Green People

"No, you can't go to the playground Lynette?" "Whhhhy?"

"You know whhhyyyyy." Indeed I did! I had left my little sister there unattended. Stupid her ran into a tennis racquet and had to be carted off to hospital. Where was I?

Didn't think I'd be missed as I crept out of the playground, with the gang from Woolloomooloo .. "Double U, Double O, Double LL, Double O, M, Double O…", we'd chant on the way to anywhere.

Scaling the wall and into the comic factory, I was both nervous and excited, completely forgetting my little sister I had left behind.

We'd plonk on a mountain of comics. Don't know why we bothered as the comics, not yet cut, were still in huge bundles with only one page, repeated umpteen times. Playing 'hidings' there was good though! Georgie and I would hide together. Georgie was Greek and lived in the house next to the Butler Stairs.

"Lynette, I don't want you bringing any more children here!" Mum said, as she sent Georgina the little dark girl packing. Georgina was from an unidentified race. "I swear Lynette if there was a Green person in the street you would bring them home." I always had a love of strays she reckons. Apparently, if you’re foreign or dark, you are a stray (?)

"I don't know why they intermarry it's so unfair on the children", she often bleated, having come from a mixed raced family she was only too aware of the taunts. If anyone brings home a darker skinned person, even to this day, they seem to end up sitting on the back step. She refers to the poor unfortunate as flossy. "They have a naame Mum."

George (The Beatnik) was a 'green person'. Crazy Wayne Barnes was a green person. I found green people were much more fun ... ..."so, can I go to the plaaayground, yet?"

BIG BILL BROONZY "If You're White, It's Alright

This little song that I'm singin' about,
People, you all know that it's true,
If you're black and gotta work for livin'.
Now, this is what they will say to you,

They says: "If you's white, You's alright, If you's brown, Stick around,
But if you's black, oh, brother, Get back, get back, get back

I was in a place one night, They was all havin' fun,
They was all buyin' beer and wine, But they would not sell me none.

I went to an employment office, I got a number and I got in line,
They called everybody's number, But they never did call mine.

They was payin' him a dollar an hour, And they was payin' me fifty cents.
I helped win sweet victories, With my plow and hoe,

Now, I want you to tell me, brother,
What you gonna do 'bout the old Jim Crow