North-east music superstar Emeli Sande has discovered one of her grandfathers fought to uphold the British Empire – while the other fought to overthrow it.
The astonishing and emotional revelation is made in the Channel 4 series My Grandparents’ War, in which Emeli discovers the faultlines that run across her family history and her British and African heritage.
Her English grandfather on her mother’s side, Bob Wood, fought in the Second World War, before being posted to Kenya with his wife, Betty, at the height of the Mau Mau insurgency against colonial rule which was brutally put down by British forces.
Meanwhile, her African grandfather on her dad’s side, Saka Sande, rose up against British rule and an apartheid system in what became Zambia.
“While Bob and Betty were tasked with upholding the British Empire, my grandfather Saka was caught up in the violence to overthrow it, as the independence movement swept across Africa,” said Emeli, in the programme which will be broadcast on Thursday September 29.
Emeli’s grandad Bob ordered to shoot family rather than be captured
And in a chilling moment during the programme, which airs on Thursday, Emeli discovers her grandfather Bob was ordered to shoot his own children if the Mau Mau rebels overran the Army base where they lived.
She received a letter from her aunt Jo who was a young girl when the family were in Kenya – before Emeli’s mother was born – in which she describes hearing noises in the night as the base was attacked, to find Bob sitting with a rifle pointed at the children.
Emeli said: “Wow… they had been trained to shoot their own family and told that was a better option than being captured. That must have been very difficult for my granddad, that’s going against every fatherly instinct.
“That’s terrifying really… if my grandad was pointing a gun at them, that means that they were very close to dying. My mum would never have been born, I would never have been born.”
Bob and Betty, who had met in a pub during the war in Shrewsbury, eventually moved home to England’s Lake District. Emeli’s own parents met as students in Sunderland in the 80s, before eventually settling in Alford, where Emeli was brought up.
Horror of apartheid system faced by Emeli’s grandfather Saka
During the programme, Emeli – who last week announced her engagement – makes a moving trip to Zambia, where her grandmother Emeli – she was named after her – still lives along with many other family members.
As she delved into her family’s past, Emeli was shocked to discover the conditions in which her grandfather Saka lived and worked in the copper mines of what was then Northern Rhodesia
Black people were subjected to segregated housing, shopping and communal areas in a system of apartheid. Saka worked long, gruelling hours, paid one-tenth of what European workers were given and he and his family of nine were crammed into a tiny, substandard house.
Saka joined in the wave of protests, often violent, demanding and eventual gaining independence from the British.
“My grandfather knew that it wasn’t right what was happening to him and he wasn’t going to accept it,” said Emeli. “To know the injustice which many people have faced here, including my family, fills me with anger.”
“I never imagined my grandfather working in a situation where he felt inferior, so close to slave conditions, treated like a lesser human, purely based on skin colour. That’s really upsetting.”
Emeli Sande tells of facing racism during her childhood school days
Emeli said she had never suffered such extreme, state-sponsored racism, but had faced prejudice as the only mixed-race child in her class at school.
“When I was about four, there was a girl on my street. She said to me: ‘You must be adopted, because how can you have a black dad and a white mum?’ For a four-year-old to hear that you instantly feel different, unsure of who you are, what your identity is.
“And I remember there was a girl in my school, I think we’re playing tag or something, and I caught her. She said: “Oh, my mum said, I shouldn’t let black people touch me’. There’s so many stories of growing up in school where that was the case.”
The singer, who was this weekend one of the headliners at Aberdeen’s prestigious True North music festival, said her deeply personal journey opened her eyes to how the Empire divided countries and communities.
She said: “I’ve always been proud to be both British and African. But I now feel deeply angered by how the British Empire treated Kenyans. And how it also placed my grandparents’ lives in danger.”
When to see Emeli Sande’s story in My Grandparents’ War
However, the show ends on a note of hope, as Emeli talks about her personal journey of discovery.
“I now understand how colonialism divided us, the racism it generated still exists today. But as my family has shown, there is a way to move forward together.”
Emeli’s story will be told in My Grandparents’ War – which also features Kit Harrington, Keira Knightley – on Channel 4 on Thursday September 29.
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