Life and Times of a Very British Man
A revealing, honest and often comic coming-of-age story about growing up in 1970s Britain on the boundaries of race
'Full of charm' GUARDIAN
'An account of what being British means' i
'Captures a country in transition ... You can't fail to be moved' THE TIMES
Kamal Ahmed's childhood was very ‘British’ in every way – except for the fact that he was brown. Half English, half Sudanese, he was raised at a time when being mixed-race meant being told to go home, even when you were born just down the road.
This is his account of an upbringing of cricket and bucket-and-spade holidays, Angel Delight and the BBC - British to the core, yet always feeling foreign in the only home he had ever known.
'Ahmed grew up as a mixed-race kid in west London in the seventies, and his book charts the progress (sometimes slow and now without a few setbacks along the way) that our country has made on race issues since then. Brilliant' Rohan Silva, Evening Standard
Kamal Ahmed is Economics Editor of the BBC and one of Britain’s most respected journalists. He joined the BBC in April 2014 as Business Editor after a twenty-year career in newspapers. He has worked for the Guardian, the Observer and the Sunday and Daily Telegraph. He started his career in local newspapers in Scotland and subsequently worked for Scotland on Sunday. He has also served as Group Director of Communications for the Equality and Human Rights Commission and is a board member of the Media Trust. He lives in London.
@bbckamal