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George Hallett
I remember at the time I was walking up and down the streets and people
come out and they sweep in front of their houses and chat, and the first
thing I notice, of course, coming from South Africa – black and white
neighbours actually talking to each other you know – it’s still
fresh in my mind, and I think that’s the difference in being born
in a situation where you take things like that for granted. When I came
here it was a revelation, it was stimulating, it was new, it was fantastic,
it was the way for our country to go and it’s funny now in South
Africa I still find it very strange. Here it’s quite normal actually,
people of different colours chatting to each other. In South Africa the
neighbourhoods are still very much divided.
This picture – these kids took to me. I bought
a cold drink, they were standing in a shop – I think I had chips,
or fish and chips or something. They came in and we ate together and I
said that I’m working for The Times, I’m doing this story,
and they said ‘can I walk with you?’, and I said, ‘sure,
you guys can show me around’. I went to their school the next day
because that’s taken in the classroom, and the silly thought about
this, because we were talking about putting people in boxes and racial
classification, and that’s why I had them look there, the idea of
them being boxed, you see? I mean a very silly idea, but that’s how
many years ago, ’72 – a long time ago. So I didn’t see
black and white kids fighting with each other, I didn’t see black
and white adults – I saw them married. It’s reflected in front
of that pub – there were mixed couples inside drinking together.
I saw people chatting in the street like the couple with the broom. But
I was accepted by the black community very easily because the sympathies
they showed towards my South African-ness. They knew what was going on
in South Africa, and when it came to about six at the night they asked
me ‘where are you staying tonight?’ I said ‘I’m supposed
to stay in a hotel’, they said ‘if you don’t mind you can
stay here’ and I said 'I’d love that', so I was immediately
accepted into the Caribbean community, the Caribbean-based culture, which
I had discovered in London previously, of course, but my South African-ness
gave me that entrée I would say.
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