LILY KELLY June 1926 by her son STEVE
Aston Alexander Kelly, my Dad, was Jamaican; slim, dark, handsome, and strict - strict, beating strict. He died when I was eleven, he was forty-six. Do I remember him? I have still got the fucking marks to prove it. (Laughter). He did care and was a provider, done his duty, but as so many Black men were in those days, he was a bit of a whoremaster. But yeah, like me with my children, he didn’t shirk his duty. My Mum was raised with her grandmother, an Irish woman I think in Scotty Road Liverpool. She had two sisters. One ended up pretty big, posh-ish, the other sister sadly was a prostitute. We are talking obviously the twenties or thirties. Life was pretty tough, I guess. They didn’t have a lot, they had fuck all. She was always cleaning, you know, that was always important to her. Because they had nowt, they obviously kept their houses spotless, and our front step - that was as clean as most of the neighbours’ houses. (Laughter). In describing my Mum well, instant flush, I wish I had brought you the pictures today because as soon as you see her you know, she looked like an angel. Beautiful blond, medium height, slim, heart of gold, eleven kids. Lily Kelly was from Liverpool. Nine of the kids were hers; three sisters and six brothers. Two of them were her sister’s – the one who was a prostitute. She put her kids into Care and my Mum and Dad didn’t want that, so they took the kids and adopted them so all of a sudden there were eleven of us. And those two are my brother and sister. Owen is a couple of years younger than me and his sister Anita, our sister – is younger too. The father was Black but very pale Black, a White Black sort of thing, so it makes them very pale, but they are Black. Black. OK. Dad trained me. He used to take me on the ships to pick up the weed and shit that the Pakistanis brought in (can I say all this stuff?) to make money. He came to England as a Merchant Seaman then after the first couple of kids were born, he became a chef .
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