THE GUARDIAN: I shared my home with Edward Colston for more than 20 years. Good riddance

Description

Why did the tearing down of the statue of Edward Colston in Bristol mean something to me? Why was my heart racing all Sunday afternoon and evening? Why did the scenes that played out around Colston’s plinth and at the harbour into which the statue was thrown bring me – during a phone call to another black Bristolian – to the verge of tears? I can begin to explain why by describing my experience of first moving to Bristol.

In the late 1990s, I got my first paid media job in the city. The contract was short and there was no guarantee of getting another one, so it was too great a financial risk for me to put down a deposit on a flat. If the work ran out, I would be unable to afford the rent. All I had was a few hundred pounds in my bank account. That was it, everything I had scraped together to cover my living costs and accommodation, my entire war chest, with which I hoped to break into the media. Once the money was gone, it would be back home to my mother’s home in the north, back to jobs in bars, shops or wherever, to save up more money and have another go the next year. There was no room for error. An unreturned deposit would have wiped me out financially.