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I was horrified to discover my sugar addiction is linked to my family’s haunting past, reveals Repair Shop’s Jay Blades
IT'S just 33 miles from east London's Hackney to Windsor Castle – but for Jay Blades, it's one incredible journey.
Today The Repair Shop host, 52, met Prince Charles, who presented him with an MBE.
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Jay will later travel to the Rio Cinema in east London - where he was brought up by his single mum - to watch the moving new Channel 5 series he's made about the hidden past of the tough streets and estates where he was raised.
Local hero Jay, who quit school unable to read and paid no attention whatsoever in history lessons, will be joined by nearly 400 people he grew up with in the 70s to enjoy No Place Like Home, which airs tonight.
It is 30 years since Jay moved out of Hackney, but he owes everything to this tough area, just north of London’s Square Mile.
He says: “When people come to the Repair Shop, I know nothing
about what they are bringing in. We just have a human to human conversation. I learned that in Hackney.
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“It was here I was taught everything I know about community.
“I’m just a normal guy who has been very, very fortunate. They
don’t normally put people who speak like me on the telly.
“I’m a little bit of a commoner. My teeth are a lovely shade of beige
because I’m addicted to tea with three sugars.”
Normally, it’s the people Jay meets in the Repair Shop who are
moved to tears and lost for words - but this time it was Jay’s turn to be stunned into silence.
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While making the programme he discovered how the British Government paid off slave owners with nearly £20billion in today’s money.
The loan Whitehall took out in 1833 to compensate Caribbean plantation owners was so huge it was not finally paid off until 2015.
Jay, who is descended from enslaved sugar cane workers in Barbados and Jamaica, was horrified to learn the taxes of black Britons were paying off the plantation owners.
He says: “I felt this sharp pain, like I was falling onto a spike, as if I had been stabbed. You can see from my reaction in the show that it really affected me.
“Normally I have something to say about everything. I can talk for England. But that revelation stopped me in my tracks. I couldn’t speak after it.
I felt this sharp pain, like I was falling onto a spike, as if I had been stabbed... it really affected me
Jay Blades
“I could take it one of two ways - society doesn’t want me or am I going to make a society that understands who I am, my culture, where I am from and what I represent?
“So, being from Hackney doesn’t mean that I am going to rob you or I am going to sell you drugs.
“Being from Hackney means I have come from a beautiful community.
“My ancestors were enslaved and never received any reparations for that but they came over here to help support and rebuild this country. It makes you feel sad.”
Sugar addiction
Jay met historian Dr Katie Donington, whose research focuses on the impact of the slave trade in Jamaica and Britain, in a Unitarian church that he walked past almost every day as child, not realising it had been built as a place for free speech.
Dr Donington tells Jay that his love of sugary tea, and the diabetes that affects many people of colour in the UK, is linked to the slave trade.
Jay says: “I am addicted to sugar, no ifs and buts. I don’t suffer from diabetes but I probably will have it.
“I went to Barbados last year and some of the sachets you get there are actually called Plantation Sugar. It felt weird to see that.
"It’s a sad state of affairs that I am addicted to something that enslaved my ancestors.”
Jay’s family are from Jamaica and Barbados. He has been closely following the debate among the Caribbean countries to end links with the Royal Family over slavery.
How slave trade is linked to high diabetes rates
Dr Katie Donington, a senior lecturer in Black, African and Caribbean History at The Open University, has researched the cultural, commercial, political and familial world the slave-owners made in both Jamaica and Britain.
African workers were enslaved to work on sugar plantations colonised by Europeans in the Caribbean and South America in the 1700s.
Sugar became a mass consumption product, sparking a rise in diabetes.
Diabetes rates are particularly high in the Caribbean.
People from Black African, African Caribbean and South Asian backgrounds are at a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes from a younger age.
It's not completely understood why, but health surveys have shown lifestyle factors such as traditional diets that are high in sugar and salt are likely contributors.
He says: “We need to have an uncomfortable conversation. We shouldn’t be scared about it. It is a big issue that hasn’t been addressed.
“I don’t think it is the responsibility of the Royal Family, I think it is the responsibility of us as a community. We put our politicians into power and we give them the vote.
“I think we can solve it but I don’t think we will be able to solve it in my lifetime.
“I think it is going to take a few generations before it is really solved and people feel welcomed, are on even playing field and there is no injustice."
Returning to Hackney
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In the first episode Jay revisits the council house where he and half-brother Justin were brought up by their typist mum Barbara, who came to Britain from Barbados as a teenager and fell pregnant aged 18.
Jay says: “Growing up in Hackney was like the Famous Five. Enid Blyton had those kids going around in the countryside.
“It was exactly the same for me, only we didn’t have the countryside, we just had concrete but I had the time of my life.
“When I look back I don’t remember it ever raining or being cold. I only remember the sunny times and happy times.”
But the reality was much, much tougher.
I am addicted to sugar... It’s a sad state of affairs that I am addicted to something that enslaved my ancestors
Jay Blades
Terrible teaching meant Jay left school barely able to read – he is still continuing to teach himself.
In January, TV viewers saw the furniture restorer struggling to read his letter from Buckingham Palace.
It informed him that he had been awarded an MBE in last year’s Queen’s Birthday Honours list for services to craft.
Jay's fiancée, fitness instructor Lisa Marie Zbozen, is helping him improve his reading.
He says: “It has been a little bit tricky over the last couple of weeks but I am still doing it. I am on Book Three and I have got five books in total to do so I am still on it.
“It wasn’t just for TV. I’m not that kind of celebrity. I’m doing it
for real."
Jay, who proposed in Barbados at Christmas with a ring made by Repair Shop jewellery expert Richard Talman, says they plan to get married "very soon", potentially this year.
Bullied for being black
At secondary school Jay was also constantly bullied over the colour of his skin, while the police often beat him up and dumped him miles from Hackney.
Walking along the streets of his childhood, people he grew up with constantly stop him to chat.
Jay says: “There’s still deprivation here. There are still some people living below the poverty line. There is still police brutality, is what they are telling me.
“Some of them feel resentment, but they are all very proud of me. They’re proud of being from Hackney and they’re glad that they can actually see someone who is making the change and doing things differently.”
Police attitudes
In a café near the Rio Cinema, Jay reveals how, when he moved away from Hackney to Oxford, he helped teach Thames Valley police how to deal with young, black people.
He says: “One of the biggest things that made a change with the Thames Valley Police was that I encouraged them to just smile and say ‘hello, alright lads’ and carry on walking.
“In the Caribbean, that is what we do all of the time, say good morning, good afternoon, good evening and good night. We walk past people and you feel so at ease when someone says that to you.
“It was what we learned on the streets of Hackney, all of our community were actually communicating in that way.
“Something so simple, so human can change the perception of young people who believe that the only time they come into contact with the police they want to empty your pockets, embarrass you on the street, stop you from going to work or accuse you of a crime. It was impactful.”
Jay adds: “I’ve had a rough upbringing, a rough time seven years ago when I nearly lost everything and now I am back on my feet with the support of family and the community.
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“The people that see me on the street have nothing but love because they see he’s one of us. I’m just a product of Hackney.”
No Place Like Home airs tonight on Channel 5 at 9pm.
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