My Mum – KRIS

Damned if I do, Damned if I don’t

23rd Jun 202027th Jun 2020 by Kr15Tna, posted in Childhood memories, My Mum

Trigger warning: Discusses eating disorders, mental health and body image.

I actually had another couple of pieces planned for today, but had some things that I want to express first.

For much of my life I have not had the healthiest of relationships with food. Before I knew what food was and that my body needed it for sustenance and to survive, I had an issue with it. As an baby, my mother was unable to get me to eat food. Something that she took me to the health visitor for, up to that point she had taken to extreme measures of making runny Weetabix and serving it to me in a bottle with the top cut off. The health visitor fobbed my mum off with a response of ‘as long as I’m eating I’m fine’.

I didn’t eat solids in a ‘normal’ manner until after my little sister was born and had been weaned and I witnessed that. I was over three years old by then. As I grew and became vocal, if you asked me the issue I would tell you I was scared of being fat. I had never been fat, but looking back and even thinking about it I can remember how terrified I was of that. I always felt like I needed to lose weight. Meal times were the biggest issue for me. I wasn’t a breakfast person, and my father was always chasing me with toast and demands that I have something before I left for school.

I couldn’t ever see how slim I was, convinced that I could always be slimmer. I hid food, and threw food away, flushed it down the toilet. Did everything that I could to get out of eating. My parents, who worked in the mental health field recognised my problem, even as the health professionals around me did not. My mother would often ask me what I wanted to eat in compromise, and went out of her way to ensure that she could get the foods that I asked for. This meant searching far and wide when the local butcher shut down and nowhere else made their tomato and beef sausages that I loved to eat. She would buy entire entenmann’s chocolate fudge cakes for me to eat, that my siblings were not allowed to touch. Barter and bargain with me on how much food would be put on my plate, I’d cycle through claims that I didn’t like certain foods, one week it could be salads and I didn’t like or want tomato, cucumber or lettuce. I can recall my mother counting out cucumber slices, chips and other foods as she placed them on my plate because I had decided I was only going to eat 6 cucumbers or 10 chips that day. All while, I would be hovering to make sure she wasn’t tricking me. Often I would be the last one at the dining room table as I wasn’t allowed to leave until I had cleared my plate. As I got older, she would have me dish out my own meals, we had an agreement that I would eat everything that I put on my plate. That was a lot of bartering and haggling between us.

I continued to grow with the fear of being fat, but I also grew into an awareness that my eating habits were not ok. I challenged myself one year with a new years resolution to try some new foods every month and to eat three times a day. I settled into routines but admittedly better habits but I still always worried about being fat. I suffered with tonsillitis, that led to them being removed during the school holidays when I was 9/10. I have also struggled with various digestive issues throughout my life. What came first? Im not sure. Thats like asking was it the chicken or the egg.

As an adult I could still wear and fit clothes that I wore as a teenager. I lost a lot of weight while I was at uni because I bowed down to external pressures and comments. For the first time in my adult life I was wearing size 0. I had the unhealthy habit of living of off cheeseburgers, hot wings, Doritos and Evian, something that only changed during my journey to veganism. It was no secret that I was really scared of being fat. I didn’t have the best body image and was always super hard on myself. I can remember meeting a friends mum during uni for the first time and she came to hug me with the words “don’t worry you cant catch fat”.

Wearing a vest top pulled from my 13 year old wardrobe at a ‘Army dance’ student event

Seven years ago I was in a car accident, I may share on that another time, the post injuries treatment left me being classed as obese by my GP. I suddenly found myself fat, and many people that knew me were commenting on the weight gain, even knowing I was on a large amount of medication and had had multiple surgeries. My worst fear, something I had worried about my entire life had come true. The necessity of taking medications and the reality of having to eat full meals to do so, stopped me from reverting back to past bad habits. My GP referred me to a specialist who reviewed my diet, at that point I was fully on plant based and determined that the only help they could give was referring me the gym with a subsidised membership and sending me off to Slimmingworld for free. Limited with what I could do I took to spin classes with vigour. Low impact, and not too much of a strain on my spine I found a love for it that I hadn’t expected. My body shape changed along with my mindset and I found that I was able to embrace the bigger thighs and love the body that I have. Its not been an easy journey, according to my BMI I still have a way to go. I have learnt that I don’t need to restrict my food intakes in order to stay slim, I am eating more per day and more regularly then I ever have in my life. For that I credit food optimising and the Slimmingworld plan. I learnt to be more compassionate to those around me and understand that not only do people come in all shapes and sizes but people can carry ‘extra’ weight through no fault of their own.

Spinning and Slimmingworld journey…..Left is at my biggest.

So why do I say I am damned if I do and damned if I don’t?

Throughout all of my years of issues with food, I have also struggled with body image. In primary school and secondary school I was called Teeny or Teeny tiny because I was so slim and slender. My mother would buy the smallest available size clothes and then tailor them in to ensure they fit me. A lot of the time I used to dress with the confidence I wished to have. This continued on into adulthood til I had my car accident and I came to the mindset that I didn’t want to care so much what other people think. I get comments if I don’t post pictures of myself and comments when I do. I am aware that my body is disproportioned. If I post pictures ‘hiding’ any chest I get comments that I must be ashamed, if I post pictures ‘showing’ my chest I get comments that I must want attention on it.

At a time when people were constantly commenting on my body size and shape.

Damned if I do. Damned if I don’t.

I will not be ashamed of my body. I will not allow others to shame or dictate when it comes to my body. It has been through a lot and is still going strong. It has weathered Swine flu, meningitis, 12 back/spine surgeries, ruptured organ/internal bleeding, suspected Covid-19 and more. I am pro-choice in all areas of life, irrespective of my own opinions. So the next time you think to give me your twopence, stick it in your own piggy bank!

A racist country, led by a racist prime minister: WINDRUSH SCANDAL PART 1

17th Jun 202017th Jun 2020 by Kr15Tna, posted in BLACK LIVES MATTER UK, My Mum, Opinon

I am no stranger to the various nuances of racism in the UK. If you have read my PSA – In the words of Jay-Z…..Allow me to reintroduce myself! or my other article To be Black AND British…. you will have seen some examples of the the racism I have experienced during my childhood, youth and adulthood.

But it was not until Boris Johnson became prime minister that someone shouted at me to ‘go back to where I came from’ in addition to various other racial slurs and profanities. I didn’t know them, had never seen them before and was totally perplexed by someone being that angry at me merely because they disliked the colour of my skin. It was a vile and stupid statement to make given that I, as I headed to my daily spin class was less then 200 yards from the hospital I was born in. Far closer to where ‘I came from’ in the literal sense then the racist who shouted that command.

A racist country.

I don’t need to see any figures or statistics to know that racism in the UK, while always present and prevalent has become more pronounced in recent years. The conservatives have repeatedly demonstrated through their choice of policies and actions and further lack of other policies and action that they do not value black or even many ethnic lives in the UK. Before, you jump in uproar at my confidently spoken statement, I will be providing you with examples in a series of articles called: A racist country, led by a racist prime minister.

Firstly, lets look at the Windrush scandal. The very fact that I was born in England and am a British Citizen is due to the post World War II practice, known as the Windrush, of recruiting people from the Caribbean by offering cheap transport via ship for anybody who wanted to come and work in the United Kingdom. The ship HMT Empire Windrush brought a group of 802 migrants to the port of Tilbury, near London, on 22 June 1948.

And there was plenty of opportunity for them to do so, both British rail and the National Health Service (NHS). Many others came after with Ceri Peach, a social geographer estimating that the number of West Indian born people in the UK grew from 15,000 in 1951 to 172,000 in 1961. My mother was one of the Windrush, coming over to England as a baby in 1958 with her grandmother and on her passport.

My mother, the baby on her grandmothers lap surrounded by her cousins

I’m sure you’re now think ‘how fantastic’ and ‘what a wonderful opportunity the UK government gave these people’. You should note that it was not a one way favour, the war left gaping holes in many industries and this was one solution that the government at the time had. However, as said before the UK is a racist country. Its no surprise that bringing people from the Caribbean to work was a solution the UK ran with, it is after all built on the backs of slavery, the commonwealth and the British empire. And the moment Britain started to look ‘too Black’ we saw the enactment of the Commonwealth Immigrants act in 1962 which restricted the entry of immigrants. We the saw the introduction of further restrictions in 1972 whereby only holders of work permits, or people with parents or grandparents born in the United Kingdom, could gain entry. This effectively drastically slowly the deluge of immigrants from the commonwealth. My father came over to the UK in 1973 on one of those work permits to work for the NHS.

Fast forward to 2018 and the Windrush generation, one which should have been celebrated for the assistance that they gave the UK post World War II was instead embroiled in a scandal. Newspapers and television broadcasts across the UK and the world were reporting on British political scandal concerning people who were wrongly detained, denied legal rights, threatened with deportation, and, in at least 83 cases,wrongly deported from the UK by the Home Office. Many of these had come over as young children on their parents or grandparents passports and had never lived anywhere but the UK. Much of this was attributed back to the then Prime Minister, another alleged racist and Conservative party member who had fostered a ‘hostile environment policy’ during her tenure as Home secretary. Consequences of the scandal led to the resignation of then 2018 Home secretary Amber Rudd and the appointment of Sajid Javid as her successor.

But the scandal goes much deeper then anyone could imagine. The 1948, British Nationality Act, gave citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies status and the right of settlement in the UK to everyone who was at that time a British subject by virtue of having been born in a British colony. This act, combined with the advertisements and encouragements of the UK government and the subsequent Windrush drive saw a spike in immigration from the Caribbean. Teresa May, while Home Secretary, was found by the March 2020 independent ‘Windrush Lessons Learned Review’ to have acted with ‘ignorance and thoughtlessness’ and that the Windrush Scandal had been both ‘foreseeable and avoidable’. It further found that immigration regulations were tightened “with complete disregard for the Windrush generation”, and that officials had made “irrational” demands for multiple documents to establish residency rights.

The Windrush scandal wasn’t a rash instant issue, but rather a slow burning one that had seen the home office receive warnings as far back as 2013 after their contractor Capita was reported to sending correspondence to many older Caribbean born citizens informing them incorrectly that they had no right to be in the UK and treating the as illegal immigrants.

Furthermore the Home Affairs Select Committee issued a report in January 2018, with findings that the hostile environment policies were unclear, and threatened and practised deportations happening as a result of “inaccurate and untested” information. The Independent newspaper in its article Britain’s immigration system ‘too open to error’, MPs warn further examined the failings of the Home Office and also reported that more than 60 MPs, academics and campaign groups wrote an open letter to Amber Rudd urging the Government to halt the “inhumane” policy, citing the Home Office’s “poor track record” of dealing with complaints and appeals in a timely manner. The scandal drew mass press coverage with the Home Office agencies being accused of operating a “guilty until proven innocent” and “deport first, appeal later” regime; of targeting the weakest groups, particularly those from the Caribbean.

Many papers like the guardian in their article, ‘It’s inhumane’: the Windrush victims who have lost jobs, homes and loved ones put faces to the many names of those victimised under the policy. The public saw many more accusations against the government arise including accusations that they knew about the negative impacts that their ‘hostile environment policy’ was having on the Windrush immigrants and they chose to wilfully ignore it. On 16 April 2018, whilst in the House of Commons David Lammy MP challenged Amber Rudd to provide data on how many had lost their jobs or homes, been denied medical care, or been detained or deported wrongly. In May of the same year a motion was introduced by the opposition Labour Party to force the government to release documents to the Home Affairs Select Committee concerning its handling of cases involving people who came to the UK from Commonwealth countries between 1948 and the 1970s. Unfortunately but not surprisingly this motion was defeated by 316 votes to 221.

As is common practise in the UK when it comes to its institutional racism, we saw the release of more reports, with the Human Rights Select Committee publishing a ‘damning; report in June 2018, on the exercise of powers by immigration officials. Harriet Harman MP and chair of the committee accused immigration officials of being “out of control”, and the Home Office of being a “law unto itself”. The Home Affairs Select Committee also published a rather critical report in July 2018, noted that without radical reform, the Windrush Scandal will be seen again and called for many recommendations.

However, like prior reports this one left many gaps and unanswered questions and Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott said it was a “disgrace” that the government had not yet published “a clear plan for compensation” for Windrush cases and that it had refused to institute a hardship fund, “even for people who have been made homeless or unemployed by their policies”.

Despite all the reports, recommendations, negative press and spotlight on the scandal, it emerged in February 2019 that the Home Office fully intended to continue with its deportations and Javid, attempting to justify said deportations as being people guilty of “very serious crimes … like rape and murder, firearms offences and drug-trafficking”, but the claim was rebutted by the Home Office and was criticised by commentators as inaccurate and potentially detrimental to the futures of the deportees. In response, Jamaica’s high commission called for a halt of all deportations until the Home Office published all its investigations into the Windrush scandal. On 23 April 2018, Rudd announced that compensation would be given to those affected and, in future, fees and language tests for citizenship applicants would be waived for this group.Theresa May also apologised for the “anxiety caused” at a meeting with twelve Caribbean leaders, though she was unable to tell them “definitively” whether anyone had been wrongly deported.

At present, the Guardian Newspaper reports Windrush scandal: only 60 victims given compensation so far. I helped my mother a member of the Windrush generation, apply for compensation, only for the Home Office to write to her requesting a long list of evidence, much of which they know will be difficult to provide and that she report to them to provide biometrics. As a now British Citizen, she did not need to do any of what they were unfairly requesting leading me to have the belief that the compensation scheme is no more then another avenue that the Home Office intends to use to target remaining Windrush immigrants.

There are no levels to racism as far as i am concerned, you can’t justify any of it with the excuse that’s there’s worse out there. You are either racist or you are not. The policies enacted by the Home Office, and its practices of destroying paper work actively led to the unfair and prejudicial treatment if Windrush Immigrants. A scandal that received more recent publicity with the BBC docu-drama Sitting in Limbo, which not only reaffirmed the unfair suffering of many of the Windrush generation and put a face to it all.

A BLACK MOTHERS LOVE

9th Jun 202010th Jun 2020 by Kr15Tna, posted in Childhood memories, My Mum

So on Sunday 16th May during @this_is_Jilo (Instagram tag) #SpotlightSundays (if you haven’t been joining in, what have you been doing? Don’t miss this Sundays one. Click her @ and follow her to get involved.)

**Jilo Katter,** founder of Spotlight Sundays

I shared out loud for the first time one of the stories from my upbringing that would probably cause a gasp and did bring outrage.
As a little girl (and even as an adult I guess) I had the most over active imagination. This meant that many a night I would wake with a nightmare and run down the hallway to my parents room so scared that I would hold my breath in case any monsters might hear me (we’ve all done it)

My mother, the Catholic that she is, would always point me in the direction of the Lord by telling me that it was ‘God punishing me because he had seen I was bad that day’. She would then make me get my bible and or rosary and pray. I would often fall back to sleep with my head buried in the bible so the written word must have given me some measure of comfort. However, on the nights that would have me sprinting back down the hallway a few hours later, my dad would just lift the bedcovers and let me sleep with them. I think this was from the age of 4-7ish (Yes I could read when I started playgroup but thats another story).
This memory flashed up in my head before Sunday and I took the opportunity presented by lockdown to call my mum out on it. Her response, she laughed and said ‘Well, you probably had been bad that day”.

As you read the words on the pictures above you should know that I often gave as good as I got. I don’t hate God, nor has this made me wary of being Catholic. When it was no longer a forced requirement for me to go to Church, I still took myself along.

In hindsight can look back age these memories and think maybe a Black mothers love is tough but she knows what the world has coming for us.