Publisher's Synopsis
My Father Who Mothered Me'
In 1942 my father, Darwin Fitzgerald (Gerry) Samuel, boards a ship and leaves his native island of Grenada, bound for war-torn
Britain. He worked in the armaments industry, qualified as a teacher, and married Scottish nurse Nelleen Hogan. In 1950, two
years after the Empire Windrush had opened the flood gates to England, our father went home with his young family: a man on the up. Pity, it wouldn't last.
One fateful day in 1960 while living in Trinidad, my mother walked out on us without warning, thrusting her three
young sons into the sole care of our father. To say our father was unprepared is putting it mildly: he was in a state of shock. But despite his shock, there was one thing
he would never do: abandon his sons. Teacher, seeker, writer, Renaissance man, and lifelong nomad, that was my father. Unlike most of the Windrush Generation,
our journey didn't end after we got off the ship in Liverpool - that was just the beginning.
In 1971 came my father's finest move: Jamaica. In one seminal year, my life was transformed: from a dumbed-down, low self-esteem immigrant kid in London, into a newly confident sixth former, about to enter university. After my father died, suddenly and shockingly, my brothers and I (who really are called Tom and Gerry) went in search of our long-lost mother, and what we found was way more than we'd bargained for.
Follow me as we go from the hills of Grenada to the arse end of London to the Buckingham Palace, The White House and beyond, in an unforgettable West Indian journey, full of dramatic twists and escapades. This is my story - my tribute to our father and to all those unsung fathers, who have mothered countless generations of Caribbean men and women.
