A long time ago I had
an Uncle Alex. An unremarkable revelation but one that had personal
ramifications.
A few words about
Uncle Alex to set the scene.
His name was, in
fact, Kenneth John Alexander but he was universally known as ‘Alex’. He was
coarse in his language and rough of demeanour but he was also not only the
kindest man you could meet but also one of the most intelligent.
He would, as often
happened, do something for people, anyone, at the drop of a hat without asking
for recompense or favour in return. In doing this he would sprinkle his
conversation with some of the less popular and accepted words known in the
English language. He was one to call a spade a spade and not a shovel or, as
Jeremy Clarkson would have it, a Ferrari.
One evening, when
visiting with my parents, he mumbled all the correct answers to a popular quiz
game that was on television as they all conversed; this was after he had been
committed as an outpatient to the local lunatic asylum.
You see, the mechanism
that connected all the dots in his head had broken.
A big, gentle man. He
was ex-Army from Kent.
His wife, a fabulous
dinner cook who made gravy to die for, called Aunty Amy, visited him in the
hospital. He dragged her over to a picture of the Virgin Mary hanging on the
wall and, jabbing at it, explained to his wife that the lady depicted was his
(expletive deleted) mother.
Amy gently said,
“Don’t be silly, Alex. You’re from Sittingbourne.”
What Amy lacked in
humour she made up for in an overwhelming love for her husband.
Amy died of cancer
shortly after Alex succumbed to a heart attack.
The point of this
story is that Alex brought a colleague home from work one evening. His friend
was invited for dinner, they seemed to have a good time.
After his workmate
had gone I asked Uncle Alex who this fellow was.
“That’s George,” he
told me.
I tried again.
Uncle Alex told me he
was a friend from work at the Council Offices.
I persisted.
At last a dawn of
realisation came over Uncle’s face, “Oh, he’s one of our coloured brethren,”
Alex laughed and tousled my hair.
I had never seen a
‘coloured brethren’ before.
Now this was possibly
the worst thing that Alex could have told me. Unwittingly he had played
straight into a weakness in that I have monochromatic vision.
I knew that there
were Red Indians, Black Africans, Brown Asians and that Chinese were yellow and
assumed that everyone was a different ‘type’. Rather along the lines of
‘Alsatians’ and ‘Dachshunds’.
Fast forward
seventeen or eighteen years.
One morning I was
having a coffee with our maid. A very young girl of good English and great
intelligence. This was normal when I came off night shift; Sadia would make
coffee and, perhaps, breakfast, and we should put the World to rights for ten
minutes and then I should go to sleep for the day.
One morning I asked
her what colour she was. She seemed surprised and so I explained the situation.
This gave rise to some mirth on her part and then she proceeded to tell me the
facts of life.
“The girl next door,”
she explained, “is a Tamil. We should call her ‘black’ but she is not. We can
see where her hair ends and her face begins. We call you ‘white’ but you are
more of a dirty yellow,” she grinned, “You two are the same colour. You are
merely different shades. She is very dark where you are very light. I, on the
other hand,” she stroked her arm, “am perfect.”
It was hard to argue that.
This is what is
called a ‘paradigm shift’. It is a complete sea change in the way of thinking.
Suddenly I was aware
that everyone was the same. Everyone. Without exception.
Suddenly I had no
clue what the race riots in Alabama were all about.
Suddenly I failed to
comprehend the meaning of ‘apartheid’ in South Africa.
All the problems caused
by the simple comment of a wonderful, kind man and restored by the wisdom of a
young girl.
The good things Alex
did far outweighed that one mistake. I shall always think kindly of him and
Aunty Amy.
Rest in peace, Uncle Alex.
