# Mixed Britannia Season- BBC 2



## Treacle Toes (Oct 6, 2011)

> The previously untold history of Britain's mixed-race community and the many love stories that created it.



For those who missed it:

*Shirley* is still available on the iplayer:



> Drama charting the rise to fame of singer Dame Shirley Bassey. Born in Cardiff's Tiger Bay to a white mother and Nigerian father, Shirley is the youngest of eight children in a family living well below the poverty line. By the time she is a toddler the family have moved to the all white area of Splott. Shirley takes no prisoners when faced with racist taunts and the stares of local kids. By the time she is 12 Shirley has discovered she has an extraordinary voice and can earn money singing in pubs around the docks. By the age of 15 she is already singing and dancing in 'coloured review shows' popular in the 1950s. But it is a chance meeting with struggling agent Mike Sullivan that changes Shirley's life forever. He promises to make her a star, but has no idea of the personal sacrifice that will mean for the teenaged Shirley.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b015d69k/Shirley/



> *Upcoming episodes*
> 
> 
> *This week*
> ...


http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b015skx4


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## Treacle Toes (Oct 9, 2011)

*Mixed Race Britain : How The World Got Mixed Up*



> One of the very few universal laws of history is this: whenever and wherever people of different races have been brought together they have always mixed. For most of human history the power of sex managed to undermine the power of race. The incredible level of racial inter-mixing that now characterises life in 21st-century Britain is not a uniquely modern phenomenon, but a return to the traditions of the past.
> 
> This film will re-access the meaning of the great historic force that first brought the races together - imperialism. It will tell the surprising and positive story of how, throughout much of history, the races of the world's empires mixed together unquestioningly.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0160625/Mixed_Race_Britain_How_The_World_Got_Mixed_Up/


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## Treacle Toes (Oct 10, 2011)

This Week:



> *MIXED RACE SEASON
> Twincredibles*
> 
> 
> ...


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## danny la rouge (Oct 10, 2011)

I watched the Mixed Marriage thing with George Alagiah.  I like social history stuff.  The stuff about Arab coffee shops in Geordieland in the 20s was interesting.  Didn't learn much (other than the Arab-Geordie coffee shop bit), but it was a good watch all the same.


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## ATOMIC SUPLEX (Oct 10, 2011)

Ooh, I lived in splott for a bit. Didn't know Bassy did.
An old friend of mine did a record with her.


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## editor (Oct 10, 2011)

What was interesting about Bassey's story was the fact that Tiger Bay/Splott Cardiff was sufficiently mixed in the 30s/40s for colour not to be a big issue.


> But Eliza went her own way, and from 1919 onwards had ten children in all - a number out of wedlock, and eight of them with black fathers. Shirley, her last, was born in January 1937 in a street full of brothels in the rundown docklands area of Tiger Bay.
> 
> To say that Shirley's start in life was inauspicious is to put it mildly. There was no money, and no prospect of any. The community around her was in terminal economic decline. The newspapers were branding 'half-caste girls' like her as a social problem.
> 
> ...


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## Treacle Toes (Oct 11, 2011)

editor said:


> What was interesting about Bassey's story was the fact that Tiger Bay/Splott Cardiff was sufficiently mixed in the 30s/40s for colour not to be a big issue.



It was but to say it was not a problem I think is ignoring the fact that people in mixed relationships, with mixed children or mixed themselves were marginalised to such communities and did experience lots of racism outside of communities like this.



> 'Being coloured was *never* *my problem*, never has been,' she says. 'In Cardiff, our problem was more basic. A fourletter word: food.



Shirley saying this means that food for her/her family was a much greater concern day-to-day...that doesn't mean however that racism wasn't an issue, it was, that quote above.... 'never my problem', means she didn't have a problem with it but others did,  as this quote demonstrates:


> The community around her was in terminal economic decline. *The newspapers were branding 'half-caste girls' like her as a social problem.*


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## editor (Oct 11, 2011)

Rutita1 said:


> It was but to say it was not a problem I think is ignoring the fact that people in mixed relationships, with mixed children or mixed themselves were marginalised to such communities and did experience lots of racism outside of communities like this.


I was talking about Bassey's life and experiences in the Tiger bay/docks area of Cardiff in the 30s and 40s. That was a fairly unique area and wasn't suggesting things were the same anywhere else.


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## Treacle Toes (Oct 13, 2011)

Tonight: BB2



> A history of Britain's mixed-race community. George Alagiah tells the story of GI babies and the boom in mixed-race couples following mass migration.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/tv/bbc_two_england/watchlive


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## stethoscope (Oct 13, 2011)

Another interesting programme tonight. Jaw-dropping the attitudes inherent in society at the time.


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## Treacle Toes (Oct 13, 2011)

Some amazing  (vintage) footage in this episode!


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## Treacle Toes (Oct 13, 2011)

stephj said:


> Another interesting programme tonight. Jaw-dropping the attitudes inherent in society at the time.



Being Mixed and from the generation just after the one featured tonight I wasn't shocked. That's what my parents contended with, they didn't hide it from us kids, they could not either, most likely because, a) why should they, they were not ashamed, b) it helped us understand the prejudice/racism we also encountered as kids and sometimes still do.


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## TruXta (Oct 13, 2011)

I saw a good chunk of this today, some really nice stuff. As it happens on our first and only visit to Liverpool back in August we (me, Truxtette) went to the Museum of Liverpool. They had a pretty good section on the origins and history of the Chinatown there, and a lot about the seamen that got deported after WW2. Terrible stuff, and I got the sense that the reasons still remain vague - at least going by the official narrative. They were "trouble" somehow, but.. what does/did that mean?


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## stethoscope (Oct 14, 2011)

Rutita1 said:


> Being Mixed and from the generation just after the one featured tonight I wasn't shocked. That's what my parents contended with, they didn't hide it from us kids, they could not either, most likely because, a) why should they, they were not ashamed, b) it helped us understand the prejudice/racism we also encountered as kids and sometimes still do.



Absolutely Rutita. I mean it didn't surprise me because I was well aware that this was the sort of attitude that was prevalent and what your parents and grandparents had to experience (which was still very much alive for you, and let's face it, it's still not gone today), but in the context of some of the footage (e.g. the 'man in authority' on TV proclaiming - "This sort of thing isn't acceptible ... they have their own different cultures ... their grandfathers were still eating people" or however it was phrased) its still really startling to watch.

Whilst not on the same level, I remember the hostilities that my grandmother told me she experienced from family and those in the village immediately post-war just from moving in with, and marrying my grandfather who is Polish. My mother who is now in her 60s also endured plenty of grief from her peers growing up for having a Polish father.


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## girasol (Oct 14, 2011)

I watched a couple of them, with my 12 year old, and was surprised to hear him say that in his (secondary) school people still use terms like 'half-caste' and 'quarter-caste'. It's as if the concept of only one human race & mixed ethnicity hasn't entered schools yet!

This is a school in South London!

I had no idea about all the Chinese men who were forced to leave Liverpool, resulting in many women & children believing they had been deserted


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## Big Gunz (Oct 14, 2011)

girasol said:


> I had no idea about all the Chinese men who were forced to leave Liverpool, resulting in many women & children believing they had been deserted



More on it here. http://www.halfandhalf.org.uk/


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## scifisam (Oct 21, 2011)

I've watched a couple of these - well-done social history.

A couple of years ago I found out that my paternal grandmother was half-African (don't know which country) and half 'Lascar,' ie a sailor who was either Indian or Bangladeshi; she was born so long ago that the word Lascar was still used. My Dad was old when I was born, and she was old when he was born, so by the time I met her she was so old and wheezy and grey-skinned with random sprouting hairs that I wasn't even sure of her species - I thought she was a walrus.  But she grew up as a mix of two races that are still less likely to mix, and she was born in Woolwich at the very end of the 19th century. She must have had an interesting early life.

My Dad passed as white and has never mentioned being anything other than white.


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## toblerone3 (Oct 21, 2011)

All about relationships between black men and white women.  Very little about the other way around.


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## mentalchik (Oct 21, 2011)

girasol said:


> I watched a couple of them, with my 12 year old, and was surprised to hear him say that in his (secondary) school people still use terms like 'half-caste' and 'quarter-caste'. It's as if the concept of only one human race & mixed ethnicity hasn't entered schools yet!



My sister moved to Staffs with her mixed race daughter and her then boyfriend got asked if he was worried about her being a slag as she'd slept with a black man............

recently my niece got called a "fucking immigrant" in the street and they have realised that she doesn't see many other girls in the school holidays because their parenst won't have her in the house !!!!!!

parts of the country are still living in the 50's


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## Treacle Toes (Oct 21, 2011)

I liked your post above toblerone, because I think that Black and/orMixed women's relationships with others is often overlooked, that said, and to be fair to the programme makers, there have been 'historically' more relationships between BM/WW than the other way around, in the context of Britain anyway. Since these programmes were made about the history of inter-ethnic relationships in Britain that is unsurprising, given that the majority of sailors/soldiers and the first wave of the Windrush generation were men.


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## toblerone3 (Oct 21, 2011)

Rutita1 said:


> I liked your post above toblerone, because I think that Black and/orMixed women's relationships with others is often overlooked, that said, and to be fair to the programme makers, there have been 'historically' more relationships between BM/WW than the other way around, in the context of Britain anyway. Since these programmes were made about the history of inter-ethnic relationships in Britain that is unsurprising, given that the majority of sailors/soldiers and the first wave of the Windrush generation were men.



Why have there historically been more relationships between Black Men/White Women than between Black Women/White Men.  Is this a fact?

I found the narrator (George A) a little bit cringe-worthy at times when watching this documentary


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## Treacle Toes (Oct 21, 2011)

toblerone3 said:


> Why have there historically been more relationships between Black Men/White Women than between Black Women/White Men. Is this a fact?


 Eh? I explained why in the post you quoted. This programme is in the context of Britain etc....



> I found the narrator (George A) a little bit cringe-worthy at times when watching this documentary


 Yeah, he isn't everyone's cup of tea.


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## nino_savatte (Oct 22, 2011)

An interesting series. I was part of the 1950's generation of mixed race people. My dad married my mum against the wishes of the base commander at RAF Burtonwood (now a motorway service area on the M62?) and a few months later, he was given a posting to some base in Virginia, which still practised anti-miscegenation laws. It seems to me that they did this on purpose because the USAF knew that my dad couldn't live with my mum in such a place. In the end, he managed to get an assignment to Germany, where I was born.


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## boohoo (Oct 22, 2011)

Rutita1 said:


> I liked your post above toblerone, because I think that Black and/orMixed women's relationships with others is often overlooked, that said, and to be fair to the programme makers, there have been 'historically' more relationships between BM/WW than the other way around, in the context of Britain anyway. Since these programmes were made about the history of inter-ethnic relationships in Britain that is unsurprising, given that the majority of sailors/soldiers and the first wave of the Windrush generation were men.



I remember as a kid that the mixed race kids I knew were more likely to have a white mum and black dad.

Very interesting series.


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