The man
calls a hero
You grew up around the Wimbledon / Wandsworth area, is that right?
That’s right.
that Daley Thompson
Sid Sloane is best known as the high-energy kids TV presenter from CBeebies. We met up with him at the Grand Hotel where shared his thoughts on racism, charity, theatre and what it was like being the Eddie Murphy of Brighton.
flip was black is beautiful and looking at how positive it was to be me. And luckily I grew up in a fairly mixed cultural area as well so there were other black families, Indian families, Chinese, there was quite a number of mixes there. It was still predominantly white but you had a bit of a mix. It’s really funny because a lot of the friends that I grew up with I thought were okay and then one day one of my friends said, “Oh, all the black people are committing all the crime.” And I said, “Well, why do you say that? Who told you that?” He said, “My grandmother.” I said, “Well, where does your grandmother get that information from?” “The newspaper.” “Well, what newspaper?” “The Sun.” I was like, “Really? And so because it’s in The Sun newspaper your grandmother said it, you actually do believe that?” So he was like, “Yeah.” And this guy had been pretty much my best friend for two years and I was really shocked but at the same time that’s how information gets passed on, it’s not his fault to a certain extent, People grow up in that way being influenced strongly by their parents, which is probably why I feel it’s an important role to carry that as a parent and as a grownup even, to try to influence children in a positive way.
So, what was your childhood like around that time?
So we’re talking about the 70s in London and basically you grew up on the streets in those days. That’s what we all did, played out all the time. As soon as I got home from school I played out, and football was my thing. So we always played football, always playing chase, tag, follow my leader, British bulldog, all that sort of stuff. There were lots of adventure playgrounds in those days. But it was good. Although, there was quite a bit of racism. People would come up and tell you to your face and they would be encouraged by their parents to do that, which was quite shocking. I’ve never really got over that, that hurtfulness, the idea that people can just come up to you and tell you something that they think is wrong with you because of the colour of your skin. I didn’t understand why they were saying these things to me. I didn’t even understand what it was that they were saying. You could see that there was a lot of aggression and venom behind it. So I grew up to be quite thick-skinned in that sense and I put a flip side on it. My
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