Either you were a hoodlum, or you were a puddle on the sidewalk.

I used to go round to Aunt Mimi's house and John would be at the typewriter, which was fairly unusual in Liverpool. None of my mates even knew what a typewriter was. Well they knew what it was but they didn't hae one. Nobody had one.

On the first day of school, my teacher, Miss Mdingane, gave each of us an English name and said that from thenceforth that was the name we would answer to in school. This was the custom among Africans in those days and was undoubtedly due to the British bias of our education.

I was born in a very poor family. I used to sell tea in a railway coach as a child. My mother used to wash utensils and do lowly housework in the houses of others to earn a livelihood. I have seen poverty very closely. I have lived in poverty. As a child, my entire childhood was steeped in poverty. For me, poverty - in a way - was the first inspiration in my life.

I was a veteran, before I was a teenager.

I was an only child, and Mother was always right with me all my life. I used to get very angry at her when I was growing up-it's a natural thing.