Notes from a sceptical Nigerian in England
I arrived at Bryanston (a boarding school in Dorset) in September 1978, from King’s College, Lagos. It was my first time in England, I found myself in a school with girls for the first time since puberty, and I was one of only three Black students. I survived, and even thrived, though not entirely unscathed.
In Summer term 1979, a group of about thirty of us went on a school trip to France, by ferry. At Calais, our teacher went through customs and continued ahead to make some arrangements. I, coming up near the rear, was taken to one side after it was noted that I had no visa in my Nigerian passport. I was detained, summarily manhandled like a criminal, and then thrown unto the next ferry back to Dover.