Thank you so much to Wintrade Global for inviting me to the Wintrade Global Summit 2023 at the UK House of Lords on Wednesday 15th March 2023 and honouring me with this year’s legal award.
I am very grateful to Viv Ahmun (bottom right), Black Men for Change, Patricia Lamour (bottom left) and Dr Yvonne Thompson.
For the past three weeks, I have been obsessed with the Mozart Requiem.
My neighbours probably wondered why they heard me singing the alto part at all hours of the day and night. Continue reading “Performing the Mozart Requiem”
So this is now one of my ‘local’ weekday lunch locations.
Feeling thankful and blessed.
It was humbling to be at the Black Cultural Archives (BCA) on Wednesday 9th May 2018 to assist at one of its ‘Windrush’ Immigration Legal Clinics. It was heartbreaking to see the great stress and upset felt by so many Caribbean born British people who have had their lives turned upside down by the government’s hostile environment policy. Continue reading “Windrush Legal Clinics at the Black Cultural Archives”
I recently had my first cello lesson in 20 years!!!
From a young age, I had
been extremely musical. I began piano lessons at 5, the recorder at 7, the cello at 9 and the steel pans at 11.
Alongside my school studies, music was my whole life until I moved to Germany to become an au pair in 1996 and stopped playing.
In the 20 plus years that passed, I always missed playing the cello especially. To me, it is an instrument that is almost human. The fact that its range of notes span as a low as a double bass but as high as a violin gives the cello a versatility that is so interesting, stimulating and exciting for those who play it. I may be biased but I also think that string instruments are the most beautiful and, out of the string family, the cello comes out on top.
When I began my lesson (after such a long time), I was terrified. I wasn’t sure whether I would remember how to hold the bow and I certainly didn’t think I would be able to sight-read. To my astonishment, within a hour of playing, I was sight-reading again and playing Bach duets with my teacher (a wonderful professional cellist I met at university who now plays with the Chineke Orchestra).
I now feel like a major part of me was asleep for 20 years and I’ve now fully woken up. I feel happy, alive and joyful. Now that I have started playing the cello again, I don’t plan to stop.
