these people who I’ve met, I’ve actually gone the same way as my dad, so – for the same reasons, I mean there’s a lot of black people in Hull who are quite racist towards mixed-race people as well as white people.
I had that issue growing up, I had as much racism from white people as I did from black people, and then when I was old enough to go out drinking you’d find a lot of black women would put their arms around black men because they think like you’re a bit lighter-skinned so you’re a threat. So I had all that growing up and I actually wasn’t interested, I used to go out to enjoy myself and I started in a relationship at a very young age, I was only 17 and I was with him until I was 30, so I didn’t go out to look for anyone, I went out to enjoy myself, but I noticed more, I think when you’re in a good relationship, whether it’s with your parents, with a partner, I think your awareness is a little bit more there because you see more things, and there’s a lot of things - growing up, which - I couldn’t understand why it was happening, for instance – I remember growing up and I remember we were at a meeting and there was – a few Muslims at the meeting, there was African Muslims as well at the meeting and there was the Asian community, it was a big, like, a global meeting – and the amount of arguments and it all went back to slave times – people would drag that thing right the way back, I don’t think people live in the “now” I still think a lot of people live in the past and I just, I don’t get it.
JW: Isn’t there a lot of, sort of, guilt tied up in what we are, in our British identity?
TF: I think so because I was out the other evening because it was Nigerian Independence Day, last weekend and – my middle name’s Abiola which is Nigerian, now I know a lot of Africans, well, anybody, we’ve all got a lot of different mixes, I remember sat there and everyone was saying “Oh, she’s – her dad was from Sierra Leone but she’s Abiola, she must be Nigerian”. No! You could be named, because …. it doesn’t mean to say you’re Nigerian, it’s just a name, and the arguments I was having and I said “Look, my dad was from Sierra Leone and I’m not going to say I’m Nigerian”, and I was – actually going to go back to Sierra Leone this December because I was going to scatter my dad’s ashes there, but I’m keeping them now, and – I was in a discussion with somebody and he said “Where are you going in December?” and I said “Sierra Leone”, and three other people said “No, she needs to go to Nigeria because that’s where she’s from”, and in the end I walked away, I don’t need to be educated where I’m from, my dad did that for me – and anyone can take anyone’s name, you look at white people now and – a lot of their names are – I don’t know, Yasmin, Jasmine, whatever, and they traditionally used to be what you’d call a lot of black females like Leoni, doesn’t mean to say that you’re from that country because you’ve got that name, and that sort of thing annoys me where people want to.
Me dad hated labelling people – or putting people in boxes because you can’t often put a person in a box, because if you look at a Jack-in-the-box it sort of springs up, you know, there’s so many different factions of, of a person’s heritage so – that sort of thing I don’t like, like a labelling approach and I’ve never, I’ve never liked that. So when people look at me they either say white or mixed-race or a lot of black people say she’s neither, and for me, I class myself as a black woman but a person of mixed heritage because obviously I don’t exclude my mum’s, my mum’s side, but often I just say “I’m me, I’m Theresa”, so – you either take me for who I am and the personality I am, not so much about the colour of my skin ‘cos some black people would say I’m not black and white-coloured people would say I’m not white. One of my ex-partners said you’re a mix of your own, mixed-heritage children are actually a race of their own, I don’t look at it like that – I can’t really view it like that but it’s something to consider.
JW: I’m getting the impression that throughout your life you’ve had to spend a lot of time fighting the racism, but have you also been able to, sort of – celebrate your heritage and share that…?
TF: Oh yeah, yeah, I love looking the way I look, I love being me. When my dad passed away I didn’t like the way I look, because I used to look in the mirror and see him every day because I’m the spitting image of me dad, Gifty knows, I just look exactly like my dad, and then someone said to me, well that’s ‘cos I was upset, ‘cos obviously I was, I’m grieving, I still am, obviously, but now when I look in the mirror I actually like to see my dad and I actually like to see parts of my mum, so I think I look, well 95% of me dad, maybe 99, but I know I’ve got me mum’s nose. But now, yeah, I do celebrate who I am, where I’m from, and if people don’t like me then, as my dad would say, well, other people maybe, as my dad would say “If you don’t like me, walk on” and it’s up to people, but if they don’t like you they’re missing out on somebody who’s a good person, so –
JW: Your dad must be really proud…
TF: Oh, he was.
JW: ...that you’ve taken up his mantle.
TF: Yeah, yeah.
JW: What were his ambitions for you when you were a young child?
TF: We used to argue, because when I was sixteen I said ”I’m not going to university”, “You are”, so we’d argue “You’re going to university, you’re going to university”. So he wanted me to not have any debts, he wanted me to go to university. He wanted me to be settled, he wanted me to have children. And - he wanted me to always mix with my family, and to be connected to Africa.
So growing up- embarrassingly really, I didn’t really keep in touch with Africa. My Dad used to say. “Right, your cousin’s on the phone, come and speak to him.” And as a kid I used to say “Oh” as if to say, to say, “ Do I have to?” But funnily enough my dad, my dad’s - nephew is called Dennis, after him, and my dad always used to say to me - when he spoke to me, “Good morning, good afternoon, good evening - Mayoress of Hull or Mayoress of Peterborough - and when he ended the call because obviously my dad spoke Creole he’d be like “Be good oh, everybody oh” and it’s really funny when talk to Dennis, the last thing he said to me, I spoke to him a few weeks ago, was - “Be good oh” , and I just burst into tears, because it’s just, is that I think he says it now, he said it anyway, but it reminded him, it reminds me of my dad. But I’m in touch with them more now than I was when my dad was alive. And I think it’s because I know he wanted me to so - that’s why, I’m going to make a visit.
And, I filmed all my dad’s vigil, his thanksgiving service and, we had a celebration of my dad’s life, because I want to carry on, and then Alan Johnson put an article in the paper about my dad, a big page spread , and then I wanna get a plaque done of my dad, and tie it into 2107, because my dad was integral with that, – with helping with 2017 getting the Capital of Culture, so even though my dad passed away in July, I think things for him are still going to carry on, because I’m keeping him alive as well. He was, I was really proud of my dad and he was really proud of me.
And my Mum’s a little bit jealous of me and my dad’s relationship, ‘cos I was always with him. But that’s only because we’ve got the same philosophies. - me and me dad are quite soft. Even though we could be hard - we’re both exactly the same, where my Mum’s quite hard, she’s quite tough - I don’t know if it’s the Irish, it’s not a stereotype that’s it’s actually quite factual. But she can, she doesn’t give people the benefit of the doubt, she can see through people quite quickly, which is a good trait, whereas me and me dad we don’t judge, so if someone’s made a mistake or, we’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and then if they might do it again, we might have an issue, and then they do it again and you realise what sort of people you’re dealing with and then you know when to - walk away. Younger generations have a different philosophy to older - I don’t always think that younger generations harbour - grudges. I think the older community do because they can’t - my Mum harbours grudges - she’s at an age now when she’ll never change but I think younger people can - so I think really if you can you should try, and then, try and help others to change, if possible.
JW: - Do you think - us westerners, us Brits - far too easily just turn a blind eye to things or should we be sort of speaking out or standing up…
TF: Yeah, because that incident, when I was on the bus, the bus was full of white people, oh, and it so annoyed me, and my partner’s white, and he, he just didn’t say anything, actually, because he just knew how I was, he knew what was gonna happen, I was erupting. That annoyed me a little bit because I said to him, “If you wanna be with me,” he knows this, “you need to start to be outspoken , so if you see anything, you hear anything – I don’t expect anybody to walk into a group of nine people, and charge though ‘em and get yourself in danger. What I mean is, if you hear anything, correct the person, you know so like when people still use the word coloured, you know correct ‘em. You know don’t just sit there and go yeah, yeah, yeah.”
I mean I’ve been guilty of that. Older people, when they’ve said ,” Oh, your dad’s that coloured gentleman“, and when I was younger because I was brought up to respect my elders I never corrected but now I correct all the time. Even when I was younger I’d correct all the time. And when the incident on the bus with the two girls, with the two girls chanting “Nigger”, there was a guy, he was a big burly bloke actually, and I just sat next to him and I said “Why didn’t you correct them? You haven’t got headphones on, you can hear what they’re saying.” And instead of actually maybe saying ”Sorry, I did hear them” he got up and walked away from me, because I think he was embarrassed, or he was scared of me, I don’t know. It could have been one of the two.
But my dad always said to me, my dad were worried about me because I don’t really, I’m a bit like my mam, I’m not scared of anyone, and I think that worried him a little bit. As he got older he got, he developed a bit of fear. When he was younger he didn’t. I might develop fear when I get older, I don’t know. But I think he worried because I will challenged. But I still think where ever you are if you see something, if you notice anything or if you can help anyone, you should, you shouldn’t just sit by. Because to me, when I’ve done, when I have sat by in the past, I’ve felt so annoyed with myself when I’ve gone away and it’s eaten me up. So if I say it and it’s out. My dad always said “Don’t ever have regrets.” He was full of his sayings my dad and - I turn into my dad more and more every day - and he’s right, because if you harbour things like that, it does, specially when it’s race, for me it’s a very sensitive subject, it does, it does stick with me. I hate it. And with anything really. When people say - I hate the word tolerant, - we’re tolerant. Why d’you have to be tolerant of anybody?
And my dad hated that word as well, ‘cos tolerant is a negative word to me, it’s not a positive word. Back in the day, when you used to do, like, race equality informa… it was always tolerance was in the wording. But why should I be tolerant of you, why should you be tolerant of me? If I don’t like you, I don’t like you, I’ll walk away from you. I don’t have to be tolerant towards you. And can’t, I think terminology’s changing, I think, people are using less and less of that, but I still can’t understand how, particularly Hull, because I’ve been back a few months now is - going in the way it’s going.
JW: Mmm
TF: I just - I don’t know what other people have said when you’ve - spoke to them, but, some people say that it were better in the sixties, well I wasn’t around in the sixties so I don’t know, no you can’t judge unless you were there so...
JW: So - when you’re speaking to your- say to your nephew, was it?
TF: Yeah, well my cousin…
JW: Yeah, your cousin. How do you describe Hull to them?
TF: I describe it as it’s developing, because it is, it has developed, back in, when I was a kid – like for instance we didn’t have what we have now. They’re more like shopping malls, you know, the shops, the restaurants and the cinema, that’s improved - the marina area, I’ve always found I’ve always thought that was a nice area, but I suppose building wise - there’s more housing, there’s more opportunities for work, but people tell me there’s not that much work here still. And I think it depends on what level of education you have, I think there’s more opportunities if you’ve gone to college, university, whatever. But I describe it as there’s good and bad parts, so for instance, the areas I like, is where the Humber bridge is, I know it’s on the way out of Hull - the foreshore area, because that’s where I’m going to get a bench for my dad, and I like sitting there, it’s peaceful.
I’m not big on east Hull - I never have been because I drank up there once and there was a lot of issues, and when I go up here I still find east Hull quite run down, and I still quite, I still find people’s attitudes quite backwards - but I suppose central and west Hull where I’ve been brought up in where it’s more cosmopolitan, more populated by different ethnicities I think you know it’s quite nice, but because it’s twinned with Sierra Leone I know they want to come over. And the fact that it’s twinned with Sierra Leone gives them a bit, it give my dad a bit of pride, as well so that he lived here, more well nearly all his life really, and he felt he’d picked somewhere which had a connection to Africa. And that’s how I sell it really.
I mean my cousin tried to get over here twenty years ago and he got as far as London and immigration control wouldn’t let him through because he was going to come and live with my dad, in fact I think he’d still be here now if he’d got through, and he was looking forward to it. And obviously, when he sees the DVDs I’ve done, I’ve videoed all of Hull for him so he can see what it’s like from probably what he saw years ago on photographs, ‘cos I don’t think he ever got a video or anything on Hull. When I show him, he probably want to come because he’ll probably think it’s really, really nice. It’s just the attitudes when you get here.
When you’re a new arrival and you’ve got a strong accent, people are different towards you than if you’ve grew up, been brought up here. Accent actually says a lot, ‘cos when I organised my dad’s funeral, and I walked in, mixed race, pink hair. - he said to me, he’s a lovely guy, don’t get me wrong, but he said “ I didn’t expect you to look like that!” He thought I was white, because he couldn’t tell where I was from, but he wouldn’t, would he, because I was born here. But people, even though he didn’t mean anything by it, they still have that attitude they expect when you see someone who’s Black, they still expect them to have an accent probably a different mannerisms to them, and it’s not because you’ve been brought up and born here, it’s just the colour of your skin. It’s got nothing to do with anything else, and there’s still that mentality, which I can’t work out really.
JW: Yeah. Have you actually been to Sierra Leone?
TF: No. This will be my first time so I’m going with somebody else because I’m a bit sc…. I won’t go on my own.
JW: Yeah. The twinning of our two cities. What do you think is, have there been any achievements from that twinning process?
TF: - Well we’ve got the Freetown Society, we’ve had that for a long time, and you get a lot of Freetown government officials coming up, because they used to stay with us, they used to live with us for quite a few months of the year, my dad used to have them all in. And they do a lot of, fundraising for Sierra Leone and I know Alan Johnson’s speech about my dad. He says because of my dad’s connection with Sierra Leone he found more about what was going on, particularly when they had the civil war - then he would find out from anyone who was going in there, just from family members - so that side of it, with people from Sierra Leone informing local government, like, about what was going on back home, that’s been really helpful, but I don’t really see anything coming of it lately. Back in the day we used to have quite a lot of things going on. We used to have festivals, heritage days. We used to get people coming over, we used to get people going over to them, and obviously there was a lot of stuff which went to, obviously, parliament, what was going on, but I don’t know if it’s still happening. But it doesn’t seem like anyone’s talking about it at the minute, so I don’t really know at the minute. Back then it used to be really effective. I don’t know.
JW: Let’s sort of look into the future now. What goals have you set yourself for the future? What do you want to achieve over the next twenty, thirty years?
TF: For me obviously it’s carrying on what my dad did, ‘cos he was really integral particularly to Hull, what he used to do for race equality, so I’m - a bit particular in what work I wanna do now. I wanna go more into campaign work. Possibly get back through the immigration route, but do more to do with, - race equality and awareness, and teaching. Maybe get back in schools and do that ‘cos I used to do that in schools, we use to teach race awareness and culture awareness in schools, and I don’t think they do that anymore, I think they think that everything’s all right now but it’s actually quite, it’s actually not. I want to, I started to go down the route to my PhD, but I had to stop ‘cos I couldn’t afford it, so I wanna finish that. I’m not sure if I wanna do what I was gonna do before, which was going to be, it was cultural studies, but it was more down to, because my first degree, my choice was anthropology, so it was going to do more studying people in their, like, in their where they lived. I dunno if I’m gonna do that now, but definitely PhD.
I had a miscarriage this year, and my dad said to me - because I thought, you get to an age when you think it’s not going to happen for you, but apparently it’s who you’re with sometimes, it’s the compatability of the person - and when I told my dad he said “It’s about bloody time”! So I wanna, in my dad’s name, ‘cos I hope it’s a boy, call it Dennis, so I’m trying again, so I’m going to still carry on trying to have a child, and obviously look after my mum, so that I’m moving back to be closer to my mum and - just keep my dad alive as much as I can, really. And they’re actually, my goals at the minute are more family, creating a family, whereas years ago it wasn’t that, it was travelling because my dad gave me quite a bit of money years ago and I went travelling for a year. It was all to do with me, it was travelling, it was what could I do, what could I get from life, which is my dad promoted, he said to me, look after yourself. But now it’s more what I can do for others and myself, like a family, that type of thing so. When I was young I was more macro and now I’m becoming a little bit more micro as I get older, but I don’t know if that’s normal. I think it is a normal thing to do really. So yeah, I do wanna help everybody out there, but I wanna help people I know and my family and myself a little bit. I mean only I want to become a bit more selfish, because I’ve, I’ve been very unselfish, I’ve done everything for everyone else and not for me, so – and they might seem a lot smaller my goals but they’re actually quite big for me. And that’s it, really for this year.
JW: They’re a lovely set of goals, and I’m sure they’re achievable, for someone like you.
TF: I hope so.
JW: So, in sharing this story with us over the last half an hour or so - if - you want the listeners to take one thing away from it, one lesson one message what is that?
TF: Never walk past anyone in the street. If you see somebody suffering, always, always, always try and do your best to help. Love your parents, love your family, because that’s all you’ve got, and when you lose a parent you don’t realise, I mean it’s a natural, the natural order, parents go before you, but it’s devastating. So it’s always making sure you look after your family, and basically treat people as though you want to be treated, so for instance if you wanna live life in peace - if you wanna live life where you can go out and you can come home and still have a smile on your face, and that is the best thing you can do basically and it’s, it’s live your life, live your life that way. And if I could say one more thing, try and live your dream so don’t sit on your laurels and think well, this is it, you know ‘cos it isn’t. An individual can achieve like so many things.
JW: Been really lovely to chat.
TF: And you, thank you.
JW: Thank you, Theresa, thank you.
Interviewer: Jerome Whittingham
Date: 7 October 2016
JW: Yes, so tell me a little bit about yourself, what do you actually do for a living?
TF: I’m not working at the moment – obviously with my dad passing away I’ve spent a lot of time in Hull the last few months, I haven’t really been home, but before, when I was in Peterborough – I was – I went down there to do immigration.
JW: Let’s go right back to the beginning, then.
TF: OK.
JW: Your date of birth and what is your connection, let’s get this clear, your connection with Africa?
TF: I’m 43, I was born 14 September 1973, - my connection with Africa is obviously through my father – he came over in ’61, he was born ’38 so I think he was 22, 23 – he met my mum in Manchester.
JW Where was he born sorry?
TF: Sierra Leone.
JW: Sierra Leone?
TF Yeah, and he met my mum in Manchester and they dotted about from city to city, in the northern area, and then they settled in Hull, I think because it’s twinned with Freetown, Sierra Leone where he’s from, so that was probably an attraction to come and live here, and he was here ever since, never left.
JW: Right, and what was his reason for coming?
TF: To study.
JW: To study?
TF: At Warwick University, so I didn’t realise, but when, my dad was a very humble person, he never used to speak about his life and what he did – but going through all his documents which I’ve kept, I didn’t know he had a degree at Hull University as well, so – he was one of those, me dad, he never, he never talked about life, he just got on with it and helped others, always stayed in the background - so I’ve learnt quite a lot of stuff about him since his passing which he never told me when he was alive.
JW: So tell us, share a little bit of something about your dad.
TF: – Something about my dad – he was big on race equality – he was the chairperson of the Hull and East Riding Race Equality Council and he got me involved in that when I was 13, so the first things I used to do with me dad, was he used to take me on demos against the BNP, so part of the Anti-Nazi League, - I was only a youngster, my mum didn’t like me going, but we used to go we used to stop them all, go to the train station, I remember there was an incident – where there was about – thirty people coming from Bradford to march against ethnic minorities in Hull, and we did the – the link of the chain, and we stopped them from coming and we got police support, and I think that’s one of the first times I did anything with my dad, and since then I was side by side with him doing the race equality stuff up until I was about 23, so I did that with him for ten years and I was on the committees and the treasurer of the Hull and East Riding Race Equality Council with me dad. We didn’t always agree, so it wasn’t a thing where I sat and agreed with everything he said, we did disagree and then, obviously, when we went home that was the end of it – and then I made my own way a little bit after that and did my own thing, and then my dad got me a job heading-up New Deal Ethnic Minorities with the Hull and East Riding Job Centres, we set that project up, I did that for a few years, worked in the civil service, regrettably, well not regrettably, met somebody on-line, relocated to Peterborough for ten years and did immigration, so I’ve been away from Hull for quite a – quite a little bit, but then all my friends are still here, so every time I come home it just, it doesn’t feel I’ve been away, really, and that’s why I want to come back to, come back to Hull.
JW: So what do you think of – is there a general English attitude – towards race and inequality?
TF: I think so, even still, I mean, when my dad passed away, obviously my, I mean I’ve got, me mum’s Irish my dad’s African, so I’ve got a bit of an African and Irish temper, I’ve always grown up with that, so I’m short-fused.
JW: So let’s dig into that, that’s fascinating, so how would you describe, what of you is Irish, what of you is African, what are the main characters?
TF: Well actually, I’m a bit more of a mix, I’ve got Romany Gypsy in me - obviously, the Irish, English and African. My household growing up was like my mum and dad were like two dinosaurs at it, like, every five minutes, so I grew up with that, but I’ve got fire in my belly, and my dad always said, at his eulogy, one of his things, because Alan Johnson spoke at his funeral as well, because he was big friends of my dad, my dad said “If you’re not part of the solution you’re part of the problem”, he always said that, and that’s resonated with me every time, so when he passed away I remember I was with my partner and we were on the back of a bus, and there was two teenagers, I think they were teenagers, they looked teenagers, - and there were two Nigerians talking in their native tongue, Yoruba , and - these two teenagers were sat there going “Nigger, nigger, nigger, nigger, nigger” and like they were saying things, like it sounds like the start of a motorbike, and I had my headphones in but one wasn’t working, so I think they thought I couldn’t hear, because I was sat right directly behind them and then when I did hear, I won’t tell you what I said to them – not on tape, anyway – but basically I got them moved off the bus, I thought they were going to move seats, I didn’t realise they were going to get off the bus, ‘cos they were quite fearful of me, but, obviously, I’d just lost my dad and my temper was up and the first thing I said to them, talking about like the English attitude, “I cannot understand, particularly your age group, how, in this day and age, people can still be racist”, because even my age group I grew up with lots mixes, my dad always socialised me with older, all my friends are averaging about twenty years older than me, I’ve always mixed with older people, a lot of my friends were white growing up, I had a few black friends growing up but then my dad’s friends were my friends and they still are now, but I just can’t understand that particular age group to still be like that and, obviously, I said to them “You’ve got it off your parents” because I don’t think it’s initially your school, you get it from who you live with and I actually said to them “I’d love to meet your parents and educate them”, ‘- cos my mum’s 80, she was 80 a couple of weeks ago, and one of my friends who’s 56 his dad still refers to black people as “darkies” and apparently he’s not being racist it’s just a terminology he grew up with, and me and my friend argue all the time, because I said to him my mum is more or less the same age as your father, his father is 84, and, obviously, my mum had black children in the ‘50s because she was married to two Africans, so my sister’s 60, she’s quite a bit older than me, and she would never, maybe because she’s got black children, and she would never, even before, use that sort of terminology, and I still can’t understand how somebody who’s 80 and someone who’s 18 are poles apart, but that person is more equality-minded who’s 80 than somebody who’s 18, and there’s like a cycle that’s going round again, and it’s like we’ve gone back to the ‘70s now and I don’t know if it’s because we’re coming out of Europe, I don’t know if that’s made it worse, obviously there’s a change in, in government, I don’t know if that’s made it worse, or just climate, I just do not know, but it just, it beggars belief, I just don’t understand it.
JW: You’re not the first of our interviewees actually say that they feel, you know, that we’ve taken a step backwards.
TF: Yeah.
JW: That it’s gone backwards thirty years or so.
TF: Yeah, I think so.
JW: Yeah, even they, they suggest it might be Brexit or a backlash against Brexit.
TF: Yeah, it could be, or the fact that race equality still isn’t really at the forefront in schools, I don’t think they look at history as much, I think they do a little bit – a little bit more but I don’t think many schools still really cover black history, I don’t think, - I mean, I used to work in immigration and I used to be a Capacity Officer so I used to have 30 volunteers and we used to do Black history every year, we’d do racial incentives, obviously we’d do citizenship in Peterborough with the city council, so people who’d obviously been there for quite a long time, we use to make a big thing about it to let Peterborians know that these people are here, and they are part of your city, I don’t know if Hull do that because I’ve been out of the city for 10 years, and I don’t know if it’s particularly worse in Hull than other areas, Peterborough’s quite bad because we have quite a big Asian community, here the biggest community used to be Chinese but you don’t see them, so I just think it’s whoever comes in gets targeted, I think years ago we used to have quite a lot of people from the Congo who’ve relocated here, ‘- cos me and me dad used to work with them, funnily enough we never used to get a problem back then, ‘cos I mean I wasn’t much older than the kids themselves, but there’d be maybe 20 or 30 of us going down the streets, taking a tour round Hull, we never used to get anyone shouting at us, or comment, but I think if I did that now, this day and age, I think there would be comments, it’s just strange how it’s, I think you’re right, I think we’re going back 10, 20 ,30 years.
JW: I think you might have answered the question I was going to ask you. You’ve been away from Hull for a decade or so, you’ve been back several months, have you sort of noticed any changes?
TF: I have with me, but maybe that’s because – maybe I notice it more because my awareness is more heightened, because, obviously, I’m following the path of my father, me dad had very strict morals and there was a lot of people who he disagreed with and I never used to get involved with it, not because I wasn’t interested but it wasn’t my fight, but it’s strange now that my dad’s not here, I’ve took on his morals and his ethos, I had it before but I’ve took it on more, and the people who he didn’t like for certain reasons, I’ve actually met up with some of those people, I’d had a few disagreements with them and I’ve realised my father, I mean they always say my dad was always right, actually, I’m not just saying that ‘cos he was my dad, but he was, he was really knowledgeable and he was really fair, never judged, really fair-minded person and he always gave people the benefit of the doubt, you’d have to push him maybe eight or nine times before he’d sort of like disconnected a friendship with them, but I know what he was saying now and it’s funny that these people who I’ve met, I’ve actually gone the same way as my dad, so – for the same reasons, I mean there’s a lot of black people in Hull who are quite racist towards mixed-race people as well as white people.
I had that issue growing up, I had as much racism from white people as I did from black people, and then when I was old enough to go out drinking you’d find a lot of black women would put their arms around black men because they think like you’re a bit lighter-skinned so you’re a threat. So I had all that growing up and I actually wasn’t interested, I used to go out to enjoy myself and I started in a relationship at a very young age, I was only 17 and I was with him until I was 30, so I didn’t go out to look for anyone, I went out to enjoy myself, but I noticed more, I think when you’re in a good relationship, whether it’s with your parents, with a partner, I think your awareness is a little bit more there because you see more things, and there’s a lot of things - growing up, which - I couldn’t understand why it was happening, for instance – I remember growing up and I remember we were at a meeting and there was – a few Muslims at the meeting, there was African Muslims as well at the meeting and there was the Asian community, it was a big, like, a global meeting – and the amount of arguments and it all went back to slave times – people would drag that thing right the way back, I don’t think people live in the “now” I still think a lot of people live in the past and I just, I don’t get it.
JW: Isn’t there a lot of, sort of, guilt tied up in what we are, in our British identity?
TF: I think so because I was out the other evening because it was Nigerian Independence Day, last weekend and – my middle name’s Abiola which is Nigerian, now I know a lot of Africans, well, anybody, we’ve all got a lot of different mixes, I remember sat there and everyone was saying “Oh, she’s – her dad was from Sierra Leone but she’s Abiola, she must be Nigerian”. No! You could be named, because …. it doesn’t mean to say you’re Nigerian, it’s just a name, and the arguments I was having and I said “Look, my dad was from Sierra Leone and I’m not going to say I’m Nigerian”, and I was – actually going to go back to Sierra Leone this December because I was going to scatter my dad’s ashes there, but I’m keeping them now, and – I was in a discussion with somebody and he said “Where are you going in December?” and I said “Sierra Leone”, and three other people said “No, she needs to go to Nigeria because that’s where she’s from”, and in the end I walked away, I don’t need to be educated where I’m from, my dad did that for me – and anyone can take anyone’s name, you look at white people now and – a lot of their names are – I don’t know, Yasmin, Jasmine, whatever, and they traditionally used to be what you’d call a lot of black females like Leoni, doesn’t mean to say that you’re from that country because you’ve got that name, and that sort of thing annoys me where people want to.
Me dad hated labelling people – or putting people in boxes because you can’t often put a person in a box, because if you look at a Jack-in-the-box it sort of springs up, you know, there’s so many different factions of, of a person’s heritage so – that sort of thing I don’t like, like a labelling approach and I’ve never, I’ve never liked that. So when people look at me they either say white or mixed-race or a lot of black people say she’s neither, and for me, I class myself as a black woman but a person of mixed heritage because obviously I don’t exclude my mum’s, my mum’s side, but often I just say “I’m me, I’m Theresa”, so – you either take me for who I am and the personality I am, not so much about the colour of my skin ‘cos some black people would say I’m not black and white-coloured people would say I’m not white. One of my ex-partners said you’re a mix of your own, mixed-heritage children are actually a race of their own, I don’t look at it like that – I can’t really view it like that but it’s something to consider.
JW: I’m getting the impression that throughout your life you’ve had to spend a lot of time fighting the racism, but have you also been able to, sort of – celebrate your heritage and share that…?
TF: Oh yeah, yeah, I love looking the way I look, I love being me. When my dad passed away I didn’t like the way I look, because I used to look in the mirror and see him every day because I’m the spitting image of me dad, Gifty knows, I just look exactly like my dad, and then someone said to me, well that’s ‘cos I was upset, ‘cos obviously I was, I’m grieving, I still am, obviously, but now when I look in the mirror I actually like to see my dad and I actually like to see parts of my mum, so I think I look, well 95% of me dad, maybe 99, but I know I’ve got me mum’s nose. But now, yeah, I do celebrate who I am, where I’m from, and if people don’t like me then, as my dad would say, well, other people maybe, as my dad would say “If you don’t like me, walk on” and it’s up to people, but if they don’t like you they’re missing out on somebody who’s a good person, so –
JW: Your dad must be really proud…
TF: Oh, he was.
JW: ...that you’ve taken up his mantle.
TF: Yeah, yeah.
JW: What were his ambitions for you when you were a young child?
TF: We used to argue, because when I was sixteen I said ”I’m not going to university”, “You are”, so we’d argue “You’re going to university, you’re going to university”. So he wanted me to not have any debts, he wanted me to go to university. He wanted me to be settled, he wanted me to have children. And - he wanted me to always mix with my family, and to be connected to Africa.
So growing up- embarrassingly really, I didn’t really keep in touch with Africa. My Dad used to say. “Right, your cousin’s on the phone, come and speak to him.” And as a kid I used to say “Oh” as if to say, to say, “ Do I have to?” But funnily enough my dad, my dad’s - nephew is called Dennis, after him, and my dad always used to say to me - when he spoke to me, “Good morning, good afternoon, good evening - Mayoress of Hull or Mayoress of Peterborough - and when he ended the call because obviously my dad spoke Creole he’d be like “Be good oh, everybody oh” and it’s really funny when talk to Dennis, the last thing he said to me, I spoke to him a few weeks ago, was - “Be good oh” , and I just burst into tears, because it’s just, is that I think he says it now, he said it anyway, but it reminded him, it reminds me of my dad. But I’m in touch with them more now than I was when my dad was alive. And I think it’s because I know he wanted me to so - that’s why, I’m going to make a visit.
And, I filmed all my dad’s vigil, his thanksgiving service and, we had a celebration of my dad’s life, because I want to carry on, and then Alan Johnson put an article in the paper about my dad, a big page spread , and then I wanna get a plaque done of my dad, and tie it into 2107, because my dad was integral with that, – with helping with 2017 getting the Capital of Culture, so even though my dad passed away in July, I think things for him are still going to carry on, because I’m keeping him alive as well. He was, I was really proud of my dad and he was really proud of me.
And my Mum’s a little bit jealous of me and my dad’s relationship, ‘cos I was always with him. But that’s only because we’ve got the same philosophies. - me and me dad are quite soft. Even though we could be hard - we’re both exactly the same, where my Mum’s quite hard, she’s quite tough - I don’t know if it’s the Irish, it’s not a stereotype that’s it’s actually quite factual. But she can, she doesn’t give people the benefit of the doubt, she can see through people quite quickly, which is a good trait, whereas me and me dad we don’t judge, so if someone’s made a mistake or, we’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and then if they might do it again, we might have an issue, and then they do it again and you realise what sort of people you’re dealing with and then you know when to - walk away. Younger generations have a different philosophy to older - I don’t always think that younger generations harbour - grudges. I think the older community do because they can’t - my Mum harbours grudges - she’s at an age now when she’ll never change but I think younger people can - so I think really if you can you should try, and then, try and help others to change, if possible.
JW: - Do you think - us westerners, us Brits - far too easily just turn a blind eye to things or should we be sort of speaking out or standing up…
TF: Yeah, because that incident, when I was on the bus, the bus was full of white people, oh, and it so annoyed me, and my partner’s white, and he, he just didn’t say anything, actually, because he just knew how I was, he knew what was gonna happen, I was erupting. That annoyed me a little bit because I said to him, “If you wanna be with me,” he knows this, “you need to start to be outspoken , so if you see anything, you hear anything – I don’t expect anybody to walk into a group of nine people, and charge though ‘em and get yourself in danger. What I mean is, if you hear anything, correct the person, you know so like when people still use the word coloured, you know correct ‘em. You know don’t just sit there and go yeah, yeah, yeah.”
I mean I’ve been guilty of that. Older people, when they’ve said ,” Oh, your dad’s that coloured gentleman“, and when I was younger because I was brought up to respect my elders I never corrected but now I correct all the time. Even when I was younger I’d correct all the time. And when the incident on the bus with the two girls, with the two girls chanting “Nigger”, there was a guy, he was a big burly bloke actually, and I just sat next to him and I said “Why didn’t you correct them? You haven’t got headphones on, you can hear what they’re saying.” And instead of actually maybe saying ”Sorry, I did hear them” he got up and walked away from me, because I think he was embarrassed, or he was scared of me, I don’t know. It could have been one of the two.
But my dad always said to me, my dad were worried about me because I don’t really, I’m a bit like my mam, I’m not scared of anyone, and I think that worried him a little bit. As he got older he got, he developed a bit of fear. When he was younger he didn’t. I might develop fear when I get older, I don’t know. But I think he worried because I will challenged. But I still think where ever you are if you see something, if you notice anything or if you can help anyone, you should, you shouldn’t just sit by. Because to me, when I’ve done, when I have sat by in the past, I’ve felt so annoyed with myself when I’ve gone away and it’s eaten me up. So if I say it and it’s out. My dad always said “Don’t ever have regrets.” He was full of his sayings my dad and - I turn into my dad more and more every day - and he’s right, because if you harbour things like that, it does, specially when it’s race, for me it’s a very sensitive subject, it does, it does stick with me. I hate it. And with anything really. When people say - I hate the word tolerant, - we’re tolerant. Why d’you have to be tolerant of anybody?
And my dad hated that word as well, ‘cos tolerant is a negative word to me, it’s not a positive word. Back in the day, when you used to do, like, race equality informa… it was always tolerance was in the wording. But why should I be tolerant of you, why should you be tolerant of me? If I don’t like you, I don’t like you, I’ll walk away from you. I don’t have to be tolerant towards you. And can’t, I think terminology’s changing, I think, people are using less and less of that, but I still can’t understand how, particularly Hull, because I’ve been back a few months now is - going in the way it’s going.
JW: Mmm
TF: I just - I don’t know what other people have said when you’ve - spoke to them, but, some people say that it were better in the sixties, well I wasn’t around in the sixties so I don’t know, no you can’t judge unless you were there so...
JW: So - when you’re speaking to your- say to your nephew, was it?
TF: Yeah, well my cousin…
JW: Yeah, your cousin. How do you describe Hull to them?
TF: I describe it as it’s developing, because it is, it has developed, back in, when I was a kid – like for instance we didn’t have what we have now. They’re more like shopping malls, you know, the shops, the restaurants and the cinema, that’s improved - the marina area, I’ve always found I’ve always thought that was a nice area, but I suppose building wise - there’s more housing, there’s more opportunities for work, but people tell me there’s not that much work here still. And I think it depends on what level of education you have, I think there’s more opportunities if you’ve gone to college, university, whatever. But I describe it as there’s good and bad parts, so for instance, the areas I like, is where the Humber bridge is, I know it’s on the way out of Hull - the foreshore area, because that’s where I’m going to get a bench for my dad, and I like sitting there, it’s peaceful.
I’m not big on east Hull - I never have been because I drank up there once and there was a lot of issues, and when I go up here I still find east Hull quite run down, and I still quite, I still find people’s attitudes quite backwards - but I suppose central and west Hull where I’ve been brought up in where it’s more cosmopolitan, more populated by different ethnicities I think you know it’s quite nice, but because it’s twinned with Sierra Leone I know they want to come over. And the fact that it’s twinned with Sierra Leone gives them a bit, it give my dad a bit of pride, as well so that he lived here, more well nearly all his life really, and he felt he’d picked somewhere which had a connection to Africa. And that’s how I sell it really.
I mean my cousin tried to get over here twenty years ago and he got as far as London and immigration control wouldn’t let him through because he was going to come and live with my dad, in fact I think he’d still be here now if he’d got through, and he was looking forward to it. And obviously, when he sees the DVDs I’ve done, I’ve videoed all of Hull for him so he can see what it’s like from probably what he saw years ago on photographs, ‘cos I don’t think he ever got a video or anything on Hull. When I show him, he probably want to come because he’ll probably think it’s really, really nice. It’s just the attitudes when you get here.
When you’re a new arrival and you’ve got a strong accent, people are different towards you than if you’ve grew up, been brought up here. Accent actually says a lot, ‘cos when I organised my dad’s funeral, and I walked in, mixed race, pink hair. - he said to me, he’s a lovely guy, don’t get me wrong, but he said “ I didn’t expect you to look like that!” He thought I was white, because he couldn’t tell where I was from, but he wouldn’t, would he, because I was born here. But people, even though he didn’t mean anything by it, they still have that attitude they expect when you see someone who’s Black, they still expect them to have an accent probably a different mannerisms to them, and it’s not because you’ve been brought up and born here, it’s just the colour of your skin. It’s got nothing to do with anything else, and there’s still that mentality, which I can’t work out really.
JW: Yeah. Have you actually been to Sierra Leone?
TF: No. This will be my first time so I’m going with somebody else because I’m a bit sc…. I won’t go on my own.
JW: Yeah. The twinning of our two cities. What do you think is, have there been any achievements from that twinning process?
TF: - Well we’ve got the Freetown Society, we’ve had that for a long time, and you get a lot of Freetown government officials coming up, because they used to stay with us, they used to live with us for quite a few months of the year, my dad used to have them all in. And they do a lot of, fundraising for Sierra Leone and I know Alan Johnson’s speech about my dad. He says because of my dad’s connection with Sierra Leone he found more about what was going on, particularly when they had the civil war - then he would find out from anyone who was going in there, just from family members - so that side of it, with people from Sierra Leone informing local government, like, about what was going on back home, that’s been really helpful, but I don’t really see anything coming of it lately. Back in the day we used to have quite a lot of things going on. We used to have festivals, heritage days. We used to get people coming over, we used to get people going over to them, and obviously there was a lot of stuff which went to, obviously, parliament, what was going on, but I don’t know if it’s still happening. But it doesn’t seem like anyone’s talking about it at the minute, so I don’t really know at the minute. Back then it used to be really effective. I don’t know.
JW: Let’s sort of look into the future now. What goals have you set yourself for the future? What do you want to achieve over the next twenty, thirty years?
TF: For me obviously it’s carrying on what my dad did, ‘cos he was really integral particularly to Hull, what he used to do for race equality, so I’m - a bit particular in what work I wanna do now. I wanna go more into campaign work. Possibly get back through the immigration route, but do more to do with, - race equality and awareness, and teaching. Maybe get back in schools and do that ‘cos I used to do that in schools, we use to teach race awareness and culture awareness in schools, and I don’t think they do that anymore, I think they think that everything’s all right now but it’s actually quite, it’s actually not. I want to, I started to go down the route to my PhD, but I had to stop ‘cos I couldn’t afford it, so I wanna finish that. I’m not sure if I wanna do what I was gonna do before, which was going to be, it was cultural studies, but it was more down to, because my first degree, my choice was anthropology, so it was going to do more studying people in their, like, in their where they lived. I dunno if I’m gonna do that now, but definitely PhD.
I had a miscarriage this year, and my dad said to me - because I thought, you get to an age when you think it’s not going to happen for you, but apparently it’s who you’re with sometimes, it’s the compatability of the person - and when I told my dad he said “It’s about bloody time”! So I wanna, in my dad’s name, ‘cos I hope it’s a boy, call it Dennis, so I’m trying again, so I’m going to still carry on trying to have a child, and obviously look after my mum, so that I’m moving back to be closer to my mum and - just keep my dad alive as much as I can, really. And they’re actually, my goals at the minute are more family, creating a family, whereas years ago it wasn’t that, it was travelling because my dad gave me quite a bit of money years ago and I went travelling for a year. It was all to do with me, it was travelling, it was what could I do, what could I get from life, which is my dad promoted, he said to me, look after yourself. But now it’s more what I can do for others and myself, like a family, that type of thing so. When I was young I was more macro and now I’m becoming a little bit more micro as I get older, but I don’t know if that’s normal. I think it is a normal thing to do really. So yeah, I do wanna help everybody out there, but I wanna help people I know and my family and myself a little bit. I mean only I want to become a bit more selfish, because I’ve, I’ve been very unselfish, I’ve done everything for everyone else and not for me, so – and they might seem a lot smaller my goals but they’re actually quite big for me. And that’s it, really for this year.
JW: They’re a lovely set of goals, and I’m sure they’re achievable, for someone like you.
TF: I hope so.
JW: So, in sharing this story with us over the last half an hour or so - if - you want the listeners to take one thing away from it, one lesson one message what is that?
TF: Never walk past anyone in the street. If you see somebody suffering, always, always, always try and do your best to help. Love your parents, love your family, because that’s all you’ve got, and when you lose a parent you don’t realise, I mean it’s a natural, the natural order, parents go before you, but it’s devastating. So it’s always making sure you look after your family, and basically treat people as though you want to be treated, so for instance if you wanna live life in peace - if you wanna live life where you can go out and you can come home and still have a smile on your face, and that is the best thing you can do basically and it’s, it’s live your life, live your life that way. And if I could say one more thing, try and live your dream so don’t sit on your laurels and think well, this is it, you know ‘cos it isn’t. An individual can achieve like so many things.
JW: Been really lovely to chat.
TF: And you, thank you.
JW: Thank you, Theresa, thank you.