The Life and Rhymes of Benjamin Zephaniah

by Benjamin Zephaniah

  I thought he was insulting me and replied, ‘Who are you calling names? Do you want a slap?’ I went for him, and he screamed, ‘No, no, vegans are nice.’

  When I first heard the word it sounded strange. Some years later I learned that a guy called Donald Watson had coined it in 1944, when he took the middle out of the word vegetarian.

  I always loved sweets, but so many brands, especially back then, had animal products in them. I liked things like Wagon Wheels, lollipops and fruit and nut bars, but I gave them up until vegan options became available. Now I can eat them whenever I like as, of course, the options for vegans have never been better than they are now.

  I have always been proud of the fact that my choices weren’t based on being fashionable or following a movement; they came from my soul, and I was vegan by instinct. Later on I’d meet Rastas who were also committed to this path, although they didn’t call it vegan, they called it ‘ital’. Some people take that to mean ‘nice and healthy’, even when they eat fish, but ital should mean strictly vegan.

  People tell me they think it’s amazing I went vegan at such a young age. It didn’t feel ‘amazing’ to me – it felt right then and it feels right now. I don’t eat in places that serve meat and I don’t allow meat in my house. At times it has been difficult when I’ve been travelling, but there’s no such thing as no vegan option. There’s always some rice and veg somewhere. Even if I have to eat bland foods for a while, I always think, It’s only for a week or two.

  Later on in life I realised there were vegan organisations and groups of people that cared so much about what was happening to animals that they were prepared to do something about it. I became active as soon as I could. As with my attitude to human rights issues, my bottom line is that you can’t just be a poet or writer and say your activism is simply writing about these things; you have to do something as well, especially if your public profile can be put to good use.

  Since understanding the work of the animal rights movement I have always thought them to be the most dedicated of liberation movements. Let’s be honest: most of the people fighting for women’s rights will be women, most of the people fighting for aboriginal rights will be aboriginal, many of the people fighting for the rights of low-paid workers will be low-paid workers etc. But all the people fighting for the rights of animals are human. Their struggles have not an ounce of selfishness or self-interest attached; they truly campaign for those who cannot speak themselves. Their struggle is the ultimate struggle, because it is for the liberation of others.

  I have supported Uncaged, the National Organisation Working Against Live Exports, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), VIVA (Vegetarians’ International Voice for Animals), NAVS (National Anti-Vivisection Society) and many others, including of course the Vegan Society, of which I am a patron and a life member, but the people I most admired were the ALF, the Animal Liberation Front. I told someone this once and, not long afterwards, she invited me to go on an ALF operation, a ‘live liberation’. This is where they enter a laboratory, liberate the animals and take them to safe homes or, if needs be, to vets. I jumped at the opportunity.

  The ALF film their work and the activists wear masks, but on the night that didn’t work for me. Beneath the mask you could still see my dreadlocks and hear my voice, which everyone says is quite distinctive. At one point, when I held a liberated rabbit in my arms, I almost burst into poetry, but the other people on the operation kept telling me to shut up. We were successful but afterwards I was advised to stick to my normal mode of struggle and not go on another operation. I was too recognisable. So I continued to work in other areas for them. But I still think merely writing about it isn’t enough; you have to be active.

  11

  BLACK LIBERATION TIME

  Muhammad Ali was the greatest heavyweight boxing champion of all time. Malcom X and Martin Luther King had both been assassinated but the words of these great orators were reverberating in our spaces and places. Yet in school I was still being told that black people had been ‘discovered’, and apparently before we were discovered we were uncivilised, unsophisticated and unintelligent.

  It wasn’t so much the racism from other kids that was bothering me at this time. I was a big kid, and any kid that came to me with racism would have a fight on his hands, and besides, most of the people around me were black. In fact, the white kids feared us because in some areas, like Handsworth and Aston, our gangs were much bigger than theirs. Sometimes white kids would be too scared to pass us on the street or walk through one of our areas, but we would reassure them and let them pass. There was no way they would be attacked simply because they were white, but they would be attacked if they messed with us.

  Plenty of white boys and girls were hanging out with us because we had cool music, cool smokes and cool style, and they wanted some of that. No, the racism I was seeing at this time came firstly from the police – who were relentlessly stopping and searching us, even right outside the school gates – and that which I came across in school. It’s hard to say if the teachers were serious, hardcore or even soft racists, but the books they were teaching from, and their Anglocentric world view, were seriously racist.

  While we were supposed to have been discovered, uncivilised, unsophisticated and unintelligent, they were great, civilisers of savages, never to be slaves, rulers of the waves, victorious and right. I can’t believe that most of the teachers teaching this stuff really believed it, especially when I consider that all the teachers I’ve come across as an adult are open-minded and curious, so what was happening back then? I go with the idea that they were just obeying orders, but when it came to the teaching of the Nazis I was told that obeying orders couldn’t be used as an excuse. Or maybe they just didn’t know any better.

  It wasn’t the only thing they didn’t know the truth about – at the time I was struggling very badly with dyslexia (and so were other kids I knew) but teachers back then didn’t know what it was, so I was ‘stupid’.

  On television I caught glimpses of the heroes of the Black Power movement. Muhammad Ali, Stokley Carmichael and Yuri Kochiyama were all preaching about the condition of black people, and Angela Davis was still regarded as the most dangerous person in the USA. Something had happened and something was happening; I just wasn’t fully aware of what it all was – I was too busy trying to survive in my home town – but I felt that my struggle in Birmingham, in the West Midlands of England, was connected to the struggles of people in Birmingham, Alabama, in the USA, and I could feel something calling me, but I didn’t quite understand it all.

  Pastor and Mum didn’t really comment on the Black Power movement. Pastor mentioned it was good that Muhammad Ali wouldn’t go to Vietnam, but that was it. I remember Mum coming in one day and being really happy because she’d heard a woman in a restaurant had thrown a cup of tea over Enoch Powell. In terms of the politics of race they’d mention the ‘colour bar’ and places that were off-limits because they were hostile, but in terms of the politics that was going on in the big world, very little comment. For them it was all about Jesus.

  All I knew then was that I didn’t like people killing people and I didn’t like people killing animals – but all I wanted was a girlfriend who didn’t eat meat and wasn’t a racist.

  12

  HERE COMES BABYLON SYSTEM

  It’s dark and I’m running, running . . . like a school cross-country event, except this time it’s the middle of the night and there’ll be no cake and juice once it’s over. The air is crisp and the twigs crack beneath me as I pound across the woodland. On the boundaries of the trees, in the far distance, I can see pinpoints of light from the villages but here, deep in the foliage, it’s like a jungle. Bracken and brambles and badger sets and earth. Strange musty smells. Mustn’t slip or twist an ankle. Even if they realise I’m missing, they’ll never be able to catch me. I’m fleet of foot and good at hiding and no one is on my tail. I’m desperate to sleep, but I know if I do that I’ll get cold and stif
f and won’t be able to run again so easily. I’ve got to keep moving, got to get away. Stay limber; stay on a straight line that’ll take me all the way to Baschurch, where I’ll get a bus that’ll deliver me back to Birmingham.

  Mum won’t scold me and Pastor will take me in, even though he said no good would come of my ways, and it’s turned out he was right. ‘Make your bed and you lie in it,’ he said. But at least he didn’t come down hard with any preaching or talking about Jesus or sin. But I can’t just ‘lie in it’. I’m done with being banged up with all those kids going crazy. And all those rules and regulations. Babylon system.

  I have to stop for a while to gather myself and rest, even though I won’t let myself sleep. I’ve got nothing to sleep on and no bag. All I’ve got is the clothes I’m wearing and some loose change. I wish I knew how to survive in the wild. Maybe I’d have learned that sort of stuff if I’d gone to Scouts instead of the stupid Boys’ Brigade with all their military marching. At least it’s dry. I can lean against a tree for a while and plan my next move.

  My heartbeat gradually slows and thoughts about my life flow freely. Some of the tension of the day falls away a little bit, and I start going over what’s been happening. I shouldn’t have hit that disabled kid, the one who walks with the sticks. I’m usually his back-up. Everyone needs some back-up in that place. I like him. I’ve even been looking out for him. It’s survival of the fittest, though, and if you aren’t fit yourself, you’d better find someone who is.

  I shouldn’t have lashed out at him. All he did was say hello and I jumped up and landed a flying kick on him that was so powerful it knocked him out. I really don’t know what came over me. I guess it was the visit from Mum. She’d yet again made that really long journey up here from Aston, with the locals staring at her as she changed buses. They’re not used to seeing black people in Shrewsbury, except when the police wagon delivers boys like me to Boreatton Park Approved School.

  We’re all thrown in together. There’s tough street kids like me who have nimble fingers and who can be in and out of a burglary in two minutes, or who have lifted a purse here and there, but some are a few levels up from that – hardened criminals and kids who have killed their parents. But there’s plenty down the lower rungs – lads who have lost their families in car crashes or those no one seems to care about, and weaker ones with disabilities, or the kids who get preyed on and fiddled with.

  Take the kid a couple of beds away from me. He’s always getting up in the middle of the night to leave the dorm. We know he’s going to see that pervert teacher and, one time, I felt I had to do something. I saw he was leaving as usual and I got in front of him, stood by the door and said, ‘Listen mate, it’s three o’ clock in the morning, you don’t have to go.’ And he said, ‘I’ve got to.’ He was trembling with fear, like he was hypnotised; he didn’t know how to stop it. I’ve tried to get him to tell me about it but he won’t.

  There’s some good lads in there, even though it’s tough. I guess some of us black kids are more used to taking a stand than the white ones. No pervert teachers are gonna be putting their hands down our trousers – they’d get decked. I told this kid we’d take down the teacher responsible; land some licks of justice on him. We’d even go to court and defend him if it came to it. But still he goes to see him and it drives me crazy. I want to shake him out of his trance. If he doesn’t take a stand he’ll be worn down, ’cos that can happen really easily in a place like Boreatton Park.

  It may be approved but it certainly isn’t a school. The first day we arrived they gave us a Maths and English test, but that was it. The authorities would say we’re there to be reformed or re-educated, but for us the purpose is survival. That’s all any of us thinks about. They impose a house system, like you get in school, with four houses, and every boy has to belong to one. But I don’t know any normal school with a padded cell in its basement. This is for the kids who lose it and throw a wobbler, explode or get themselves into a crazy state. The staff drag them down there until they go quiet, so they can’t hurt themselves or anybody else, or cause more problems and paperwork. But all the hurt is going on inside.

  Me, I can handle it. I’m used to being self-sufficient. I’m healthy and can spot opportunities. But there’s never any peace or quiet. In fact, it’s usually the opposite. Fighting can break out over anything. One day, a few weeks back, there was a massive riot, blacks against whites. It really kicked off – tables turned over, plates smashed, heads jumped on, TVs kicked in. We were outnumbered but we always feel we’re stronger than the white kids. It was such a big deal that the staff couldn’t stop us, so they called the police. When they arrived things got more exciting; we all teamed up together to fight them. Suddenly the people we’d been kicking and punching became our allies and we let the cops have it. We were really fighting because of boredom, I think.

  I am an excellent fighter; a slick kung fu stylist from watching so many Bruce Lee films. I’ve been to kung fu classes and I’m ace at kicking. Good luck if you’re trying to get close to me. When it comes to fists, though, Trevor is the king. Punches just bounce off him before he knocks you out. He’s hard. He was already in Boreatton when I arrived, so I’ve got back-up and no one messes.

  So yeah, today Mum came to visit, bringing with her, among other things, a packet of my favourite Jamaica ginger biscuits. I ate the lot as she sat in front of me. The smell and taste of those biscuits, and watching my mum watching me, was too much like home, and I couldn’t take it anymore. I didn’t say anything but I decided to make my escape. I left through the back of the school and absconded into the forest. I ran and ran and ran and here I am, drifting in and out of sleep in the small hours, up against a tree. It’ll be light soon, ’cos it’s summer, then I’ll slip down into Baschurch and I’ll be free.

  Who knows when I’ll next get something to eat. I’m really hungry. I burn calories fast with all my running and general activity. I’ve realised something: I won’t be able to blend in with the locals when I get to the village. I’ll stick out like a sore thumb. They’re bound to know I’m a fugitive from Boreatton. Still, I’m gonna take my chances.

  As it happened, I didn’t make it to Baschurch that morning. It had been a long night, my feet were tired and damp from the morning dew, and I was ravenous. When I finally emerged onto a road, I turned to look at the surroundings and I saw Boreatton Park just a couple of hundred metres away from me. I thought I’d been going straight, but I’d been going round in a big circle! So I went back in time for breakfast and no one was any the wiser.

  I suppose it was inevitable I’d come up against the punishment system. By this time, 1973, I’d been suspended from a number of schools for being a rudie, and I also got permanently expelled from a few others for being worse, although most of the time I was quite happy. The first school I got expelled from was Ward End Hall when I was about twelve. Until that fateful day, I’d been doing quite well there. Although lessons like History were still entrenched in teaching Victorian notions of empire and colonialism, one place where I didn’t feel so discouraged was on the sports field.

  Of the many schools I attended, Ward End Hall was one of my favourites for that reason. Its sports facilities were excellent. It had a long-jump pit, we did rugby and basketball, and it was here that I really flourished as a 100 metres and 200 metres sprinter, as well as doing cross-country running for the first time. I was unbeatable. Not only did I represent the school but the whole region. Certificates of my victories hung on our walls at home, and I became an AAA (Amateur Athletics Association) champion. Running, and later, jogging, became part of my everyday routine from then on.

  Then, one day, I was sitting in class minding my school business, when some of the other kids started passing round a porno mag. They were talking and quietly giggling, while I was trying to come to terms with some algebra. Being a boy the magazine eventually came to me, but I didn’t even get a chance to look at it before the teacher spotted me and shouted: ‘You, boy, what hav
e you got there?’ She came over and took the offending publication from my hands and marched me out of the class to the headmistress.

  The headmistress took one look at the magazine and said she would not tolerate it. That was it. I was expelled. As I was leaving the office, I turned back and said, ‘I’m being expelled for looking at a magazine I haven’t seen. Could I at least have a look at it so the punishment can fit the crime?’ She did the angry teacher shout and told me to get out of the school and never return.

  I was glad to be out of school but I didn’t understand how damaging it could be and would be to my future. The last time I got expelled was from Canterbury Cross, or Broadway Comprehensive, as it had become. I had been given lots of warnings for fighting, misbehaving, truanting and not paying attention in class, but when they realised there was no hope for me they told me to go forever.

  As I left the school a teacher told me I was a born failure and that within a short time I was going to be dead or doing a life sentence in prison. I know that sounds a bit harsh but I didn’t take it badly; a few people had said similar things to me and there was a small part of me that thought they could be right.

  Not long after I was kicked out of Broadway Comprehensive, I was arrested again and this time it was for one robbery with fourteen others to be taken into consideration. The judge considered everything and then sent me to Boreatton Park. You were never actually sentenced to an approved school; your sentence was to be put in the care of the local authority. If the local authority was imaginative, you could end up in all kinds of interesting places but most of us were simply sent to approved school.

  After my secret escape, Trevor and I were put on a course to learn about car mechanics. I did that for a while and found I had quite an aptitude for it. My most vivid memory of being at Boreatton Park isn’t the fights – it’s of me and Trevor stripping down a Ford Corsair engine and rebuilding it. I loved it, and although I never fancied myself as a car mechanic, I’m quite proud of being able to understand how cars work, and being able to fix them. When it was rebuilt it was used for pumping water rather than as a car engine but I didn’t care – I’d learned something that might come in useful.