Colin Grant

    Bageye At The Wheel

To his fellow West Indians who assemble every weekend for the all-night poker game at Mrs Knight’s, he is always known as Bageye. There aren’t very many black men in Luton in 1972 and most of them gather at Mrs Knight’s – Summer Wear, Pioneer, Anxious, Tidy Boots – each has his nickname. Bageye already finds it a struggle to feed his family on his wage from Vauxhall Motors, but now his wife Blossom has set her heart on her sons going to private school.

In this wonderful memoir Colin Grant looks at his father through the eyes of his ten-year-old self. Colin is Bageye’s favourite ‘pickney’, and often his reluctant companion in his latest attempt to placate Blossom with another DIY project, or a little cash. When he acquires a less than roadworthy old car, Bageye sets himself up as an unofficial minicab service, lack of a driving licence nothwithstanding. More profitable are his marijuana deals, until the day he mistakenly entrusts Colin with choosing a hiding place for a huge bag of ganja…

Bageye at the Wheel is published by Jonathan Cape in Spring 2012