Their voice · 1984
His mate Danny was going to a Caribbean evening at a church in Brixton. He went for the jerk chicken.
James remembers the afternoon Reverend Mensah spoke at his school assembly, and the sentence about imagination and cruelty he has thought about for the rest of his adult life.
Hearing someone's voice across time is something no photograph can do.
Their life, as remembered
5 memories
He was eighteen. They had not been talking properly for about two years. The usual reasons. He went to the funeral and did not know what to do with any of it afterwards. He had nowhere to put it. He just got on with things. That was what you did.
His mate Danny was going to a Caribbean evening at a church in Brixton. He went for the jerk chicken. He sat at the back and did not speak to anyone. A woman gave him a plate of food and asked if he wanted more before he had finished the first one. He said yes. He came back the next Sunday. And the one after that.
Grace Community Church, Brixton
Deacon Osei stopped him after the service one Sunday and asked if he was alright. Just like that.
He recalls Deacon Osei stopping him after a service one Sunday, the invitation for tea, and sitting in the Oseis' kitchen talking about nothing much until something quietly shifted.
Shared by
“He sat in the back row with his arms folded. He ate two plates of food and talked to nobody. I thought: right, he''ll be back. Some people sit at the back because they''re leaving. Some sit there because they haven''t decided yet. He was the second kind.”
Grace Asante· Congregation member
He got baptised at thirty-six. He did not expect her to come. They had never been easy with each other. She was his dad's second wife and he was his dad's difficult son and there was a lot of water under that bridge. But she came. She brought tulips from her garden, the yellow ones. She left before the cake. But she came, and she brought flowers she had cut herself, and that was the most she had ever done for him and he knew it and she probably knew it too.
Shared by family & friends
“She showed up at the baptism with yellow tulips from her garden. She left before the cake. She and James had never been easy with each other, not since his father''s death. But she came. She cut those flowers herself and she came. That was how Eleanor showed love when it was difficult. She turned up.”
Ruth Whitfield· Step-sister
The electrics in the church hall were a mess. He rewired the lot over two weekends. Did not charge them. That was the third time he had done something like that. He has stopped counting. The church is not really something he thinks about very much. It is just part of his week.
Shared by
“He did the wiring for nothing again. Third time. He wouldn''t take a cheque. He just packed his tools and said: call me when the kitchen needs doing. The church would fall apart in a week without people like James. He does not know that. Do not tell him. He''ll only get awkward about it.”
Kwame Osei· Congregation member
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