Month: June 2007

This week we heard '…White British boys from poorer backgrounds are more likely than other social groups to perform badly at school…' That was according to a report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. A disturbing announcement I feel but something I knew already. In fact I have been anticipating this for nearly 40 years.
The only reason why more than 40 years ago the subject would not have hit the headlines is because there would have been no discrimination between the colour of skin in an educational report of the time. There would be no need, the predominant skin colour of our schoolchildren in the 1950s and early 1960s would have been white anyway.
In 2007, the fact that 'White Boys' as they put it, are falling behind in the educational stakes is a overt sign of the truisms of our society; a British society that has not been able to cope with itself as it has tended towards the formation of multi-cultural roots. Our lives have been enriched by this move, but many among us seem not to be able to either see that or indeed accept the fact that Britain has changed forever.
This development has been exacerbated by the metropolitan/provincial differences within society. The fact that most cities have developed their social mix across different cultural roots has left behind the provincial towns and especially the villages, to come to terms with multiculturalism all by themselves. Or, in most cases, to ignore it and to even defend against it. Racial tension never starts in the villages, but it is their inhabitants that become the cheer leaders for their white majority populations
So what has all this to do with Geno Washington and the Class of '66?
As I stated above, I have anticipated this divide within our educational system for many years now and have been pondering my own experiences and the experiences of some of my old class mates that left our school in 1966. The proof as they say is in the eating
The first problem I faced was finding some of my class mates to compare notes! Having travelled widely within the UK for the last forty years I have not kept in touch with many other than two girls I have remained very good friends.
'Friends United' was the obvious choice and it proved fruitful once you got beyond the obvious lies some people put against their names as their status. The high proportion of my contacts of '66 that claim to be IT Managers is wildly beyond any reasonable statistic for IT managers in the UK. After all, 50% of the population are not IT managers are they? To even the score, I insisted on putting myself down as 'a dosser living on handouts and discarded M&S sandwiches'. Having completed my social levelling act I was then taken by one boy that I was quite close to at the time. If his 'cv' was to be believed he actually rose to the dizzy heights of the music business and I was both sceptical and impressed at the same time.
So I set out to trace this friend of old and to catch up on the truth as we both saw it. If what I had read was true, it confirmed my suspicion the 'white boy' of old was more than able and willing to succeed in the world. Now it may not seem out of the ordinary to you, the reader, but what I have not told you so far is that the school we both attended was a secondary modern for 11+ failures and we were not supposed to achieve great heights having been discarded onto the scrap heap of the UK's educational system.
I eventually made contact through the email system and it turned out to be true. My friend had made good and had lived his dream. You see, we had when we were both about 15 or so, got the bug of black music and by our later teens we were both attending Geno Washington and other black music gigs in our hometown and in the murky atmosphere of the Soho all-nighter. The difference between us was that my friend went on to become a highly regarded DJ of black music and a record producer to boot. For myself, blues & soul remained within my heart and serves me to this day in a more metaphorical sort of way.
We conversed on email for several days, being several hundred miles apart, and it served to uncover yet another one of our '66 days, and yet another highly recognised DJ, though with tendencies towards heavy rock and currently working for an off-shoot of Virgin Radio. It takes all sorts I suppose.
Now I had the notion that if 50% of the class of '66 were IT mangers and the other half all became DJ's and it was I that was the odd one out. After all, all I had achieved was follow a career in science and introduce a prize-winning range of environmental monitors, becoming managing director of two companies and, in a later incarnation, rose to what I thought were the dizzy heights of the IT industry in the city of London. (hence the dosser story to complete the balancing act and to avoid the accusation of being a liar!!).
Some of class '66 'white boys' had bulked the system then. They had made good and achieved their dreams. Against all odds it seems, and as 'white boys' we did it with more than a little assistance from our black cousins, cousins that worked with us directly in the recording studios, provided the music that held us together it times of need and informed our music for generations to come. Now those 'cousins' live amongst us and it appears achieve better educational results than some 'white boys'.
Well good luck to them I say and may they too achieve their dreams and look back in forty years time and consider their roots as so important and inspirational as I do mine.
If the report in forty years time states '..some boys..' have failed, leaving out colour of skin, then I, looking down from one of heaven's 'all-nighter' dance floors, will be able to say, we eventually got it right and integrated. After all, blue and yellow make green