59: “Where did you get that from?”

A bit of background before my stories – I’m from a village in North Derbyshire where I grew up with my sister and parents in a 2.5-bed semi-detached house that they bought when they got married. Both my parents worked full time day jobs – my mum worked in a library and my dad repaired telephone wires for BT - and we were always able to eat tea together as a family. The house was and is within walking distance of many other relatives, and my sister and I spent evenings, weekends and summers playing out in the streets, the woods nearby and in neighbours and cousins’ gardens. Mum and dad didn’t worry about where we were so long as we were back for tea at 6. We would go on family camping holidays around the UK until I must have been about ten, when our summer holidays became a couple of weeks self-catering in Spain, Portugal, Malta etc. When my sister and I each turned 16, we got Saturday jobs for pocket money, the experience and to boost our CVs when we were older. I think you can read from the above – my parents didn’t struggle to get a mortgage on a house in the area they grew up in. They didn’t struggle to get jobs that paid enough to put money on the table and give us a holiday every year. The streets were safe. I’ve never seen a police officer in the village even to this day but if there had been, if wouldn’t have crossed our minds to be worried that we might be stopped by them. We didn’t have any trouble getting a British passport. No one has ever looked at our names and worried we might not fit in, or worried they might pronounce our names wrongly so preferred not to try. After school I went to university, my fees were means tested and I was charged I think the lowest amount at that time (£800pa) and I was eligible for the largest student loan. I didn’t have to battle to be recognised a British citizen to be allowed student finance. After university I got a teaching job in South Korea, the only credentials I needed to get the work visa as an English teacher was to prove were that I was a native English speaker with a degree.

And now the story - A white Australian friend I knew in Korea got pregnant by her African American boyfriend. When they split up, she moved back to Hervey Bay in Australia to be nearer her family when the baby was due. My contract in Korea was up around soon after when the baby was born so I went to stay with her and help out. One day when I went out with the baby someone came up to look and they said “where did you get that from?”. This was in 2012. I was and remain in absolute shock.