ANN (HILDA) BLACKSHAW August 1939 by her daughter MICHELLE
Steve Albert Akinlolu Allen, my Dad, liked to sow his seed, so to speak (laughing). I have a sister Remi who is Nigerian. She has a Nigerian Mum, but she has lived here a long time; we are very close. She told me the first time that she came to Manchester to look for our Dad, ‘I didn’t know what his address was. I went to the station and told the cabbies ‘I am looking for my Dad, Steve Allen the electrician’. ‘Steve Allen the electrician? I will take you to him’ I have a Nigerian brother called Femi, who has another different Mum. I met him once when my son Adam was a baby – thirty-two years ago. It was very funny how like my Dad he was. He looked just like my Dad, he walked like my Dad. I have one full brother, same mother, same Dad, Steve. He passed away almost fifteen years ago. I was born in Ardwick Green; on the settee, according to my Dad and I grew up around there then Moss Side, Whalley Range and Longsight. My earliest memory is of my Dad leaving the room and me being in a cot and crying for him. I can remember that, and this would have been in Ardwick Green. I was raised by my Dad, yeah, yeah. I was really close to my Dad My Mum was from a family of ten, from Higher Blakeley; a very working-class family. Dad was more educated than my Mum. In Nigeria he was a Latin scholar– I remember my sister telling me that. Mum didn’t like school; she couldn’t read or write very well. She was always a bit in awe of my
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