War metaphors are used by politicians to bring a nation together in times of difficulty. Therefore, it is no surprise that one of the defining features of the impact of Coronavirus has been its comparisons to the memories of the two global wars, with calls for a 'Blitz Spirit' to the nation's new-found hero, Sir Captain Tom.

We chart our lives with memories, and these determine how we see ourselves. The act of remembrance is also a social event, connecting us to other people and to places. However, a historical narrative not only frames the past, but its temporal relationship to us also tends to make it future-oriented. Politicians know this, and it was no accident that the Brexit slogan ‘Taking Back Control’, talks to a certain constituency both about the past and future.

If we accept that how we talk about Southall's past is important, what issues should we consider?

often work with galleries and museums, which can sound somewhat middle class. The idea that art is the preserve of the middle class is partly right, and one aspect of national social policy and a reason for the existence of the Arts Council is to tackle this by trying to encourage 'socially excluded' people into galleries. There is even a government performance indicator which correlates a lack of 'social mobility', with not visiting galleries.

In the past, the English were suspicious of the Police, and especially the spy. There are many stories where the figure of the spy was evoked to epitomize the threat to freeborn Englishmen. The historian EP Thompson noted ‘the peculiar jealously of the British people towards the central powers of the state, their abhorrence of military intervention in civil affairs, their dislike of state espionage and of any form of heaving policing’.

The language and poetry of Rap is often dark reflecting the culture of resistance, and articulating the lives of young people, often young black men. Young men are generally not openly introspective, and you have to search amongst the bravado and violence to find real poetic gems of poetry.

My own introduction to Stuart Hall was made by staying up after midnight to watch him present Open University talks. This was in my teens, and even though I didn’t really understand his talks, what I wanted to watch was a radical perspective on black lives in Britain, a perspective that was not articulated in the mainstream television programs.

I remember being told at school that Winston Churchill had once claimed that the ‘British’ stood alone against the might of Hitler’s Germany. What I never realized until I was much older that when Churchill meant ‘British’ he was talking about the whole of the British empire,

It doesn’t make sense to me to talk about Black history as a marginal issue, that we teach kids the history of human and civil rights, but place race as a ‘variable’ that appears towards the end of that account.

Ethnic minority families face racism every day in rural and urban Britain. However, what is unique about rural racism is the ideological space statutory bodies seem to have to justify their inaction on issues of race.