Prince’s Trust 40th Anniversary Tea Party. Buckingham Palace. 17th May 2016

This week I was lucky enough to attend the Prince’s Trust 40th Anniversary Tea Party at Buckingham Palace.

5000 mentors, mentees and Trust ambassadors enjoying time together, cups of tea, finger sandwiches and some quality bite size cake!

Contrary to what we expect of being in a palace, the atmosphere was incredibly welcoming, respectful and enjoyable.

My Work With The Prince’s Trust

I’ve been a business mentor at the Prince’s Trust since 2011. I’ve witnessed young people go through the Enterprise programme, work on their business plans, submit them to the Trust’s version of Dragon’s Den and go on to start their own businesses which is supported for another two years by a business mentor.

Some businesses continue and other’s do not, but what always happens is that each young person evolves and manages to create more of what they want and focus on where their talents lie and where their skills can evolve.

It’s a great programme which is predominantly staffed by skilled volunteers and a very small number of loyal and committed employees.

A Thoughtful Journey of a Day

I grew up in Kilburn, not very far from Buckingham Palace. My mum still lives there and so after yesterday’s Tea Party I decided to hop on the number 16 bus from just behind the Palace to County Kilburn (as many Irish and plastic-paddies affectionately refer to it).

My parents were among the many Irish and black immigrants of the 1960s. Anyone with parents or grandparents from back them will be well aware of the “No Blacks or Irish” signs in windows. Yet against that prejudice they contributed hard labour to the infrastructure post-War Britain desperately needed: nurses, labourers, tradesmen and public transport.

As with migrants of today, often fulfilling lower end jobs and living in run down areas where they created communities and supported each other, found future husbands and wives, married, settled, had children, brought up families. Over time, becoming more akin to their adopted country than the one they left and somehow forming a hybrid of both.

Being multi-cultural isn’t just about colour or creed.You don’t have to be black, asian, south asian, mixed race, hindu or muslim to be multi-cultural. You can be Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, Czech, Russian, Brazilian and have as part of your upbringing language and cultural depths that exist alongside the nation you adopt or are born into. The latter in my case.

We lived in a council house and I went to a local Catholic secondary comprehensive. My parents worked to get by and there was no talk of university. It was about when I would get work when I finished school. The only teenager differences we had were about me staying on to do A levels after doing my O Levels at 16. I was lucky to have a very supportive English Literature teacher who had been to Cambridge. He was convinced and encouraged me to attend Downing College Cambridge. I didn’t go. Primarily the thought that it was out of my league and that I wasn’t clever enough. All because of perceived class and personal misconceptions.

In the end it all worked out, I worked and got a degree later in life through The Open University. All fine. A lesson to us all that what we want and what eats at us will fuel a hunger to attain it.

So What!

It’s very easy to say, “so what?” – but, actually, it’s a very personal “so what…”

In my case the council lad of immigrant parents was having tea at Buckingham Palace among other mentors and people who want to give something of themselves to young people and their development.

Today’s immigration topic is on an even greater scale. The refugee crisis from the Middle East coming after some “boom” years of eastern european immigration, EU expansion then saddled with recession. What has arisen is a nasty UKIP/Brexit situation where personal fear rather than opportunity comes first. The policies and rhetoric making no collective sense and will only serve fewer freedoms and benefit even fewer people.

Over the years I’ve learnt that I can operate in very different groups and levels of society. The criteria is that I know how we connect and find a truth in who people are and what they do.

I’ve appreciated over the years that having a multi-cultural upbringing provides greater insights into people. Different uses of language and cultural interaction act like another form of body language by adding subtle detail to what is being said. I can spot a lack of congruence at a hundred paces.

Completing a Circle

As much as the Tea Party’s pat on the back was enjoyable I felt a wave of emotion as I journeyed on the bus, passing my old school en route to mum, that this was a moment that spanned my parent’s lifetime and mine. I felt a somewhat rare and enjoyable political poke in the eye to anyone who thinks immigration is a bad thing.

I’ve witnessed a lot of tears over the years about “home” and the obligations that still remain for people who, through necessity, have to move away.

If a day like this makes any of that worth it then that cuppa was highly symbolic. There were flavours in that brew that maybe someone like me could only recognise as refreshing on a warm afternoon.

St George’s Catholics Secondary School, Maida Vale

Time with mum after Buckingham Palace