Stuart Hall’s adult life encompasses the history of modern black settlement in Britain. He was born 64 years ago in Kingston, Jamaica, and when he arrived at Bristol dock by steamer with his mother in 1951, to enroll as a Rhodes scholar at Merton College, Oxford, mass black immigration into Britain had not even begun.
Unlike most of those who came on such scholarships, Hall never went home. One year off retirement now, afflicted with arthritis and walking with a stick, he has the sober, university common room style that marks out his generation of middle class black Britons from those that came later. Like the Huguenots and the Jews before them, his generation did us the favour of becoming like us. That meant not talking in loud voices about points of difference, adopting a tweedy sort of costume and a gentle, self-deprecating way of speaking.
Hall appears to have followed this formula to a tee. His manner is understated. He is soft-spoken, funny and charming. The oratory for which he is famous is all the more effective for being couched in a gentle delivery, still slightly inflected with the Jamaican accent.
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