Last night's episode of Who Do You Think You Are? showed us the interesting story of the diverse family of Reggie Yates. Reggie's father was born in Ghana, the former British colony of the Gold Coast, to a mixed race father.
The theme of mixed race family runs through Reggie's episode. His great-grandfather was the white British goldmine employee George W Yates, who maintained his family in England while travelling back and forth to his mixed-race family - his son and his wife by Ghanaian customary marriage, Dorothy. This marriage was as legally binding as existed between a Ghanaian and an Englishman at this time - though this was argued about by the British government when Reggie's father tried to obtain the right to stay in this country in the 1980s.
Dorothy was herself the result of the mixed race relationship between a Mr Lloyd who worked for a mining company, and Dorothy's black Ghanaian mother Sarah. Dorothy and Sarah seem to have been very close, and also very, very, strong - both having to raise their mixed race child without consistent support from the child's father.
The other thing I found interesting was the way in which Reggie's family in this country were very much thought of black African, but in Ghana were thought of as white European. I guess this was the fate of many mixed race families - always slightly different to their friends and neighbours; though the family were very clearly loved in their communities.
The tradition of oral history in Ghana was also very interesting - albeit leaving Reggie in a very fish-out-of-water position when it came to addressing the elders. He made a fair few blunders in terms of etiquette, and you wonder if maybe the production team could've drummed the rules in a bit more, but it was all taken in good grace.
So then, a very interesting episode about a country and a part of history I knew very little about.
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