My mother's family in 1945: bottom left, the dog Nigger
I was looking through old family photo albums recently for images to save digitally before they deteriorate. Unexpectedly, on the back of one faded picture, I noticed some handwriting. The wobbly scrawl was penned by my mother as a girl, and lovingly listed the names of those who appear in the photograph: Dad, Mam, John, Peter... Nigger.
Evidently, when she was a kid, my mum had a dog named Nigger. His murky outline is faintly visible in the bottom corner of the photo. Finding out the family dog answered to the n-word was a shock. Even more so when you consider that my mum went on to marry my father—a black man—and is anti-racist with a passion you only see in parents of mixed-race children.
Why had I never heard about Nigger before? Neither my mum nor anyone else in the family had ever mentioned the dog. Its existence had been hushed up. So I decided to confront my relatives with the photograph and bring this secret dog to light.
The portrait was taken in 1945 in front of my mum’s home in Northenden—a predominantly white, working-class estate in south Manchester. In this pre-politically-correct community, nigger was a popular term to describe a shade of brown, just like you’d say something was “cherry red” or “sky blue.”
One day my grandfather brought home a puppy, much to his kids’ approval. My great auntie Dolly called the dog’s coat “a lovely nigger brown,” and the name stuck. It was catchy and common—the beloved Labrador in the classic second world war film The Dam Busters (1955) also answered to that name. (In the soon-to-be-filmed remake, produced by Peter Jackson and written by Stephen Fry, the dog has been renamed Nidge.)
My mum remembers Nigger as an affectionate term because the dog was so dear to her and her family. He’s said to have stood guard by her pram. He followed her to school and annoyed her teachers. When she wrote his name on the photograph, the term was devoid of derogatory connotation to her.
It was only when a black family called Samuels moved to the area that my mum realised the dog’s name might be inappropriate. “I played with their son, Stephen,” she told me. “I remember being down the fields—I was about ten years old—and Mr Samuels and his son were there too. My dog had run off into the distance and I called after it: ‘Come on Nigger!’ Then I remember feeling embarrassed, like I had been very disrespectful.”
But the real malice of her pet’s name was only fully revealed to her when she went to teaching college and met my father.
It was 1968 and they were both 20. They exchanged their first words at Manchester’s Central Library. He was from Panama and, as one of the country’s brightest students, had won a scholarship to study in Britain. She was the first person in her family to attend higher education. He had a ridiculous Afro and worshipped Bob Dylan. She was a long-haired hippie and adored Joan Baez. “He introduced himself as a poet,” said my mum. “He knew about avant-garde films, opera, and was a great dancer… I had never met anyone like him before.” “I think she was hooked from day one,” said my dad. “Don’t blame her.”
Their inter-racial romance was a scandal in the community. Her family objected to the relationship and her brothers even threatened to “run him out of town.” The neighbours spat on her at the bus stop and shouted “nigger lover!” at her. But as they got to know my dad, my mum’s family accepted the relationship. By the time they got married in 1975, everyone got along fine. As a nod to the bigots, my parents held their wedding reception at a Northenden pub called Minstrels Bar.
The erstwhile xenophobia exhibited by the family eventually became a source of embarrassment. And so the story of Nigger was nixed from our oral history, even though he was a much-loved pet and lived to the age of 17. Eerily, the dog’s identifying features in the photograph now appear blurred and blotted out, as if willed away by a family wanting to forget that they might have been racist. But it wasn’t just them—it a different era, one where white people “blacked up” as minstrels on television, dolls were called golliwogs and dogs were named Nigger.
Today the word traumatises my mum; she cannot even say it. As for my dad, he recalls one encounter with the dog in particular. My parents had just started courting and he was picking her up for a date. He walked up to the family house and knocked. Behind the door he heard barking and voices shouting: “Shut up nigger! Tie nigger up!” He was petrified—he wanted to run but his feet were glued to the ground in terror. It was only when the door opened that he realised they were talking to the dog. Luckily for me, it didn’t put him off my mum.
I was looking through old family photo albums recently for images to save digitally before they deteriorate. Unexpectedly, on the back of one faded picture, I noticed some handwriting. The wobbly scrawl was penned by my mother as a girl, and lovingly listed the names of those who appear in the photograph: Dad, Mam, John, Peter... Nigger.
Evidently, when she was a kid, my mum had a dog named Nigger. His murky outline is faintly visible in the bottom corner of the photo. Finding out the family dog answered to the n-word was a shock. Even more so when you consider that my mum went on to marry my father—a black man—and is anti-racist with a passion you only see in parents of mixed-race children.
Why had I never heard about Nigger before? Neither my mum nor anyone else in the family had ever mentioned the dog. Its existence had been hushed up. So I decided to confront my relatives with the photograph and bring this secret dog to light.
The portrait was taken in 1945 in front of my mum’s home in Northenden—a predominantly white, working-class estate in south Manchester. In this pre-politically-correct community, nigger was a popular term to describe a shade of brown, just like you’d say something was “cherry red” or “sky blue.”
One day my grandfather brought home a puppy, much to his kids’ approval. My great auntie Dolly called the dog’s coat “a lovely nigger brown,” and the name stuck. It was catchy and common—the beloved Labrador in the classic second world war film The Dam Busters (1955) also answered to that name. (In the soon-to-be-filmed remake, produced by Peter Jackson and written by Stephen Fry, the dog has been renamed Nidge.)
My mum remembers Nigger as an affectionate term because the dog was so dear to her and her family. He’s said to have stood guard by her pram. He followed her to school and annoyed her teachers. When she wrote his name on the photograph, the term was devoid of derogatory connotation to her.
It was only when a black family called Samuels moved to the area that my mum realised the dog’s name might be inappropriate. “I played with their son, Stephen,” she told me. “I remember being down the fields—I was about ten years old—and Mr Samuels and his son were there too. My dog had run off into the distance and I called after it: ‘Come on Nigger!’ Then I remember feeling embarrassed, like I had been very disrespectful.”
But the real malice of her pet’s name was only fully revealed to her when she went to teaching college and met my father.
It was 1968 and they were both 20. They exchanged their first words at Manchester’s Central Library. He was from Panama and, as one of the country’s brightest students, had won a scholarship to study in Britain. She was the first person in her family to attend higher education. He had a ridiculous Afro and worshipped Bob Dylan. She was a long-haired hippie and adored Joan Baez. “He introduced himself as a poet,” said my mum. “He knew about avant-garde films, opera, and was a great dancer… I had never met anyone like him before.” “I think she was hooked from day one,” said my dad. “Don’t blame her.”
Their inter-racial romance was a scandal in the community. Her family objected to the relationship and her brothers even threatened to “run him out of town.” The neighbours spat on her at the bus stop and shouted “nigger lover!” at her. But as they got to know my dad, my mum’s family accepted the relationship. By the time they got married in 1975, everyone got along fine. As a nod to the bigots, my parents held their wedding reception at a Northenden pub called Minstrels Bar.
The erstwhile xenophobia exhibited by the family eventually became a source of embarrassment. And so the story of Nigger was nixed from our oral history, even though he was a much-loved pet and lived to the age of 17. Eerily, the dog’s identifying features in the photograph now appear blurred and blotted out, as if willed away by a family wanting to forget that they might have been racist. But it wasn’t just them—it a different era, one where white people “blacked up” as minstrels on television, dolls were called golliwogs and dogs were named Nigger.
Today the word traumatises my mum; she cannot even say it. As for my dad, he recalls one encounter with the dog in particular. My parents had just started courting and he was picking her up for a date. He walked up to the family house and knocked. Behind the door he heard barking and voices shouting: “Shut up nigger! Tie nigger up!” He was petrified—he wanted to run but his feet were glued to the ground in terror. It was only when the door opened that he realised they were talking to the dog. Luckily for me, it didn’t put him off my mum.
