Some Black Bristolians before Windrush
John Quaco married his wife Penelope at St Michael’s Church in 1743, and the parish register describes them as “two negroes”. John was a sailor living in Princess Amelia Court and other records tell us he paid local taxes. In 1763 his application for a pension noted that he had been a free man for more than 21 years and had never been out of work. His name suggests he came from West Africa, Quaco being the usual name for a boy born on a Wednesday.
destruction d when they begin using us heroin.
“I “really struggled to watch it,” says say Jane. “It touches on those universal univ themes that young people struggle strug with today, like peer pressure.” press
“And “An that parents struggle with too,” interjects Mitch, “because the parents paren in the film are apathetic and don’t don’ think it’s going to happen to them, which is exactly how it was for my family. We jumped on it when we could, but we always thought that it would just go away of its own accord.
“We didn’t know the signs to look for. Now, having gone through that experience, we can speak to parents in schools to educate them, but it’s not always easy,” he adds.
“We went into one school a couple of years ago in Hampstead (London) that had about 2,000 children attending. It could have been a sell-out parents evening, but only 20 parents turned up (to hear us talk).
“In a nice affluent area like Hampstead, people think it’s not going to happen to them. And guess what? It happened to us, in a really nice affluent area.
“Drug addiction is as indiscriminate as cancer. There are so many reasons, especially with young women, that they fall into this trap, and it’s made even worse by the fact they can’t speak to their parents.
“I wasn’t able to have those conversations with Amy, although I did try. I was a typical parent. If we can just get parents and kids to be able to communicate with each other, that’s the first step.”
Now, with almost a decade’s experience of speaking to parents about addiction and learning about strategies for helping young people, Mitch says there are a few things he’d go back and tell his younger self. “One of the things we say to parents is that unless you’ve abused your child, the responsibility lies with your child. Nobody is forcing them, so you have to rid yourself of this guilt that it’s somehow your fault,” he says.
“We never empowered Amy though. Some parents say, ‘If you’re going to smoke pot, smoke it in the house’, which is empowering them to take drugs. Parents have got to think about this kind of behaviour very carefully.”
Jane believes the foundation’s work is becoming more important in the wake of the pandemic and its impact on young people’s mental health.
“It’s certainly put a lot of people that are already at risk at a higher risk,” she says. “We’re anticipating a lot of family breakdowns and there’s a lot of isolation too. Even students going off to university for the first time aren’t having the same student life.
“Year on year, we’re seeing budgets cut for a problem that is actually mounting,” she adds. “There are some fantastic people in the country providing recovery services, but before us, there wasn’t anyone providing a facility specifically for women.
“We were coming across women that were in treatment and were desperately frightened of where they were going to go afterwards. If people don’t have safe housing to go onto, like Amy’s Place, they don’t stand a chance (of recovering). It’s vital we give people the opportunity to be supported and to learn to live without substances.
“Plus, when someone starts using again, that’s when they’re at their most vulnerable, because their resistance has dropped and they might not be aware that they can’t take what they were taking before.”
Next year will mark the 10th anniversary of Amy’s passing, and the same milestone for the Amy Winehouse Foundation. And while the circumstances behind it were tragic, Mitch is proud of the work it’s doing.
“The foundation, Jane and Janis (Amy’s mum) are rightly lauded for the work we do in the community. We just haven’t got any time for anything else. We will continue to help young people who need us the most.”