Clive Myrie recalls vile racist abuse suffered by family members including his nurse aunt who was told ‘take your dirty black hands off me!’ and his mother being asked ‘where her tail was’ after moving from Jamaica to Britain
Clive Myrie has revealed the vile racist abuse suffered by family members while he was growing up – including a nurse aunt who was told by a patient to ‘take your dirty black hands off me’.
The BBC newsreader’s factory worker father, Norris, arrived in Britain from Jamaica in 1961 followed by his mother, Lynne, a year later. The family settled in Bolton, but found they were regularly met with hostility.
In his new memoir, Everything Is Everything, the Mastermind host said his parents will not tell him stories about the racism they experienced, but he still recalls several incidents.
‘I do recall Mum coming home angry one day from work, after someone had asked her where her tail was, because all black people are monkeys,’ he wrote in part of his memoir serialised in The Times.
‘My mum’s sister, Aunty Chris, was a trainee NHS nurse trying to help an elderly patient one day and the woman shouted, ”Take your dirty black hands off me!”
Clive Myrie (left) in 1969 with his mother, Leanne, and one of his brothers
In his new memoir, Everything Is Everything, the Mastermind host said his parents will not tell him stories about the racism they experienced, but he still recalls several incidents
‘My parents’ strategy was to avoid situations where they could be abused. I don’t think they ever once went out for dinner or to the pub.’
Myrie, 59, said his mother claimed to be able to ‘ignore’ much of the racism in mainstream 1960s British politics, which included posters reading, ‘If you want a n****r for a neighbour, vote Labour!’
In his memoir, the journalist also discusses wider issues around race, including Norman Tebbit’s ‘cricket test’ – which saw the Conservative politician suggest that immigrants who did not support the England cricket team were not sufficiently integrated.
He wrote: ‘One would have thought that the Windrush generation’s willingness to lay down their lives for King and country in the Second World War would be enough of a guide to loyalty.
‘True integration in my view is about far more than a bat and ball game. It’s about shared values of right and wrong, of equality and fairness.
‘My family failed the so-called “cricket test”, and I am afraid I fail it too.’
In an earlier interview to promote his memoir, Myrie told how he felt ‘ashamed’ of Britain after watching members of his family become victims of the Windrush scandal.
Myrie in the press room after presenting the award for Quiz Show at the National Television Awards 2021 at the O2 arena
The broadcaster revealed that his two half-brothers, six to seven years his senior, faced deportation despite having lived in Britain for decades – and despite their parents arriving from Jamaica as British citizens, like all those from the Windrush generation.
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Myrie’s brother Lionel is still waiting for a British passport and compensation while his brother Peter died of prostate cancer before getting either.
On the Government’s delays in paying compensation, he told The Times Magazine: ‘We’re all agreed that what has happened is a complete and utter disgrace – the question is, what do you do about it?
‘I’m still hoping society understands what happened and tries to rectify it.’
He said people may be shocked to hear of his Windrush connection, ‘because people think they know me.
‘But it could have happened to anyone with relations who came here under the Nationality Act.’
In his memoir, he told of how, aged four, he was completely mute at school and so shy that he threw up out of fear on his first day.
And he said he imagined his future as a newsreader while on his paper round as a teenager, speaking aloud the front-page stories as he cycled.
The book also touched on how he used to be troubled by the racial hatred and death threats he has faced throughout his career, but now says he pities the abusers, saying: ‘It’s just pathetic, really.’
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