Rewriting history

First of a few interviews up to Black History month:

Photo: Alwyn Simpson 

Alwyn Simpson, 51, is a charity worker, public-sector employee and long-time trade union rep. He pays his bills, looks after his family, likes the idea of contributing to his community and gets off his behind to do it, and does a good line in talking dead losses round to the point of philanthropy, etc. He also has that enviable knack of convincing big companies to donate freebies to voluntary and community projects: Marks & Sparks, Starbucks, and other of the famed millennium corporates that get on everyone's tits. He's spent most of his life in London, although there was an interval of some years in Jamaica. Anyway - he is an unusual man.

And a welcome one, one would have thought: alas, there are days when Simpson isn't sure. There was a morning recently in Blackpool, for instance, when a fellow diner at a cafe kept muttering 'shut up, shut up,' as Simpson and a Gambian friend talked about a charity project as they ate their meal. They were going to pretend that they couldn't hear her, except that she made a special trip to their table to make sure that they could. 'Best of British, wog,' she said to them. Then, she left. 'Her husband apologised,' Simpson says. 'That was Blackpool.'

Then, there are the police, of course. Turn around, Simpson says, and they are there. Again. Hard to say why, he says. Maybe they're harassing you. Maybe they care about you more than your own mother. Who knows. He says that there are a lot of repeat incidents that he could probably do without. For instance: he's got a BMW and feels that he spends a lot of time on the side of the road in it, explaining to traffic cops that he owns it, etc. That kind of thing.

The press makes him wonder, as well. He does not think he is being paranoid when he says that the white media is a little too interested in portraying African and African-Caribbean people as a bunch of armed tribal fruitcakes - here, in the US, in the Caribbean, and in Africa. 'We don't call it 'television' at our house. It's called tel-LIE-vision. Ha ha ha.' No one race is more violent than another, he says. He thinks that violence is colourblind. No – he doesn't. He wonders sometimes if white men are more violent than black ones. Probably, it's a dead heat.

'Don't talk to me about George Bush. Nah. Nah. He will go after Chavez and the Iran leader (sic) and all those countries that are not working with America. All those people in Iraq? Nah. Nah. You look when the media says that African people are crazy and killing each other and with crazy leaders, [and you think] Don't... Talk... To... Me.' Simpson knows about black violence. His 20-year-old cousin was knifed to death on a West London estate two years ago - 'another one in the wrong place at the wrong time.' He sits on a youth justice panel that tries to find constructive ways to help young people who have come to police attention. Of course he knows that some African and African-Caribbean people have troubles. He just thinks that you're more likely to feel loved when you go for whole days without the police shining a torch up your butt.

But hey-ho, and on we go: Simpson redirecting his extensive energies towards Africa. He's got to know a number of people in the Lamin and Marakissa regions of the Gambia and is helping to build school and crèche facilities there, as you do. He's getting a lot of support for these projects at this end. He's started a charity to raise funds for the schools and crèches. The footballer Marcus Gayle has signed on as charity patron, and Simpson managed to get several hundred enthusiastic people to the recent launch of the charity. Wasn't a bad evening, either. Nobody shot anybody, or tried to sell crack. The Beamer was lawfully parked. There was music, poetry, heaps of food, and obvious enthusiasm for Africa and a charitable endeavour.

So - the hell with the obstacles, Simpson says: you've just got to get out there and do it. 'I always had the aim of going to Africa before I was 50. So - I was standing in the Town Hall (where he works) when I was 49, and I realised that I had to get to a travel agent. There were two travel agents and I went into one, and she [the travel agent] said 'Well - where?' and I wasn't sure. They looked at Ghana, but that was because a lot of people go to Ghana. Then, she came up with Gambia as an idea, and that's where it started. I don't know what part of Africa I'm from. I just wanted to get to the place. I don't think of England as home, or Jamaica. That's just where they dropped us off to be slaves.

'I made the first trip to the Gambia in 2005, and I met two guys who were taxi drivers there and I asked them to take me to places that the tourists didn't usually go to.

'They took me to GOVI (the Gambia Organisation for the Visually Impaired) and I met the senior teacher there. His name is Majabou Gaye. We talked a lot about the work that they were doing in that school. You could see that they had nothing, man, nothing really. One of the things that they told me was that they were really interested in getting dictaphones. The dictaphones were useful, because the kids can use the dictaphones to record the lessons when they go to highschool. So, we left them some money and got them a laptop as well, and I came back to London, and I just thought that I would ask people if they would make donations.'

The second trip took place in 2006. 'I was really into it right away, because you could see how much difference a bit of money made there. You can buy a lot of things in the Gambia with (UK) pounds. A lot. You get about 45 [Gambian] dalasis to the pound. The teachers that I was talking to were earning about £25 a month, so a small donation makes a big difference.

'I want to keep up with the donations, because more and more people were saying they would help here (in the UK), but then I could see there were other things to do. When I went back in 2007, they took me to [a village called] Marakissa and that's when I got to know Hassan Manneh. He's been my point of contact. He liaises with the village leader, the Alkali. He's the guy who makes the decisions for the whole community. You can't get land unless he agrees to it. If he gives you land, you need to show that you're using it to make a contribution to the community. He will take the land off you if you're not working for the community.'

'The project that we have started is a community and daycare centre. They said they needed something like this. At the moment, the mothers in the village have to take their small children to work with them in the open farmland, because there is nowhere else for those children to go. That means that the babies and toddlers are out in the sun for hours, all day, and it's hot. It's really hot. The community centre will give a shelter and daycare for them. So, we got the land, and the money for the building materials, and now the local people are building the building themselves. I'll see it when I go back in October. I don't know where we will go after that – more schools, and a health centre? Maybe I'll retire there as well?'