THE LIVERPOOL YEARS
When the Sun slandered me in 1987, people all over the country complained, but people in Liverpool complained more. The people in Liverpool got really angry; many wrote letters to newspapers and to the media watchdog, but one group got so angry they lobbied their local arts council demanding that I do a residency there. It was agreed and, as a guest of the city, I took up residency managed by the Africa Arts Collective.
When Liverpool University heard of the residency they offered sponsorship but I declined – there were now so many universities trying to claim me that I wanted to stay clear of them all. I worked in Liverpool for two years but stayed for three. While there, I did performances, visited schools and kept an open house so that writers could see me at (almost) any time of the day. I also published a (very) small book called Inna Liverpool to celebrate my time there.
Liverpool at that time was like no other city in Britain. When you heard the term ‘Liverpool politics’, it meant a different kind of politics to what was happening in the rest of the country. The poverty in Liverpool was like nothing I had seen in the UK, and when someone described themselves as a ‘Liverpool black’ it could get confusing. They could be Irish, they could be Scottish, they could be white and dating a black person, or they could be black – they just had to be an outsider. To add to your oppression, if you lived in Toxteth (L8) you were probably unemployed and your every move was being watched by the police. Police vans in Liverpool were like armoured tanks, and this was the first place in mainland Britain (not Northern Ireland), to have a helicopter that didn’t just chase cars around but would hover over you as you walked home, shining its spotlight on you to see what you were smoking or reading.
Liverpool 8, or L8, as it’s known, is right next to the city centre, and is full of black people. When I first arrived I was told to walk from L8 to the city centre. I did, and I noticed how the black people magically disappeared. The dividing lines were clearly defined. Liverpool city centre had very few black people in it, by day or by night, but there was still something about that city that I loved. There’s just no one like a Scouser if you want a laugh; no one like a Scouser if you need a hand; no one like a Scouser if you want a drink, and no one like a Scouser if you want a fight. They are amazingly loyal, but if you cross them they’ll kill you.
Many theorised about the struggle, but the people of Liverpool lived the struggle. I connected with them, and they with me. The establishment in Cambridge (and London) were having meetings and posing questions on TV to work out if the poetry of Benjamin Zephaniah had any merits; the people in Liverpool didn’t need to ask. I had written a lot about the place and defended the people who lived there a long time before I took up residency. I felt a strong affinity with the city, and when I came under attack from the right-wing press, the people of Liverpool stood up for me.
I was called a ‘writer in residence’, but I was effectively a guest of the city and was able to work for whichever organisation needed me. I would work at the university, in schools or for other grassroots initiatives. My expenses were covered by the city, so I was able to perform free of charge for schools, community centres, at carnivals and (when necessary) at demonstrations and rallies. I built my first small home studio there and began to record some of the local poets and singers and my friends’ children. But my work extended far beyond that.
Maybe it was because I was an outsider that people would come to me and ask me for advice. I worked as a quasi-marriage counsellor. I helped people find somewhere to live. I gave drug counselling to people who needed it. I helped the prostitutes when they had no one else to confide in, and I was also there when people needed someone to talk to. At times it seemed that this type of work kept me more occupied than my poetry. If there were any political issues, I’d speak out. If gangs were at war with each other, I would be a mediator; if prostitutes were being blackmailed or hassled by the police or pimps, they knew they could come and speak to me in confidence. When I started the job, my contact person, Vivek Malhotra, told me it wouldn’t be a normal type of residency; the main point was that I would be there for people, whatever the people wanted of me.
Not long before I arrived they’d had all sorts of controversy with a Labour Party splinter group called Militant. I went to some of their meetings. I also went to Labour Party meetings, Communist Party meetings, Black Panther and other groups’ meetings, and I can honestly say I had absolutely no problem with any of them; they all welcomed me. The fact that I had never joined any of them and was seen as an observer who would report on proceedings poetically meant they all hoped that some of what they stood for would rub off on me, or at least that I would find some inspiration from them. I never went to a meeting with the police; I didn’t need to. They would come to me.
One night after leaving a meeting of political activists, I was followed home by helicopter. It was just before 1am on a Sunday morning and I was about two kilometres from my home in Princess Avenue. I heard the helicopter but I’d heard it many times, so took no notice of it, until it put its light on me. This light was so bright and so accurate that the small area I moved in was suddenly like daylight; the police up above could see every move I made. I wasn’t worried about it; I knew that you didn’t have to do anything to get arrested, but I also knew this was happening to other people all the time without any major outcry. If they came near me there would be an outcry, and I would be crying out the loudest. They followed me home. I went in, and they hovered over my house for five minutes and twenty-four seconds. I counted. Then they went to shine their light on someone else.
But the strangest stop I ever had happened while I was jogging. It was pouring with rain, and I hate jogging when it’s pouring with rain, but I was persevering. I was about halfway through my run when a male police officer stood in front of me with his arms spread open. He more or less blocked the pavement, but I genuinely thought he was joking. People do those kinds of things when you’re jogging. But he wasn’t joking. When he saw that I didn’t intend to slow down, he shouted, ‘Stop!’ at me. I stopped. Remember, it’s pouring with rain, and I’m not in the mood for any chit-chat.
‘Where are you coming from?’ he asked.
‘Home,’ I said.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Home,’ I said.
‘What do you have on you?’
‘Keys,’ I said.
He was getting as wet as me, so I thought he would think it was time to go, but no, he wanted more.
‘I need to search you,’ he said.
‘Come off it,’ I said, laughing at him. ‘I’m jogging. I’ve come from home, and I’m going home, and all I have is a key, because when I get home I need to open the door. Does that make sense to you?’
‘I’m not sure what you’re finding so funny, young man,’ he said, seemingly unaware that I was much older than him. ‘But you fit the description of a wanted burglar and I would be neglecting my duties if failed to question you.’
There were so many times in my life when I fitted the description of a burglar, and I had been stopped and questioned many times, but this was one of the strangest. He searched me, and all he found was a key, but even as I jogged away I was looking for the TV cameras. I was so sure this was a prank. It wasn’t. It was Liverpool.