UK: KIDNEY COMPLAINT -- AND SUBSEQUENT CHANGE OF SKIN PIGMENTATION -- BRINGS RACIAL PROBLEMS TO EUROPEAN

Record ID: 1079250

  • Title: UK: KIDNEY COMPLAINT -- AND SUBSEQUENT CHANGE OF SKIN PIGMENTATION -- BRINGS RACIAL PROBLEMS TO EUROPEAN
  • Date: 24th July 1970
  • Summary: 1. GV BBC Centre London 0.08 2. MV Mr Tonkin 1.57 TRANSCRIPT: SEQ. 2: REPORTER: Mr Tonkin, when was the first time people began taking you for an Indian or a Pakistani? TONKIN: In Dulwich hospital in the end of 1968. REPORTER: What kind of reactions have you been getting because of this sort of thing. Can you give me some examples? TONKIN: Well, I have been stopped in the street and called a wog. REPORTER: Just by literally someone stopping and saying you are a wog? TONKIN: Yeh, well the exact words I couldn't say again like. But I was just walking down the high street in Poole and a chap stopped me, and elderly chap he was, and he just stopped me and held me and called me a so-and-so wog, like, you know, and told me I ought to get back to my own country. REPORTER: When instances like that happen are you very quick to explain that you are white? When you go into a situation where you think you may be taken, say a pub or something like that, are you quick to let it be known that you are not a Pakistani? TONKIN: No, no. It would take too long to explain to people. If I think that anybody resented it I would just get out of the way quick. REPORTER: Mr Tonkin, how much of an insight have you gained. You must have gained quite a lot of into the way coloured people in this country are treated? TONKIN: Well, I feel sorry for all coloured people. There is no reason why they should be resented in anyway. It is only the fact of the colour of their skin that they are resented. It is not them themselves. It is not that they come from Pakistan, it is just the colour of their skin and while a lot of people know me from the past, you know, before I was ill and sort of appreciate the situation, you take people you meet for the first time, they can be bitter towards it. You take a genuine Pakistani and you know he has nobody on his side as I have quite a few people on my side to begin with. Initials PBS/BOB/SGM Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 7th August 1970 13:00
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  • Location: Poole, Dorest, UK
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Reuters ID: LVAE3EFEU056HN8Y4N7U1B5H10F7
  • Story Text:
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS - SOURCE TO BE VERIFIED
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
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