Get Booked – David Yeates, Midday Plane To Georgia 070322

Hello, this is Get Booked for Women's and Men's Radio Station. I'm Hazel Butterfield and a huge book fan, so I love doing this show. Get Booked is all about talking to authors, chatting about anything and everything books related, and all the joy, enlightenment, and escape that good books can provide. Sit back and let us entertain you with a different guest each week, sharing who they are, what they do, and what inspires them. Now, We have quite a unique author in today in that the book is written and today's guest is yet to find the right publishing hands. It's an incredible and relevant story of family dynamics, identity and belonging, racism, music, and the mental health elements, implications of how we're nurtured. David is a 50-year-old mixed-race man living in Ashton-in-Makefield, a small town on the outskirts of Wigan, Lancashire in the north of England. Midday plane to Georgia, tells the story of his life so far. This memoir details his struggles for racial identity and the difficulties faced being born and growing up with brown skin in a, and I quote, "milk bottle white working class environment." His mum, a British white lady, had an affair with an American African soldier in 1970, David being the result of the affair. His biological dad returned home not knowing he'd been born. At the age of 32, David finally tracked down his biological dad 4,000 miles away in Atlanta, Georgia in the United States, and this provides an insight into being between British and American cultures and his experiences with racism. David is a mental health practitioner working for the NHS. He openly shares his own experiences with depression and provides concrete evidence that people's lives can get better. Firstly, Finally, thank you David for joining us on Get Booked, and congratulations on finishing getting your words down. That must feel quite incredible. Yeah, it is, it is, it is. I actually finished the book about 2 years ago, and then when the pandemic and, you know, the Black Lives Matter movement, you know, started and different things, you know, it spurred me on to write a little bit more really. Oh wow, so you kind of added to it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, at the end, yeah, I added to it. Yeah, it's like my life from the beginning right up to like, you know, today really. Do you know what, I mean, I got this book a couple of months ago and I loved it because it's quite, although there's some extremely delicate topics, there's a little bit of humour in there as well, but it's definitely a bit of a trip down memory lane, isn't it? Obviously some of it is a good trip down memory lane, especially the music elements. But you just kind of realize just how far we've come as a society, and yet how little progress we've also made at the same time. It's quite— I kind of felt pulled in so many different directions, especially being a northerner. I've lived in London for 20 years, but, you know, I was brought up not too far away from you, so I kind of— there was a lot that you wrote about, especially growing up and going to school being, you know, 99% white, just how interesting and how challenging that can be. It's the kind of book that I think everybody should read just to kind of realize that we may be getting better now, but there's so much more we need to be doing, and there's a lot of issues historically. Well, yeah, and it's kind of— when I was writing the book, You know, well, what spurred me to write it was a few of my friends were saying, you know, you've got to write this life story of yours, you have to write it. And one of my best friends has lived in London since, like, he left school, so we're talking 30-odd years. And he said to me, you know, Dave, he said, I tell people your story and I tell people what Wigan is like and still is like now. You know, you can go on the, you know, the local council website and, you know, look at statistics, still like 97%, something like that, white British. Still. And a friend who said, you know, I've told people your story and told people what Wigan is like, and they really just generally don't believe me that there was like 5 Black guys in the, you know, 5 mixed-race, Pakistani, you know, basically ethnic people in like the whole of 1,000 pupils in school. Well, on top of this being quite hard for you to have had to get by with you were also— it was not really addressed with your family, the fact that you were mixed race. It was kind of just ignored, which is incredible. The identity elements and the sense of belonging in The Midway Plane to Georgia, I mean, I was absolutely hooked. I can see why your friends said, yes, you've got to write it, because it's all very well, you know, being mixed race, being brought up in a community, but when your own family's kind of Denying it and ignoring it, that's just another lie completely, isn't it? Well, yeah, but you know, it's kind of all— I write in the book about, you know, family dynamics are very different in each family. You know, some families can kind of shout and scream at each other and then they get the argument out and then it's finished. And then some people's families, you know, and there'll be people listening, this will be nodding their heads, You know, some people's families never address anything, and then this silence just, you know, just boils up and boils up and boils up over the years. And, you know, it can lead to a very frustrating situation. But yeah, my Gran, my Nan, my Grandad, you know, everybody around me, half-brother and sister, everybody was white, you know. And I asked questions and questions you know, never got any answers. And it was only in the '90s when things started moving, when I was in my 20s. It's— I mean, it seems just quite hard to actually fathom how you can actually turn around to your family and say, "Um, I kind of feel like I'm a slightly different colour to you. Do you want to explain that?" And they just go, "Oh, I'm just putting the fish fingers in the oven. Can we talk about this later?" Like 30 years later. And it's just how that must have just impacted— I mean, the thing is, it affects how we're nurtured, affects how we kind of behave later on in life as well. And it's books like this that help people understand that we were all raised differently with different styles of nurturing. And I love it that it really opened people's eyes just to how different people can be. And it works for some people, some, some— there's no right or wrong way, there's just different ways, aren't there? Throughout my life, you know, what I want to get across, I had a loving family. My father, who brought me up, loved me 100%, you know, and did lots of things for me. You know, he never treated me any different than my siblings, you know, my brother who's 5 years older than me and my sister who's 10 years older than me. You know, he was an absolutely fantastic dad. When it came to, you know, me wanting to know the truth, you know, why are you a different colour than me, Dad? You know, he found it very difficult to Tell me. Yeah, and the book was completely written with compassion for your family. Obviously frustration at certain elements, but your dad, not your biological father, he, he raised you, he did a fantastic job. But there's still, you know, we all make mistakes. It doesn't— just because we make mistakes as parents, as children, it doesn't mean we don't love them and we don't— it doesn't discount absolutely everything. But ultimately you grew up with your parents ignoring, well, the elephant in the room, I guess. Yeah, exactly, it was. And there's lots of elements to this book that I want to talk about, but let's first talk about how you did finally manage to get some information out of your mum and by actually doing your own research, actually going to speak to people. If you can tell us a little bit about how this came about. So the story is, after years of asking why am I a different colour, you know, this had been going on for quite a number of years, I was in my 20s, you know, I'd even been to the GP. Somebody had told me that there was something around, I could have been a throwback. Yeah, exactly, you know, and like I went to the GP and the GP said, listen David, there's no such thing as a throwback, some kind of, you know, got some ancestry from Africa like 10 generations and it's finally turned end up, you know, there's no— there's nothing to— it's not— there are throwbacks. So this just went on and on and on. And then when I was in my 20s, I came home from work one day and there was a letter— well, a note in an envelope on, on the back of the settee titled David in my mum's writing. And then when I opened it, it said his name was Stephen Belcher. Uh, he was a dental nurse at Birtwood Air Base. Birtwood Air Base, for people who don't know, it was— I think it was one of the largest air bases outside of America, and it was from the '40s. I think it closed down in 1991, and there was a lot of Americans there, you know, thousands. It was a huge operation, and my family lived a couple of miles in Birtwood Village. So anyway, my dad was an American airman, so I knew his name, I knew, uh, his profession. So what happened then was, because we had his name, and remember this is all pre-internet, so there's no Google searches for Stephen Belcher, there's no going, you know, there's nothing like that. This is like 1990, I'm 24, this is 1995 or '94, might have been 23, 24. In the current day, you would literally just get onto Google, you would type in his name, and it would come up, there'd be records that'd be up there, but back when you were doing this, you actually had to go and knock on people's doors or go and visit somewhere and say, 'Can I have a look at your records?' And it's quite unfathomable to people in modern day, just wow. Well, this is it, and this is what— there's loads of themes in the book that I try and get across to people, how different the world was literally just 27 years ago, you know, 1997— sorry, 1995, you know, pre-internet. When you think of the programme now, Long Lost Family, you know, that popular programme with Davina McCall, you know, like this huge team of people working on the program, doing all this research, going on, you know, checking records. Literally, this was just me. And then my brother-in-law Tony, he said to me, right, I'm going to help you find your dad. So literally it was just me and him. And I wrote to different places, couldn't get any, any joy. How we found him was my brother-in-law's sister's friend. Yeah, exactly, a couple of miles down the road from me. Was married to an American soldier at Burtonwood Air Base. Now to think how there must be, you know, thousands and thousands of American soldiers will have passed through that air base, you know. But she said, yeah, she might know something, you know. It was a total long shot. We got hold of this lady and she'd actually divorced the American airman and, uh, you know, who she was married to. But she says, oh yeah, yeah, I know Stephen Belcher. I'm like, like, what? She said, yeah, he was a good friend of my ex-husband's. Now I don't know where he is. I've not seen him since about 1971 because she moved to San Antonio to marry her husband. They moved from— he moved back to San Antonio, she went with him from Wigan, and she now divorced and she was living back here. She said, I've not seen him since the '70s, Stephen Belcher, but all I can tell you is 'You're the absolute spitting image of him.' And you— yeah, she said, 'You look exactly the same as him.' It was just a mind-blowing moment for me, that, because nobody had ever said that I look like anybody else brown, basically. That's how you know you have to take it to that level. Can you just think of the actual psychological elements of that? Because I've always grown up, you know, my friends say, 'Oh, you're the spitting image of your dad,' and I used to say, 'Great, well, he's 6 foot tall and 6 foot wide. Thanks, guys.' But it's that sense of identity and belonging, isn't it? And whereas before you just felt like— I'm sure you didn't— whether you felt like an outsider or not, it's that whole kind of connection to your family, whereas everybody else would have gone, oh, you're the spitting image of this, that, or whatever, and you never got that. And although it, it seems like something really simple, that's— it's not, is it? And it's interesting, you know, when I think about kids that have been adopted, you know, some kids have this real longing to find the parents and some think to hell with it, you know, I've been adopted, I don't want to know, you know, everybody is different. Yeah, but I— but because I tried for so long to get information out of my mum and dad and other people, basically, you know, it spurred me on, you know, I need to find this person. He might be dead, he might be alive, but have I got a family out there? I don't know. So it was really important for me to flipping keep searching. Cut a long story short, basically what happened then was this lady said, like I said, I don't know where he is, but I've got my ex-husband's number. So she gave me the telephone— she gave me and Tony the telephone number to Harold, Steve Belcher's best friend in the army at the time. And, uh, we phoned him up, and we phoned this guy up, and he said, oh, sorry, I haven't seen Steve Belcher since, you know, the early '70s when we were at Burtonwood Air Base. But what I can tell you is '71, when they were together, What I can tell you is, the only thing I can tell you is he come from Atlanta, Georgia. So that was it then. We knew his name was Steve Belcher and he came from Atlanta, Georgia. So we're on to something there. Now at the time, again, this was like kind of, by the time, thinking of the timescale, I think the internet had just started creeping in and we managed to look at the White Pages in America. And the White Pages is like our equivalent to, you know, phone book. Do you remember the Thompson's Directory? We used to live off that. There you go. So just like Thompson's, he went on there and there was about, I think in Atlanta there were about 8 Stephen Belchers. Yeah, so it was basically a matter of picking the phone up and ringing. So we rang the first number, there was no answer. The second number we rang, it rang a little while, and the next minute a voice kicked in. 'Hello?' Oh, and then this is where we had to think of something to say quick. We couldn't just say, 'Oh, I think you're my dad.' You know, 'Oh, by the way, I, you know, like Thursday afternoon or something.' 'Hey, guess what?' Yeah, guess what, you've got a son you didn't know about. So we phoned him up and basically we said, 'Oh, we're ringing from Burtonwood.' At Burtonwood Air Base, they have an association where they have like a little— still they have a little museum, and it's kind of like all of them come over each year, and they still have like an association for ex-military. So we blagged him on the phone and we said, oh, uh, so are you Stephen Belcher? He said, yes, that's me. He said, were you at Burtonwood Air Base in 1968 to '71? He said, that's me, sir. I said, so were you a dental nurse? I said, yes. So basically, I didn't There can't have been two. It's just improbable, isn't it? There couldn't have been two Stephen Belchers, you know, doing the same profession at the same airbase. There can't have been. So we knew we had our man. So Tony's doing all the talking, by the way, at this stage. It's not your brother-in-law. Yeah, yeah, he's doing all the talking. I'm at the side of him, like, shaking. And, uh, he said, oh, oh, we're just phoning up, we just wanted a party or something around and a function or something, and we're just getting caught in contact with ex-soldiers. You know, it's happening next summer. We come up with some excuse. So, you know, so he said, oh, that's great, yeah, that sounds wonderful, you know, thinking what the hell's going on. He must be thinking, why am I getting this random call? These English voices talking down the phone. We said, we'll be in touch soon. So that was it. So we left it for, you know, gets off the phone, we're just both looking at each other thinking it's him. So we left it for a while. And then we phoned up and then we couldn't get— we left it for a little while and then once we tried to ring again, we couldn't get hold of him. And then I was thinking, oh no, that's it, he's sussed, you know, he knows that he had a son, he knows that we're on to him, you know, all these crazy— he scarpered and he weren't picking up his phone. I later found out that he was convalescing because he'd had some heart problems and that's the reason he wasn't picking up his phone. So, but, you know, I'm in trouble, we're in trouble now, he's sussed us. So yeah, and then we rang him up later on, you know, but this was quite a while after because we couldn't get a hold of him. And then basically we told him, you know, I think you're me dad. But in the meantime, you know, I got into all this like depressive state, kind of the depression hit me, you know, thinking, oh God, he doesn't want to know me. I started, I slumped, stopped going out, started going to bed early, started you know, all the classic signs of depression that people get into when they're feeling low. Well, the anxiety of actually just waiting to see how he's going to respond. I mean, it's not, it's not just that element. It's the culmination of everything that's happened since pretty much you were born. And it's getting to this point now where it can go in so many different directions. And that is a lot of emotion to deal with. And I can't imagine just how hard that must have been. Well, yeah, I'm in my late 20s at this stage thinking, you know, like, is this ever going to happen kind of thing. I hit like a low period, not like wanting to go out, and like I said, like going— all the classic symptoms of depression, going to bed early just to end the day and different things. Anyway, we then managed to get him on the phone and we said, listen, we lied, 'When we first phoned you, I think you were my dad,' and he just went kind of quiet on the phone. I asked him, did he remember my mum? He said he didn't remember, and then we left it at that, really. What I started doing was sending him letters and pictures of myself. I got no response, and, you know, this, this was quite a long period, really, about 2 years, 2, 3 years of him not responding. And I've since, you know, I talk about it in the book, I've since talked about him, why, you know, why did he not respond. And he was saying, he was like, he didn't speak to— he didn't tell his family at first because he was embarrassed and he didn't want people to know kind of what was going on. About 2001, so I'm 30, I plucked up the courage again to pick up the phone and say, listen, I don't want anything from you. I don't know why, you know, I don't know why you're not responding to me letters. I don't want anything. I've tried to say to him, I don't want your money, I don't want anything. You know, I'm not after anything, I'm too old for that anyway, you can't do you for child support or anything, all I want to do is to speak to you and meet you. So that was it then, so he said, okay then, prove that you're my son, he said, and invited us over to do a DNA test. A long way to go for a DNA test, isn't it? That's right, that's right. April 2002, me and Tony found ourselves on a plane, we went over to Atlanta and, you know, from landing in the airport, you know, we met him. I don't know if any— I don't know if you've ever seen the film Secrets and Lies, the Brenda Blethyn film, where she— where her daughter, her Black daughter, finds her. There's a scene in that, and basically that I played that scene where I was waiting for Steve to arrive. Atlanta, Atlanta is like a Black city, you know, it's a big African-American community. And I'm at the airport. I've never seen as many Black people in my life, you know, and it's kind of— especially coming from Wigan. I'm from Wigan, yeah, exactly. You know, I'm Tony, yeah, we're both Wiganers, you know. He's a white guy, I'm a mixed-race guy from Wigan, you know. And I'm in the airport and these people are walking past, he looks too short, he looks too thin, he looks too fat to be me dad, because at this stage I've never seen a picture of him. So I'm going to Atlanta and I still— I've sent him loads of pictures of myself but I never— I didn't know what he looked like. So I'm in the airport thinking, oh, it looks like him, he looks— oh no, he looks— well, he must be 50, he must be in his 50s. So, you know, and like the next minute I'm just so embarrassed, I'm just— my head's like spinning. So I just looked down at the floor. I'd been ringing him up, he said, all right, we'll come and get you. Once we got there at the airport, he came to find us. Staring at the floor, and the next minute I hear this woman's voice go, "You don't know who I am, but I know who you are." And I looked up, and there's this lady in front of me, hug— it goes to hug me. "I'm your cousin Teresa. I'm your cousin," you know, and she's so happy to see me, and both me and Tony, you know, "Pleased to meet you," blah blah blah, you know. Steve just packing up the car. Uncle Steve, Teresa's mum. And Steve are brother and sister. Theresa's saying like, you know, Steve, Steve will be here in a minute, come on, let's sit down, let's sit down, you know, you know, and she's saying things like— so can you imagine me at this stage like, what is going on here? Because over in England, I've never had a— for one, I've never even had a cousin because Mum and Dad in Wigan were both only children. So that was another thing, you know, like this cousin, like, oh, I've got a cousin, you know. Little did you know you were about to come across about another 30 family members. Oh my God, so the next— yeah, so the next minute, like, Steve comes over, you know, and he sat down, and it was just like— felt like being on a first date, you know what I mean? When you kind of— you don't know what to say and you're trying to not say the wrong thing, you're trying to make a good impression. But, you know, the conversation started flowing, and that was our meeting, you know, Cousin Theresa and Steve. And then, you know, other cousins came, uh, you know, I've got twin cousins Mike and Mark, who were very— it's interesting with a lot of my cousins, we're all very similar in age. So Mike and Mark are 2 years older, cousin Ray's a year older, cousin Sherry was a couple of years older, uh, Lisa. So we're all, we're all in our 50s now. Teresa's a little older, but we're all in our 50s. It's just mind-blowing to me still, even though I've told this story like I'm telling it to you, you know, many, many times, to think as a little lad I was like, and I mentioned it in the book, you know, we were all into the same music. We all started talking about, oh, did you watch Prince in 19— yeah, yeah, I saw Prince, you know, so we're all mad into Prince. My cousin Tyrone talked like, he like, when we met, he was like, oh man, do you like, you, did you like Duran Duran? I'm like, yeah, well, I weren't really into them, but yeah, oh, I love Duran Duran, I love, and I love your Human League, you know, Don't You Want Me was a cool tune, and it's just like the talking about all these records that I were buying at the time, and it's just mind-blowing to think we're 4,000 miles away, not cousins. Well, and also, if you think about it, the kind of Black culture in Atlanta and how family orientated and animated that family is in comparison to your white family in Wigan, who, you know, it must have been such a culture shock, and also for once not being the only Black child around, Black person there either. That's just incredible. I'm just in the middle of all these loud people that are talking and kind of all the— it was just really, really strange, you know, and kind of, you know, they start telling me tales, you know, and like kind of, you know, my uncles, you know, like starts telling me that, you know, like, he grew up on the same street as Martin Luther King and they played marbles in the street together and played basketball together, and I'm like, what's going on here? Yeah, you can't gloss over that, you know, that's quite a big element. I mean, that's what I want to talk about. You've suddenly got these— you've gone from nobody really wanting to talk about race at all for over 2 decades to actually finding a family 'Who are connected to Martin Luther King because they used to play marbles with him out on the street.' It's quite a difference, isn't it? Yeah, and that's why I named the book 'Midday Plane to Georgia' because of the Gladys Knight track 'Midnight Train to Georgia' because again one of the uncles said, you know, 'Oh, and, you know, I taught Gladys Knight at school,' you know, I'm like, 'Oh, what's going on here?' The mad tales, it's like So yeah, it's interesting actually because my son, he's 11, and he was in school last week and they were doing about stuff for Black History and they're talking about Martin Luther King and he put his hand up and told the teacher that, "Oh, my great uncle, my great uncle Grady, like, he played basketball with Martin Luther King." And he like, the teacher was like, "All right then, so the next page," you know, and they were like, yeah, whatever. You know, it's because, you know, it's just so unbelievable, really, really interesting to me. And what goes on is that you end up meeting everybody, eventually you get a DNA test, and obviously we know how that goes, you know, it proves that he is your dad, and develop all these connections to this family. I mean, they even came over to England, didn't they? Yes, yeah, they came over to England, we had a big party and It couldn't have gone better if you'd have made it up yourself. And do you ever kind of feel like it's a little bit like karma? You went from nothing and kind of— you've been dealt a pretty rough deal in terms of how it was addressed initially, and then all of a sudden you've got this incredibly welcoming family that are just completely swaddling you and giving you nothing but love. I think it's fantastic. And this is what I tried to get across in the book, you know, the dynamics. Again, going back to family dynamics and the way people are, you know, anybody who's been brought up in '70s, '80s, '90s, like, you know, working northern, you know, working-class towns like Wigan, you know, when I went to America, you know, everybody's hugging each other, everybody's embracing each other, and I'm like this is a bit weird, man-to-man contact, you know, it's like, oh, you know, I'm your cousin Mark, I'm your cousin Matt, and it's all embracing and all kind of loving. Well, this is quite different, this is interesting because I'm from Huddersfield and like you don't go around kissing and hugging people, but I now live in South West London and it's a little bit weird if you, when you see somebody, you know, even out on the dog walk in London, you know, you give people a good old hug and possibly possibly, you know, kiss. Hey, if you know really well, two kisses, right? And it's, it's a good way. It's interesting now watching young, younger men because I do see them embracing now more than— but literally, it kind of— when I in my 20s, you know, you don't even shake a bloke's hand. It's like, you know, if you meet somebody, you know, meet another set of lads or you're on holiday or whatever, males in Northwest England give a you know, a bit of a nod, you know, you know, that's what I've been used to. There's a bit in the book where I talk about when my granddad was poorly once, and I was so relieved when he came out of hospital because I just idolised him. And I remember going to give him a— I don't know what come over me because it weren't a thing that men do. Wiganers, men in Wigan, don't kiss on the cheek. But I was just so thrilled that he was well. I went to kiss him on the cheek, on his stubble, you know, and I remember him moving his face away, like, "Whoa," you know. And I know me granddad loved me, he loved me 110%, but it wasn't the thing to do, contact like that. You still have that though, don't we, with this kind of North-South divide of how we actually behave. And it was quite funny actually, we had the storms quite recently and I saw this rather funny meme that was going around, still kind of showing the differences between North and South, and it's like, right, Storm Eunice is coming in, Southerners stay indoors, do not go to work, barricade the door and stay safe, Northerners put your big coat on. That's right. But it's still there, isn't it? So I mean, this is a whole different layer adding to what is already an incredible story, that the whole northern idiosyncrasies of just how people are, and, and add on to that the whole racism element as well. And I suppose even the mental health implications, because possibly a bit more progressive down south in terms of acceptance, especially when you were dealing with your mental health issues and depression because what you were going through. Yeah, and it's kind of even, even now, you know, like in the Northwest You know, male suicide is very high, you know, especially in men over 40. And it's kind of, you know, a lot of men don't talk about the feelings. You know, men don't talk about what's going on. You know, it's just get on with it. And I always think of, you know, I always like to describe it as like a pressure cooker, really. What men tend to do is, you know, like on a pressure cooker, you do— if you imagine like all the water bubbling and all your thoughts and feelings Well, what men do is, you know, they put their hand on the top of the pressure cooker and they try and keep all their thoughts and feelings inside. But— Well, that was the same. This is why we have— I mean, Get Booked is played out on women's radio station and men's radio station, and we have women's and men's radio station to help deal with different mental health issues. There's a variety of different shows, but they're separate because Men and women have different issues that have to be dealt with differently. It's a lot easier to get a woman to talk about her issues because of how it's accepted in society, but what Men's Radio Station does is try to handle issues in a different way that's actually going to be received properly with men, and it's more doable, it is more attainable. Yeah, definitely. And it's kind of, it's about just sharing your thoughts, you know, and not— but finding the right people to talk to. That's why I'm forever grateful for my relationship with Tony, my brother-in-law. We don't live in— we don't speak, you know, every week. We don't live in each other's pockets. At the time, he stepped up and he was the one who supported me. I love the actual connection that you had with your brother-in-law. You really— it was very sort of family orientated, really supportive, and it's good to point out obviously that you were trying to find something out about a family that you didn't know who you were connected to, but it was your family that were helping you do that ultimately. Yeah. And I think it's nice to kind of understand that it wasn't just a case of, oh, you've not helped me, I'm gonna go and find my other family. It was still a joint effort and people were supportive. On both sides. And I think, again, as I said before, the compassion in your book is remarkable. And, and it's just— there's so many lessons in this book. Yeah, it's like my sister, you know, thinking when I was born she was 10, my brother was 5, you know, so they went through it all as well, you know. Well, there's a part in the book, isn't there, where you basically say to your sister, 'Am I adopted?' And she's like, No, I was there when you were being— I was in the next room when you were being born. I remember you coming home. Mum was pregnant and you came home. Yeah, right. So she— yeah, so Janet said, you know, yeah, I was there, but nothing was addressed. Kind of can imagine what them two went through. Suddenly they've got this like brown brother, you know, brother, you know, that— so they would have been asked questions. You know, like I was. You know, I remember when I was— it all started when I was— I must have been about 5 or 6. You know, why is your mummy— you know, why is your mum and dad white, you know, and you're brown? You know, you know, like asking me questions, are you adopted? I didn't even know what adopted meant, you know. I didn't even know what that word was, you know. And people like kids— and this was going on when I was at primary, junior school. Well, I think this surprised kids because there's so much that happened as well to throughout your education where again you were one of two of the only mixed-race children in the whole school. And wasn't there a game when they were going, right, okay, so we've got some children in the class and they've got older siblings, let's play a game of guess whose sibling is who, which is obviously quite an interesting game for your situation, isn't it? Yeah, so that was when I was about 8, something like that, and then moved up to another class and it was, I remember it was a music teacher in junior school and she said, right children, we're going to play a game now. I'm going to look at you, I'm going to guess who your brothers and sisters are, if I've taught your older brothers and sisters. So what happened was she, you know, she started scanning the classroom and she's like, right, Andrew's here, so right, you must be Stephen Streetman, brother to my friend Andrew Speedman, you know, same color, you know, same features. She went round to everybody, you know, you must be Paul, you know, Paul, that's not all right, so you must be— but anyway, she went round everybody and it was 100% accuracy. Comes to me and she said, now let's think, you must be Sammy's brother. And Sammy, it was an Indian Oh wow, just, just, yeah. And I'm like, no, I'm Colin Yeates' brother. And it's like, like, you know, one of those tumbleweed moments. She clearly didn't— she weren't being odd, you know, she just didn't know what to do because can you imagine this happening in this current day and age? 'You'd be struck off.' Can you get struck off as a teacher? You can, can't you? It happened, you know, and it's kind of, you know, I must have been about 7 or 8, you know, it was 40-odd years ago, it still sticks in my mind today, you know, and I was like, 'No,' and like, but again, no explanation. No, you just can't— to all of our listeners, they probably can't just comprehend how You can ask such a pertinent question and just not get an answer. Yeah, but it's kind of like, I don't blame the teacher, you know, she was just doing a fun game which had obviously had like, you know, she'd done it every year and she'd had that 100% success rate to like ease the children in and make, you know, introduce herself, you know, there's nothing wrong with what she, you know, I don't blame the teacher, she was just having a fun game, but it's like, how the hell did you How did she know that, you know, me and Colin were brother and sister, and Janet— sorry, brother and brother, you know, Janet was my sister, you know. It weren't her fault, I don't blame her, but yeah, I understand what you're saying. It's— they wouldn't get— I don't think it'd go down well, would it now? No, it definitely would not. I don't think they'd even be allowed to play such a game. I just want to point out to all of our listeners today, regular listeners who are listening in, if you feel like my accent has changed somewhat, being a northerner who's lived in London for the last 20 years, as soon as I speak to a northerner my accent goes all over the place. So just in case regular listeners are thinking that possibly there's an imposter on the line, there is not. So I will definitely bring in my hoodoo tree old friend. Are you? Right, okay, well, so we're somewhere— we're meeting somewhere in the middle, aren't we, David? Yeah. That's very, very funny. We're actually— we're running out of time a little bit, but I do want to talk about the Black Lives Matter movement that we briefly touched on at the beginning and how that encouraged you to add a little bit more to A Midday Plane to Georgia, because it links in with COVID and the increased risks, doesn't it? Yeah, so it was kind of, again, it was a really strange year because when COVID happened, you know, there was all the talk about ethnic minorities were more susceptible to getting COVID than, you know, the white population. So that really, you know, got me thinking. And I remember there was like a— at the time there was an emergency, almost emergency Zoom call at work where we talked about, you know, you must stay— if you're, you know, you must stay at home, you must work at home, you know, you are more susceptible, and, you know, you need to start taking vitamins and different things and there was all this kind of going on. So that was really, it was a really strange, I know it was a really strange year for everybody, but you know, when there was like programs on TV, "Is COVID racist?" That was a Channel 4 program that came on. It was like, what is going on here? You know, I'm increasing divisions as well, and it's just, it's taken us back a bit. Yeah, yeah. And then the kind of throughout the summer there was the kind of like Black Lives Matter stuff, and, you know, and I just started thinking all the things that, you know, all the things that I talk about in the book and all the stuff that had gone on for me and all the things that happened in my life, like with different employers and, you know, like when I was in my 20s and teachers coming out with racist stuff and that. This Black Lives Matter movement came and I finally thought, you know, when they were having like the, uh, the marches in Manchester, I need to get down there, I need to get down there. But I was that scared, you know, I felt so guilty because I was that scared of catching COVID you know, because, you know, take your mind back 2 years ago, it was like, you know, everybody was on hyper alert, weren't they, you know. Scared to leave the house, yeah, and if you did, you know, you're scared to leave the house. I just found it, I couldn't go down to the march, I think if I bring COVID in the house, you know, I just couldn't take that risk. But then all the George Floyd stuff come out and it was like interesting to me how a lot of the media and a lot of, you know, people I know were solely focused on 'Yeah, but he was a bad'un, he was a wrong'un, you know, he killed somebody and he'd been high on drugs.' And, you know, he— sorry, he didn't kill somebody, he was— he'd attacked a pregnant lady, hasn't he? He attacked a pregnant lady, yes, yes, yes. And, you know, and all this. And I was, 'Yeah, but did he deserve to die?' And there was people trying to convince me that 'Yeah, yeah, but that chokehold that they use, you know, that's a standard procedure for the American cops.' So I have people in my own community telling me about George Floyd and, you know, 'Well, you know, that, that was a normal standard procedure,' and sticking up for the American cops. And he was a symbol though of what was wrong with the system and how they are addressed people of colour and the force that they used. And it was not— I mean, it was unfortunate that of his history, but it was actually to do with essentially how the police forces were dealing with people of colour. Yeah, yeah, exactly, you know. And my family, you know, I have a family that would be got, you know, that could be driving around late at night in America, get pulled over, you know, just because of the color of the skin, you know. And I just found it so disheartening the way that people totally, like, focused on George Floyd and how bad he was, which was irrelevant. He had his life snuffed out on, like, you know, live TV. Well, it's good, you know, obviously it was off the camera, but you know, on live TV for 7 and a half minutes. It seemed completely irrelevant to my peers, you know, and I felt so depressed, you know, so miserable about that. You wouldn't believe how people could take such a stance. Well, the thing is, people like to have an opinion, and they were focusing completely— I mean, media is an absolute nightmare for things like this, but, you know, a lot of people in America, Black people, if they see the police, they're worried about how they're going to be apprehended. And so sometimes it causes people to run, to get away, and then they're apprehended even with more force, and it's kind of— it's a lose-lose situation, isn't it? And the point was they wanted to change procedures. Yeah, and so That's why I wrote about that at the end of the book, and it was kind of— throughout the book I talk about how much I've enjoyed reading about music and learning and listening music, and kind of what an interesting thing was when the— throughout the Black Lives Matter, when Colston statue got torn down in Bristol, you know, and got thrown into the harbour. Well, I already knew about Colston, not through history books, not through— but through the NME, through the music papers. Because in the '90s, I remember reading about— I think it might have been Tricky, I think it might have been Tricky— but what— but I remember reading about an artist from Bristol who was doing his best to change the name of the Bristol Colston Hall in Bristol, you know, a music venue, because of its connotations with the slave owner. Philanthropist, whatever you want to call him, Edward Colston. You know, so I already knew about him, so all this was really interesting to me. Oh, that's that guy, you know. So I already knew, you know, about how that— and that's what I write about again in the book. So I tried to kind of— when writing, I tried to bring all these things together because all the history, you know, like slavery, you know, and all these, like, you know, and Colston and all our colonial past. I never got taught that at school, you know, and all I learned all this through music, you know, listening to Public Enemy, you know, like rap band, you know, and I learned it all through my own teaching, through books and book music, you know, all all the Black history, like, you know, Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye, you know, and talking about the Vietnamese War, you know. None of this was learnt. Black history was not taught in my school, you know. It was all 1066 and, you know, the Battle of Hastings and whatever. Well, yeah, very white-focused, and it's incredible how we come off as the good guys in British history a lot of the time as well, in what's taught in the English and British curriculum. Yeah. But interestingly as well, I mean, your book stands alone itself on just your love of music. I mean, music fans from the— fans of the '80s must— you really do have quite a passion for it. Yeah, yeah, from a very early age I used to listen to my dad's records. I was in my very early ages into Buddy Holly and different things, and then, you know, my sister was into David Bowie, you know, and so Queen and different things when I was really small, you know, in the '70s. I've been into Bowie a long time, you know, so I started going gigs, and, you know, then we started, my friend Jamie, we formed a band at school, and you know, we've made music together. And yeah, so there's— that's another thing, you know, the music runs through the book, you know, to the point of when I get to them, like I said, I get to America, and then they're all music mad themselves, you know, like the twins have sang in jazz bars, you know, the, you know, most of them play the piano, you know, it's, it's really interesting. And the level of belonging, isn't it? Well, yeah, and I don't know the— you know, I don't claim to know the intricacies of like, you know, the debate nature-nurture, but it's really interesting how kind of, you know, I go to America and kind of they're all into music, a lot of the same bands, you know. It's like very, you know, it's interesting. And then right at the end of the book, uh, As I was finishing the book, uh, I guess a phone call one day, and a lady, a Thai lady called, uh, Jitamus, had been in contact with my cousin in America. And we found out 12 months ago that, you know, the history repeating itself, my, my story repeating itself, we had a, we have a cousin that was born when my uncle was a GI in this, in Thailand in the '60s, and she found us last year. So that tied up the book nicely, you know, like it's repeating itself. I've not met her yet. She's just been over to Atlanta and met everyone. She lives in Amsterdam. She's 55. Uh, we speak to— we've spoke on the phone several times, but I've not been over Hopefully I'll go over this year and see him. But yeah, so again, in all this, I'm in America— I'm in England, they're all in America. I've got this cousin in Thailand, and we've all got, you know, we're all first cousins. We've all come together. It's just mind-blowing. And what's really interesting, you know, when she was finding us, uh, she did it— she did it through DNA, and she found, and this guy was helping us sort out these DNA profiles in Atlanta and traced them, traced her uncle down, you know, in Atlanta and all the cousins. And when she did it, you know, I know I don't have any idea about DNA, DNA bases work, but there was one person in Europe that had a DNA match to her. And the guy, the guy who helped her was saying to me, I just didn't understand who this lone person was. In Europe, and it was me. Unbelievable! I mean, this is why, this is why you've written the book, and this is why we want to get it published. So if there's anybody out there listening and you just think, yes, I do need to get in touch with David, you can either find him on Twitter @wiglanter, or you can get in touch with me, Hazel Butterfield, at hazelbutterfield.com or through my many socials, and I do have connections to David so I can make sure that we connect you up and you can try and help him maybe get an agent or help and assist getting this book published. Because I think, although it's not just an interesting story, it's going to help a lot of people on so many different levels. And this is why I think that— I mean, you were surprised to realize how many people were in similar situations to you as well as you went through this process. Yeah, yeah, there is a father— there's still like a father finding service, uh, which a lady called Elaine Haselden runs, uh, for Burtonwood Air Base, you know, the association. And she is still looking for people now, you know, from the '60s, you know, like fathers from them. Because when I— because when I spoke to her, she said, you must be one of the youngest people you know, that's from Burtonwood, because I was born in '71. She says most people still who were born in the '50s, uh, from the '50s and '60s, looking for their dads, you know, airmen that were over in Burtonwood, you know, when it was a, you know, a functioning base. Unfortunately, there's nothing there now. They knocked it— the last bit they knocked down about 5 years ago. It's like an industrial park now. But you can still go to the museum, you know, they have like a Birkenwood museum there, but it's sad. Yeah, yeah, I do like the historical elements as well when you're actually detailing what went on back in the late '60s, early '70s as well. As I say, there's so much in this book. Now, just in— it is going to get published, or at least I do definitely hope it does, But if it kind of flies off the bookshelves and somebody suddenly says, right, David, we're going to turn this into a Netflix drama, BBC drama, right? I didn't prep you for this question, so this is going to have to go straight off the cuff. Who's going to play you? Oh, oh, you know what, I was thinking about this the other day. I've just finished watching the last one that came out last year on BBC. 'Small Axe,' and it was 5 stories of the Black history, and it was a director, Stephen Queen, that had done them. Right. And I was thinking, you know, this could fit in perfectly with this, like, I think there's 5 different films about the police, police in the '80s, and just different films. It's called 'Small Axe,' you'll find it on the iPlayer. And I was thinking, you know, could somebody make a film out of it? Could somebody make a drama out of it? You know, I hope so. So if anybody's listening, you know where I am. Yeah, but come on, who's gonna play you? Seriously, I don't know. In between, see, everybody I'm thinking of in my mind now, they're all men. I'm thinking like I don't know, you've got me there, I can't think of anybody. Oh, the thing is I've stumped myself because it was just something that I thought of just as we were talking about it, because it would be, you know, great to be televised, just to kind of really absorb everything that's happening. Maybe we'll come back to that one. We're just coming to the end of today's show. Now, something that I do like to ask all of my guests here on Get Booked is for 3 top tips on how to try and achieve good mental well-being. Do you have 3 good tips for our listeners? Well, we touched on one before, and it's about talking about your problems, you know, not keeping things in, you know. Kind of a lot of people, when I, you know, when I'm at work, like some of the patients I work with, patients, you know, they talk about, you know, but people won't be interested in what I, you know, my problem, I'm just a burden. Well, unless you tell people, how do you know that? Yeah, you know, so it's about kind of speaking and sharing your problems. Another thing, uh, which I would say is kind of reducing like social media, maybe, you know, feeling the need to update, you know, kind of, because I, I went through a spell where I was checking in everywhere, you know, I need to check in there, I need to check in there, I need to tell people where I am, you know, and I've reduced the social media, you know, and it is beneficial You know, and the thing is with social media, it's like people kind of, you know, watch other people's lives not realizing, well, actually, you know, they're only putting on what they want to put on, you know. So when people are depressed, you know, and maybe anxious, you know, well, you know, they may have a thought, you know, other people's lives are better than mine because, you know, every, every film, TV's like, you know, in a restaurant or, you know, yeah, it's a glossed-up version. It's not real. Most of it's not real. It's just, it's entertainment or it's showing your best parts. Exactly. And I say to patients, you know, think about somebody who's on a 6-2-2-10 shift or a night shift. Why are they not putting a picture on at 2 o'clock in the morning when they, you know, you know, well, 10 o'clock at night when they just finished the shift, you know, and they're in their overalls or whatever. You know, that's reality, you know, but they're only showing pictures when they've got a cocktail in front of them or they're doing a show or something, you know, or checking in somewhere. So it's about just challenging yourself to like take a step back from social media if you can. Yeah, I know for a fact that I post nice pictures of me with my lipstick on properly and I've got a nice cocktail, you know, you don't get the ones where I'm wearing a stained t-shirt doing my washing because I can't be bothered. I want to get another wear out of a t-shirt. Exactly. But it's kind of when people are depressed, people choose to home in on them pictures when people are in the best clothes or they are at the restaurant and think, you know, my life's crap, you know, because of, uh, you know, compared to other people's, you know. So yeah, and it's interesting with phones. I talk to my son all the time, you know, you'll never know, you'll never know a time where you can be completely anonymous. You know, there isn't this profile, you know, tracking you, you know, you, you know. I tell him about times like when there was 3 channels on the TV. Yeah, I sound about 90, don't I? But you know, there was 3 channels on the TV. Yeah, I was gonna say, are you gonna talk about 4 channels? 3 channels? When we had Channel 5 come about in the late '80s, early '90s, 90s were like, what, a whole nother channel? My kids now get really annoyed that the 683 channels they've got, there's nothing on the telly. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, back up, back up. And it's kind of this, you know, we need— the kids need to be stimulated, you know, they need to do things. And I said to him, you know, I wish I could like get in a time machine and take you back to Sunday afternoons in 1981 or something, you know, and just show you what it was like, completely and exactly mundane with nothing to do. But you know, it can't— you know, no shops open, no, you know, restaurants, no pubs closing, there was nothing. You know, for kids you have to, you know— I say that to my kids when they sometimes say, oh, sometimes I feel a bit fidgety and I don't know what to do with myself. And I'm like, that's because you're constantly stimulated and you don't know how not to be, and we need to work on that. But it's all down to technology. Do you know what I've just come across? Did you ever watch Bridgerton? Oh well, I'm just thinking Regé-Jean Paul, right? He's tall. He'd be a cracking one for you. Put that in Google and search him out. I will do. I think you'll like that one. We now have come to the end of today's show. I do have just a very, very quick question because I just think it's quite personal, especially especially with what you've been talking about and what you've gone through, I do like to ask, who in the public eye do you completely admire and think is a good value person to keep an eye on? Hmm, I don't want to get political. Oh, do it, go on. No, I like left-wing politicians, people, it's just that, you know what, I'm going to be controversial. One of the people that I've always admired, he's just had his 90th birthday at the weekend, Dennis Skinner. Oh, okay. Labour politician, the Beast of Ballsall. But you know, I like the guy. I like how he speaks. All through the years he spoke his mind. He's never backed down. He's always said what he wants to say, and he's always fought for the working man, the working-class man. And, you know, he was part of the mining industry, and because I have mining ties, like my granddad was a miner, my granddad's a miner, I'll say Dennis Skinner. There you go, you didn't expect that, did you? I did not, but you know what, that's what I like. This is what I like to hear, what people have to say on, on this show, and just getting all the varied opinions. And this is why I like to find out about different people's ideas of what helps them attain better mental well-being as well, and it's Yes, it's what I love about doing this show. Thank you so much for joining us today. We could clearly make this show a couple of hours longer, but alas, we have to, we have to end it there. And just a quick reminder to all our listeners, if you want to get in touch with David, please do either pop on to his Twitter @wigglanta or get in touch with me and I'll make sure I can connect you both together. Best of luck with Midway Plane to Georgia, David, and thanks so much for joining us here on Get Booked. You are so welcome. Loved chatting to you today. Okay, thank you. Bye. Bye.