Growing up black in a white family – the truth behind my birth

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0:30travel dollars work harder. Follow Smart Travel on your favorite podcast app. Puerto Rico is having a moment of global attention. As companies reshore and rethink supply chains, they're choosing a US jurisdiction operating under federal law with competitive tax incentives designed for long-term growth. Not culture or business. Culture and business. Puerto Rico. It's not what's next, it's where. Visit investpr.org forward slash business. Hello, welcome to the documentary from the BBC World Service. I'm Jo Fidgen, one of the hosts of the BBC's Lives Less Ordinary podcast. We share extraordinary personal stories from around the world and we'll bring you an episode here from time to time.

1:16But to hear every episode, search for Lives Less Ordinary in your usual podcast places. In this edition, I meet M People star Andrew Lovell, whose home life hid a terrible, beautiful secret. It would take him decades to find it out.

1:36Andrew Lovell:My dad called me down and I walked into the living room and the television was off. And I sat there and my dad said, OK, Andrew, were you arsed about your real parents? He said, let me tell you, we were going to take this to our grave. My mum hadn't said a word. My mum was just staring at the floor through the whole thing. I was silent, I was shocked everything was the same but everything was completely different It was Christmas Day 1998 when Andrew Lovell sat down to have a heart to heart with his mum and dad he was 33 and famous not just at home in Britain but around the world as part of one of the most successful dance music acts of the time M People you might know Moving On Up that was one of their top 10 hits or Search for the Hero or One Night in Heaven.

2:27Shovel, as he was known to music fans, was the percussionist. But he wasn't entirely happy. He'd been told as a boy that he was adopted and that explained why he was the only black member of a white family. But he just had this annoying feeling that his adoptive parents weren't telling him the truth about his past.

2:52You're listening to Lives Less Ordinary from the BBC World Service. I'm Jo Fidgen with an astonishing tale of secrets and lies.

3:04South East London 50, 60 years ago was a difficult and potentially dangerous place to be black. Racist taunts were an everyday thing and physical violence all too common. Andrew found out very young what it was to be different. I remember being in a pushchair on New Cross Road, which is an area in Deptford, south-east London, which is, you know, back in the 60s. It's the ghetto, you know, it's fast immigration, Africans, Jamaicans, Irish, Greeks, Turks. It was a melting pot. And I must have been maybe four. And I remember a lady saying to my mum, is that your son? My mum said, yes, but he's adopted.

3:47And I had no idea what that word meant. And when I was playing out on the playground of the flats at the bottom of my road, I said to my much wiser peer, who was about nine, said, do you know what adopted means? And they said, yes, when your mum and dad isn't your real mum and dad. And that absolutely went somewhere in my little body, but I'm not sure where. And the other thing is I'm half Jamaican. My mum, my dad and my older brother were all white, but it never occurred to me. Or I should say it never occurred to me consciously. And I think if it did, I didn't want to know that I was different.

4:28So when did that hit you? So that word about the colour, again, I remember incredibly clearly. I must have been again around four, five at the oldest. And there was these big holiday camps, Butlins. I loved Butlins. And I used to do all the entertainment, you know, the talent shows, singing, dancing. I used to do this little Tarzan thing. We used to roll your belly and this bit like. And then this particular morning we were having breakfast. I mean, there were hundreds and hundreds of families. And to a little four or five-year-old, he looked like thousands. all in the breakfast hall. Everybody was white.

5:06That didn't occur to me until I saw in the middle of this breakfast hall was a black family. It was a mother and three children.

5:15Andrew Lovell:I looked at them and suddenly saw me and saw the difference in me with my family. I remember having this sensation. I mean, I didn't understand the word, but it was extreme paranoia. It was like everyone was looking at me and my difference and it was very shame inducing and I didn't do any entertainment I didn't want to move out the chalet I wanted to hide it was so shocking that I still remember why shame I felt wrong I felt so different that I felt as a child children usually even when their parents are screaming and shouting it's very often if not always that the child somehow blames themselves but it must be me because they're adults and therefore they know i mean i must have noticed i was a different color you know but i i i hid it somewhere i didn't want to be who wants to be different from their family members so when that was sharply shoved into my being it punched and i felt that sensation of differentness and for me then it's like i've got more in common with that black family that i'm looking at than i have in my own family in terms of appearance.

6:29Not talked about with your parents?

6:32Andrew Lovell:No, no. It wasn't, no, it wasn't spoken about. And as a child, I remember having a spy book. It was a magazine, actually, and at the back of the back, you had to put in your own purse, name, address, you know, area you live, mum and dad. And that was the first time I remember saying to my mum, do you know anything, do you know my real mum and dad's names? because I need to, and my mum, no, no, don't know anything. So that was one of the very, very rare occasions I even asked. And that wasn't for me, that was for the magazine. And it was like, no, don't know anything. And it was very felt that it was a subject that we don't go to.

7:11How did you get on with your parents and your older brother?

7:14Andrew Lovell:I loved them dearly. I loved them. I loved them. They both passed away now. My brother is very dear to me. and also what I did feel when I was a bit older when I was about 13 and I remember cleaning my teeth looking in the mirror and these questions would be flowing through my again my body I wonder I wonder where your mum I wonder why you was a doctor I wonder why did and out loud I would say to myself in the mirror don't rock the boat that was like my mantra as a young boy don't rock the boat like don't ask you're in a family you're loved like don't do anything where you might be removed again because what I've learned Joe is that subconsciously this script in my in my mind was saying to me your mother's given you away so when that continues your mum's given you away your mum's given you away your mum's given you so my self-esteem my self-worth was non-existent You talked about being 13 and looking at yourself in the mirror and asking yourself all these questions.

8:25Because, I mean, 13 can be a very difficult age, can't it? Because you're changing from being a child into something approaching young adulthood. And identity becomes somehow more pressing for a lot of people at that age. What were the sort of influences around you at that point? What kind of identities did you have to choose between? So, I mean, very, very fortunately for me, as I said, growing up in Deptford, there's a multicultural collective of people there. So to have that mix really helped me. I kind of embraced my pure black and pure whiteness. I would listen to punk music and then heavy dub reggae music.

9:10And my very first band was a reggae band. And so we had like rusters in the band. I mean, everyone, I say obviously, but well, there was a couple of white guys in there, but everyone else was black. And it was a youth club where we met. So that was my, I could, you know, my hair grew. I had an afro. I was hanging out. I was talking slang like patois, Jamaican patois. And then I'd go to watch Arsenal on the show. Like, oi, oi. Proper London. So there's something, I was in both worlds constantly, you know. So you talk about forming your first band. How did you actually discover drums in the first place?

9:52By being incredibly hyperactive. And I couldn't sit. I literally couldn't sit down. I mean, I was asked to leave school when I was 15. Why? Well, because I was a pain in the backside, really. I couldn't sit. I couldn't sit. I remember my backside used to have these little electrical charts. I couldn't sit. and everything was boring to me i need you know and so i would hit tables and chairs i'd hit my chest my legs my legs would be going up and down and um i found this youth club in deptford which started when i was about 14 and these beautiful wonderful people invited we were just on the street hanging out and they invited us into this it used to be the deptford morgue so they they moved out dead people and moved in musical instruments and um these musicians were teaching the kids of the community and I just fell in love with the bongos and I couldn't even sit down to play a drum kit the sitting I could but that playing bongos then going into congas then using a shaker then hitting a cymbal I mean it's an adult early learning center and it and it gave gave all my adrenaline and hyperactivity a place to go.

11:10And I loved it. What happened when you were kicked out of school at 15 then? What next? Well, we kind of come to some agreement. I was called into the headmaster's office and he said quite politely, like, look, you know, obviously you don't want to be here and we don't really want you here. So, you know, would you go? And I said, why didn't you do this three years ago? So I left and I had a dream of being a musician. I wanted to be a musician. I went back and did my exams. I did eight exams. I got five U's, which were unclassified. Which is the lowest grade. The lowest, yeah. Five U's, an F for D, and I scraped in.

11:52I got an English O level, unbelievably. So I wanted to be a musician. But with those grades, I thought you had to go to university. There's no chance of me getting a university. the thought and my mate was big said I'm going to join the council and be a plumber and I went yeah I'll do that then but that's what I did I became a plumber on my local council Lewisham council I started when I was 16 loved it enjoyed it but during all that time I was plumbing in the day in the evenings I formed a band other bands with like bricklayers and electricians and postman What kind of music did you play together?

12:30Funk and then it went into a more funk rock And then in the late 80s, early 90s, you know, house music You know, there were seven of us, we were called Natural Life then We did all right, we got signed to a massive label And then lost all the money ten months later It was proper spinal tap But I learnt a lot and then from that, as that was ending I literally bumped into M People, a gig in Brixton Academy You're like, their percussionist hadn't turned up I was just sound checking my natural life and they said oh would you stand in on the sound check we'd never met each other didn't know them didn't know who they were at first and I said yeah of course I'll do the sound check and I said if he don't turn up I'll do the gig give me 50 quid I'll do the gig but he did turn up they took my number and about six weeks later they contacted me and there was a gig in Middlesbrough which is the northeast of England up in the north and I was like yeah yeah pick me up and I'll go and not having a clue what was about to happen and so those nine years of plumbing on my back putting in taps of baths and faces I was unblocking toilet pans in my being I was like I just want to be in a band I just want to make records but never thinking it would happen and then it did so I resigned in the April 12 weeks later I was on top of the pot which was a massive massive music show in in the UK and I was with on with a guy called Kenny Thomas.

13:52And it was just like, well, this is easy then. I've got to admit now, looking back, for the first two, three years, I was still a plumber being in the music world, you know, but I was still like, can't believe it. What, me? And you get paid. What, you get on a plane? You know, flying first class to Australia with M people. But for me, it also allowed my trauma to run Riot. I consciously wanted to be like Keith Moon. and John Bonham, an animal out of the Muppets. I wanted to be extreme. So to be allowed to drink and to step into that, for me, that sex, drugs and rock and roll. And I mean, I was living pretty much that life as a plumber, let alone then actually being in a band and, you know, you're in Australia for a week and then Hong Kong and Japan.

14:44It was wild. And I was able for that incredibly low, if any, self-worth and self-esteem to sort of self-damage. I'll be honest, you know, I was in some really, really dark places at the end. I mean, during the band, it was great. You know, again, I was living the dream. I was travelling the world, playing drums, living a life of excess and getting paid for it. And getting addicted. And getting addicted. Give us a flavour, would you, of what it is like to be performing with, touring with, hanging out with, such a successful group. Heather, Mike, Paul, very, very quickly became a family. I love them.

15:28They are my family and their parents and my parents would travel together. We went on holiday together. So we'd be together all year, touring all around the world. You'd think we'd be sick of each other. And then we'd arrange a holiday. we went on holiday to the Caribbean a couple of times. We loved each other. And I love them now strongly. You have people in your life and you've experienced massive highs and then some lows and literally sweat on the stage again, create together and travel together and eat together and cry together and laugh immensely together. And then music, music, like travelling to places like Japan and New Zealand and Australia.

16:11and they all know the words it's like it was incredible and then it ended and so that was another family for me that ended and that's why it was incredibly painful and at the same time my relation a relationship I was in ended and it it really really I mean I got really close to not being here incredibly close I want to talk to you a little bit about that in in just a moment but there's a very significant event before that happens in the late 90s, 98. So you were 33 at the time and people were just flying high. Your career was, you know, in a fantastic place. Why at that point did you decide to go and ask your parents who your biological parents were?

17:08And the relationship I was in at that moment, the young lady was herself half Indian and half Irish. And I had suspicions because I didn't know then that I was half Jamaican and half English. And I was like, what a mix. You know, if we were to have children, if children was coming, what would, you know, remember I got a U in maths, so I couldn't work out the fractions of what any children would be. Was it an eighth? Is it a quarter? I've got no idea. And I thought, wow, grandparents, ancestors, like, where do I belong? Again, like, who am I? And so I thought, oh, I've really got to ask my parents.

17:51And so this was September 98. I sat them down. I said, look, you know, if you do know anything, if you do. So there must have been something in me which was going, they know more than they're saying. They know more than no. So I said, if you do, please, can you tell me? And my dad said, look, my mum was there, but she didn't say anything.

18:18Andrew Lovell:Me and your mum will have a chat and we'll speak to you. That was September. And then I went away on tour and I got back about mid-December, late December. And so it just happened that on Christmas night, 1998, I'd been at my family's for Christmas dinner I went back to my mum and dad's house and I was I remember being upstairs and my dad called me down Andrew will you come down please I thought wow that I haven't heard that for decades and I walked down and I walked into the living room and the television was off and my mum I remember I was sitting on the left hand side of the sofa by the door my dad was at the right hand side and i got the other right hand side armchair and i sat there my dad said okay andrew were you asked about your he said your real parents you asked he said let me tell you we were going to take this to our grave he said and i was like right he said well your mum here i'm like yeah isn't your adopted mum he's your real mum and in that moment I was just like what do you mean they said well your mum had an affair with a Jamaican guy or he would have said a Jamaican man you were the result of that affair your mum got pregnant no one knew my mum hid that pregnancy till she was about five months pregnant because she didn't know it would be her husband, as I call him, my dad, or this Jamaican gentleman.

20:03Andrew Lovell:And so it wasn't until I was literally born when my dad turned up and saw my colour. And at that moment, it was like my mum had been, well, they'd both been in contact with social services leading up from my mum being pregnant for five months. And the high suspicions were it was this Jamaican gentleman. And so through social services and parents, they came up with a plan. If, as expected, I was not white, then the story would be that my mum had a stillborn birth. Obviously, the baby died. And they come out of hospital and I'm fostered. And then, well, whatever happens, happens, you know. so I'm hearing this and it was I it was incredulous I was I was silent I was shocked everything was the same but everything was completely different my mum hadn't said a word my mum was just staring at the floor through the whole thing so I was aware of her shame I also thought that her shame was more powerful than telling me the truth which would have been love in a way so it was an incredibly confusing time and the only thing my mum did really say is that she didn't want anyone else to know that's about the only thing she said including my brother but I told my brother and then and then that that secret really was put away for about another six years did your parents explain to you at that point how come if the plan had been that you would be sent away from the family if you were not white how come you were actually in that family yeah they did my dad explained again and he said look what happened was your mum became so he didn't use these words he said so uh unwell he said but depressed and grief-stricken that you know i i found out later i was with my mum for 10 days i was breastfed with my mum for 10 days and then i was removed from her for 10 days and so she was longing for me and i was longing for her but I was removed and I was I went into a foster care health foster family um for about five and a half months I think there was a point in between a place in between and then my mum was so grief-stricken and so unwell I would imagine psychologically that my her husband my dad said look we gotta go and get him we go and get him okay which is a massive thing for him so they had to go um back to social services and um go to court and kind of prove that i would be cared for loved so my dad adopted me and for that and then when he adopted me he changed my name so i was known as a different name so and it changed again i was moved five times in my first six months i had this saying which i never even knew where it come from i used to say when things when you start feeling cozy move and I had no idea where that until I went into therapy so it was beautiful going back to my mom but I didn't know it was my mom and I didn't know it was my mom until I was 33 years old it was like a double trauma it was it was beautiful it was both beautiful and horrible it was a beautiful thing that they they did and and the thing that kept me alive I'm going to say that the thing that kept me alive was my dad that he forgave his wife and that all my dad ever did every moment was love me and my skin color was a constant reminder if you like of his wife's betrayal and all that man ever did was love me the whole world was dark at times and then there was a little pinpoint of light and that was my dad's love how do you think your mum loved you?

24:12With conditions because she didn't tell me she was my mum and that was her shame but she loved me my mum was you know all those gigs I did when I was gigging in massively black areas big reggae gigs all black there'd be these two two white faces which was my mum they came to every football game every rugby game every gig they loved me you know so there was no question of their love but it came in conditions with my mum and my dad kept my mum secret. You mentioned shame, her shame. You were born in the 60s. I was. Did she explain why she might have felt shame? No, my mum didn't want to talk about it.

24:58She did not want to talk. It was very, very very hard for her so her shame kept her silent do you think the shame of infidelity or yeah my mum was born in the very early 30s my dad was born in the early 20s back then you don't what is it you don't hang your dirty laundry on the line you know you keep your mouth shut and also let's get it right racially you know not only did she have an affair she had an affair with a black gentleman then she had a mixed race baby wow taboo I'm here on the job site with Dale, who's a framing contractor. Hey, good morning. Dale traded up to Geico Commercial Auto Insurance for all his business vehicles.

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27:10Andrew's mother was so ashamed by the revelation that she couldn't talk to him about it, and for the next year or so, he fell into a steep decline.

27:20Andrew Lovell:I drank more, I took more drugs, I was angry. So it's a bit blurry that year. And one thing that is very clear was that in January 2000, so kind of 13 months later, this is how it affected me. So I put it away. They put it away. I put it away. And I was in a recording studio in Manchester in January 2000, and I was looking at a monitor talking about a drum pattern. And all of a sudden, I started shaking and crying. And I could see the guy's face looking at me going, you know, I was in the mid-light, but if we change that bass, And I just, it was just so apropos to absolutely nothing that I was talking about.

28:01And I took myself in a spare room and I started like crying uncontrollably. And I was like, what, what is, I don't know if anyone's seen that film Alien with John Hurt when the thing comes out. It was just that. One minute you're at a dinner table, next minute there's this alien coming out of your chest. It was like that, like what is happening? And I'm freaking myself out. when I was able I got in a car drove to drove back to London got in my house and I wasn't drinking I wasn't on any drugs or anything because I've been driving about three hours and I started sweat this sweat I was lying there my sweat was coming out of me I had to get bark my partner just I was getting bath towels and I was shaking and and I'm gonna say it because This is my story.

28:49But I looked down and I could see all this black smoke was being released from my stomach. That's how I could see. And this voice was saying, these are all the unasked questions that you've been keeping in your body. It was freaking me out. And it was freaking. That's why they left. A couple of months after they left because it was such a scary. And at that point, I went back. They being your partner?

29:14Andrew Lovell:My partner. Yeah. I mean, freaked. I mean, I was acting like a nut-nut anyway for that year. And then that happened. And she was just like, all right, see you later. That was when I went back and spoke to my parents and said, look, I need to ask some more questions. And that was when my mum hugged me. She told me she loved me. She told me she was sorry. And I felt about two weeks old. That's what I needed. And that's what my body needed. and we from that point on we started telling each other on the phone that we loved each like my dad love your dad he was like yeah lots of love he still couldn't say but it was there and we'd hug we'd never been we'd been a family never told each other they loved each other or hugged but we did from that point on so from sort of January 2000 however I then spiralled and I had I had a real breakdown and as I said a couple of months later the band had stopped and the effects I started, I'd been, it's PTSD.

30:17I'd been holding it for 30 months.