Reggie Yates Who Do You Think You Are?

Growing up in London, you sort of get asked all the time

where you're from because there are so many immigrants.

I know very little about my family.

Both my mother and father were born in Ghana

and my father's mixed race and that's about as far as it goes.

You know, I know that there is a European part to my history,

hence my complexion, but beyond that, I don't really know much more.

Reggie Yates was born in London in 1983.

He has an older sister, Cerise,

and half-siblings from his parents' later marriages.

As an actor, DJ and TV presenter,

Reggie has clocked up 23 years in radio and television - he's only 31.

Relationships and marriage are very much in the front of my mind now

and in Ghanaian culture there's this whole thing of a knocking,

where my family turn up at the family of my partner

and literally knock on the door and say,

"Hi, we're the people that are taking your daughter."

And as I've been with my girlfriend for two years, my mum has literally

started knocking on my door going, "When are we going to knock on hers?"

I was raised almost entirely by my mother.

My mother and biological father broke up

when I was about four years old

and, er, my mum remarried when I was around 11.

I know a heck of a lot about my mother's side

because I grew up with that side of the family,

but when it comes to my dad's side, I know not a lot.

My father has been a very small part of my adult life.

It sounds really ridiculous and actually kind of sad,

but I've never met my grandparents.

I don't know whether they're alive, I don't know where they live -

they could live in the next street.

I know nothing.

The logical starting point for me is with my dad.

His family history - well, I say "his", it's mine too -

that family history is something that I want to investigate.

My father and I share the same name.

He's Reginald Yates, but his full name is Reginald Jojo Yates.

He goes by Jojo.

Reggie's parents split up when he was four

and he's seen his father just a handful of times.

My father's an incredibly talented musician

which I think on some level has informed a lot of my passions.

Reggie and his dad are meeting up in north London.

Jojo Yates makes traditional West African instruments.

Hello, hello.

Oh, yeah. Wow, wow, wow.

-How's it going?

-Very well.

You OK? Good to see you. Looking good.

Good to see you, son. Wonderful.

-Looking good.

-Thank you.

-You all right?

-Yes, yes.

Wow! So what is that that you were playing?

This is sepriwa, originated from Ghana

and it is an instrument that I made here.

Is that guitar strings on it?

No, no, no, these are fishing lines.

Went to the fishing line shop and got these.

-Wow!

-Yeah.

HE PLAYS SEPRIWA

That's how it sounds.

Yeah, it's beautiful.

OK. So that's sepriwa.

I don't remember very much and one of the things

that Mum told me about -

is kind of hazy because she told me when I was so young -

was something to do with you and immigration

and you being here in the UK

and it becoming quite a big deal

when the government tried to send you back to Ghana.

So when I got here with your mum and Cerise came...

Yeah, that's my big sister.

..and I was arrested for overstaying in the country.

That's when the immigration problem started.

I remember vaguely that Mum said

there was a "Save Reggie Yates" campaign.

Yes. I've got some...a clip of that.

What's this magazine? What's this?

This is City Limits. April 16th, 1982.

That's the year before I was born.

You guys look so young.

You're only 26. Ah, look at that afro!

"This week, Reggie Yates is waiting in his King's Cross home

"to find out whether or not he is to be removed to Ghana.

"Although he is only one of many facing deportation, his case,

"and the reasons given

"for refusing him permission to stay, is remarkable.

"Yates was born in Ghana 26 years ago but his grandfather was English."

Jojo was born in 1956, a year before Ghanaian Independence,

in what was then the British colony of the Gold Coast.

He would only be allowed to stay in the UK

if he could prove that he had British heritage.

It says here your grandfather was English, was your dad not English?

No. My dad was born in Ghana.

-OK.

-Yeah. With an English father.

-Have you got a picture of him?

-Yeah, I have.

There you go. Harry Philip Yates.

Your grandfather.

-Wow!

-Yeah.

-That's the first time I've ever seen...

-Yeah?

-..seen him.

He looks like he's got quite light eyes. And my mother always said,

"Oh, yeah, your grandad had blond hair and blue eyes," and I never...

-Yeah. She saw him.

-Yeah? Wow.

And he stayed in the house in King's Cross, yeah.

-Really?

-Yeah.

-He's a handsome man.

-Yeah.

-He looks like a bit of a heartbreaker.

-The ladies must have loved him.

-Oh, yeah. Oh, yes.

-Yeah?

-Oh, yes.

So your father, er, was of mixed race?

Yes.

Jojo's father, Harry Yates, was born in the Gold Coast.

His father was English and his mother was a local woman.

They had a customary marriage -

a wedding ceremony recognised as legitimate, by Ghanaian law.

Their son Harry visited the UK during Jojo's immigration battle

to stand up for Jojo in court.

My father stood up and said, "Look at me. Look at the mix."

"The chairman of the tribunal,

"a former colonial servant, made it clear in his adjudication

"what he thought of Yates' grandfather.

"'I find it extremely unlikely that Yates' grandfather believed

"'that he was entering into a valid marriage with Yates' grandmother.'"

Wow!

"He went on to say he could not believe that Yates' grandmother

thought it was a valid marriage if she gave it any thought at all."

-This is unbelievable!

-Yeah.

So this man was saying this in the court at the time.

In court, yes.

Wow! And did anybody... Was anybody offended by it?

-Did anybody speak?

-I was very offended.

That time too, customary marriages were very taken very seriously.

The chairman of the tribunal ruled that

Jojo's grandparents' customary marriage was invalid

and therefore Jojo's father, Harry, was illegitimate,

and his British heritage was not recognised by law.

Well, that's shocking.

-In the end they granted me...

-A stay.

..a stay in the country because I was married to...

Your mother was a British citizen, so I was granted a stay here.

Jojo was finally granted leave to stay

after his wife became a British citizen.

Jojo has more pictures of his father, Harry,

taken when Harry was a much older man.

-Huh! Oh, is that him? There he is.

-Yeah, there's him there.

And where am I?

That's you there?

-There.

-There you are.

THEY LAUGH Look at that.

You even had a 'tache then!

Was you born with a moustache? You've got one there.

I was young, but I was just growing it.

So your dad in this photo

-seems like every bit the proud African father...

-Exactly.

..sat with his wife and his huge family.

But he does look like he is of mixed race,

-but he looks more white than he does black in this picture.

-Yes.

-And this is my...

-Your mother.

-..my mother, yeah. Diana Yates.

Yeah, there's another one, when he came here.

Your grandfather.

His face is brilliant! It's such a cheeky face.

-Yeah.

-He looks like a bit of a character.

Hearing you talk about your dad,

my grandfather, in past tense says to me that he passed away.

Yeah, he passed away.

Um, he passed away 19... 2000, the year 2000,

and he passed away in his sleep with his wife lying next to him.

-Wow.

-Yeah.

That's really sad.

Yeah. Mm-hm.

Is my grandmother still alive?

She died as well.

-So she passed away...

-She passed away.

-..shortly after he did?

-Not too long, yeah.

Of all of Harry's children, only an adopted son, JB,

still lives in their home in Ghana.

You have to see JB when you go to Ghana.

-Who's JB?

-My father adopted him, so he grew up with us.

-Right.

-He spent all his life with us.

-Right.

-And when we all came here,

he spent the rest of my father's life with him.

So he spent all the time. He knows everything about us.

I'm really excited about getting out there now. Thank you.

You will enjoy it.

There is a level of sadness on my part

because I wish I'd known, or at least met, my grandfather Harry,

and it's sad that I don't know him

and I don't have any memories of my own about that man.

Reggie's flying to Ghana, where he hopes to find out more

about his grandfather Harry and his background.

As I'm getting older,

I'm understanding the importance of family

and, you know, at some point I hope to be a father,

and regardless of my relationship with my dad,

I think it's incredibly important that my children have

a relationship with their grandfather.

And I want them to be able to know who their family are

and know what their history is.

From the capital, Accra, Reggie's heading west along the coast

to the city of Sekondi, where his father was born and raised.

Reggie's brought with him a file of memorabilia from his father.

It's really strange for me

because I don't know much about this side of the family but...

suddenly I feel that I'm one of many, which is a really nice feeling.

My grandfather looks awesome.

I wish I knew more about this guy.

Along with photos, the file contains documents his grandfather, Harry,

gave to Jojo to help him with his immigration battle.

Oh, wow!

"In the High Court of Ghana, Western Region, Sekondi."

This is an affidavit. This is the actual thing.

This isn't a copy, is it? Wow!

This affidavit is actually signed by my grandfather,

Harry Philip Yates.

"I, Harry Philip Yates,

"of House Number 43/9 Fifth Street, Sekondi, Ghana,

"make oath and say as follows...

"One, that I am the father of Reginald Yates

"of 82 St John's Avenue, London, NW10."

It would appear that this document is him swearing that he is

the father of my father,

and that he is of English descent.

I didn't even know my great-grandfather's name.

George Edward Yates.

Doesn't get more English than that, does it?

"Employed at the Broomasi Mines, now defunct, as paymaster."

At point six it says,

"That my mother was Mrs Dorothy Vardon,

"that her maiden name was Dorothy Lloyd.

"And my mother's father was EJ Lloyd, born in England."

No way. That makes my great-grandmother mixed race.

You know, you sort of have in your head that there are

these mixed race relationships in the family,

but it seems that it's not just from one generation,

it's from two, and potentially even more than that.

So the mix in my family started a long time ago,

much earlier than I thought.

Reggie's grandfather, Harry Yates,

swore that his British ancestry came from his father, George Yates,

an Englishman working for a mining company in the Gold Coast.

And Harry swore that his mother, Dorothy,

also had a British father whose surname was Lloyd.

Well, off the back of this document

it makes sense that I follow my dad's advice and head to Sekondi

where I'm going to meet this guy, JB,

who knows a hell of a lot about my family,

and hopefully he's at this address.

In the 100 years before Ghanaian independence in 1957,

the city of Sekondi was a strategic commercial port

at the heart of the British colony.

British and other European businesses

established headquarters in Sekondi.

And the European men they employed arrived here

before journeying on to gold mines, timber, palm and cocoa plantations.

In the early years of the 20th century,

a new railway came to Sekondi,

making its marketplace one of the busiest in the region.

It became a cosmopolitan city

with a local elite of mixed European and African heritage.

Sekondi's hilltop became known as European Town.

Reggie's family's house is down the hill

in the heart of the Central Market district.

Hello. Are you JB?

I'm JB. And that's Reggie! That's my boy!

-How you doing?

-All right, brother!

-How you doing? You all right?

-All right. I'm good.

Hello, good to meet you. Good to meet you.

-Nice to meet you too, yes.

-I'm Dora.

-Hello. Nice to meet you.

-Your auntie.

Hello. Wow! Oh, wow. OK.

I can't believe it! You're welcome.

Yes. It's good to be here. Shall we go inside?

Come on, let's go home. Let's go home.

-Hello, how you doing?

-Yeah, all right.

-I look like my dad?

-Yes, you look like him.

Really?

Yeah, just a little more Twi than Fante.

-Kitte, kitte.

-Kitte, kitte.

Come on, come on, come in, come on.

Oh, my God!

With JB is Dora Adolphus,

a distant relative who also grew up in this house.

Come in.

Thank you so much for having us. Thank you.

Oh, great.

Reggie!

My dad has told me that you are the guy to speak to.

Heard about you too.

This house has been in the family for a long time?

Oh, since 1928.

First of all, you were welcomed into the Yates family.

Yeah. The only word I think I can use is adoption.

-Adoption, yeah.

-Yeah.

-Wow.

So you've been living with the Yates family,

and namely my grandfather, Harry, for how long?

Er, became attached with the family when I was about,

um, 19, 20 years, and now I'm 58.

I was the only dark guy among the guys,

so people call me the black Yates, you know what I mean?

I grew up with most of the children.

So from head to toe, I know everything about the Yates.

So what can you tell me about my grandfather?

Your grandfather is a very, very industrious man.

-Right.

-Very hard working person.

What did he do? Where did he work?

Your grandfather, hmm, that's the jack-of-all-trade.

-The old man was a timber merchant.

-Timber merchant.

-Timber.

Harry Yates worked in various businesses -

selling timber and in the sugar industry.

Then he became a farmer.

What do you remember about my, my grandfather?

-He'd fix it. So he'd fix everything?

-Everything.

So for a man that looked like this, he must have stood out,

-everybody must have known him, I imagine.

-Yes, yes.

Was he quite well known in Sekondi?

Anywhere that he goes people call him "obruni",

that means white man.

Obruni, yeah, yeah.

The term "obruni" is used to refer to white Europeans.

Did everybody see him as Ghanaian

or did people see him as an Englishman?

Initially, those, you know, the local people around, you know,

they see him as a white man,

but he doesn't want anybody to call him a white man.

Right.

And the person I don't know much about is my grandmother,

so, his wife.

-Would you like to see a picture of her?

-Yeah, please.

Yeah, your grandmother, Mrs Diana Yates.

Let me see.

-Wow!

-That's it.

-That's Diana.

Your grandmother, Diana.

So how did my grandfather Harry and my grandmother Diana get together?

Actually, it's an amazing story.

Your grandfather, on his way going to work, he saw your grandmother,

a sewing machine on the head, you know, it was...

-A sewing machine?

-Yeah, a sewing machine. She was a seamstress.

According to Diana's sister, say,

"Obruni white man, what do you want from me?"

And he said, "Well don't worry, you, let's get to your family house.

"When we get there, I will let you know what I want from you."

So he follow her to the house

and tell the parents that he wanted to marry this woman.

Just imagine.

There's a lot of Yates boys, isn't there?

-A lot.

-How many children did my grandfather have?

He had 14.

-16.

-16, rather, yeah.

16? Which one? Pick one. Which one was it?

16!

Your grandfather actually had ten solid children with Diana.

Wow, she gave him ten? That's incredible.

Ten. That is two girls and eight boys.

Right. Wow! So 16 children with how many women?

About five women. 16 solid children.

When your grandfather was alive they come here.

They were all here. They were all together.

And that's your great-grandmother.

-Wow!

-Dorothy.

So this is my grandfather, Harry Philip, this is his mother?

-Yes.

-And she is as fair as he was.

-Yeah.

And her surname was Vardon?

Yes.

So why didn't she take the Yates name?

Initially, she was Yates.

And then after your great-grandfather departed,

she got married to the Vardon.

That's why later became...

OK. So her second husband was Vardon. I see. OK.

Reggie's great-grandmother, Dorothy,

made her living as a market trader.

Women dominated the marketplaces of the Gold Coast.

Wives of fishermen sold the daily catch,

and those from the countryside brought produce to urban markets.

Dorothy built a successful business

supplying provisions to commercial ships and became wealthy enough

to maintain the house Reggie's visiting.

What can you tell me about this picture of my great-grandmother?

Where was this actually taken?

-This very picture?

-Yeah.

-On this very step. This very house.

-Just here?

-Just here.

-Can we see?

-Yeah.

That is there. That's exactly it.

So, right here. Just here.

-It's coming right here.

-Yeah.

What was she like, then? Do you remember her?

Mama, that what everybody calls her, Mama tall and fat.

Mama is a very lovely woman, big character.

That's it - big character, you know, yeah.

As a young woman, before she came to Sekondi,

Dorothy gave birth to her son, Harry,

in the gold mining settlement of Broomasi.

Harry's English father, George Yates,

was working there as an accountant for a British mining company.

So when my grandfather was a baby in Broomasi,

I know that he was obviously brought up by his mother, Dorothy,

but was he living with his dad, George?

-Yeah. When George had that malaria or fever...

-So he got ill?

Yeah, he got ill, so he have to go back

and wanted to take Harry along with him.

He wanted to take my grandfather Harry with him?

-Yes.

-When my grandfather was a young boy or...?

Yes, very, very young.

But Dorothy had only Harry, so you know,

they're wondering what about if they take my boy away,

you know, what's going to happen?

So they decided Harry should stay.

If you really want to come back, leave Harry, go and come back.

-That's why Harry...

-Stayed here.

-..stayed here.

While in the Gold Coast, Reggie's great-grandfather,

George Yates, became so ill he had to return to England.

I've got a story that Auntie Dora's grandmother told me.

-Right.

-Your great-grandfather left a lot of money.

He left gold dust to be taking care of your grandfather.

-Yeah.

-You understand?

So your great-grandfather left a lot of money.

-And did he ever come back?

-Never.

-Wow!

-So nobody knows what happened to him.

George Yates came to the Gold Coast

to work as an accountant for a British gold mining company.

Britain's largest supply of gold came from South Africa.

But in the late 19th century

there was a push to make mining in the Gold Coast more productive.

This brought men like George Yates to the colony,

where they sometimes formed ties with local women.

I had no idea that my great-grandfather was not only

an Englishman that came to Ghana and had a child, but left that child.

Because, you know, I've been estranged from my father

for so many years and whether I like it or not,

the things that make him him have almost defined me,

even though we've not been together for such a long period of time.

There's definitely parallels there.

So, I'm desperate to know more about George Edward Yates now

and why he never came back and what happened to him.

And also, the influence that might have had on Harry.

-Hello.

-Hi.

Hey. How you doing, Carina?

Fantastic. Nice to meet you, Reggie.

-Shall we head in?

-Yeah, let's go to the reading room.

Historian, Carina Ray, is an expert on the Gold Coast colony.

She's been looking into Reggie's great-grandfather, George Yates.

The history of the mixing in my family

is the thing that I'm super interested in.

This is an affidavit by Harry Philip Yates

and it says that his father, George Edward Yates,

was born of London, England in about 1870 to English parents.

So he is an Englishman, a white man, who's found himself here in Ghana.

I have a number of passenger lists that allow us to see him

travelling between Britain and Africa.

Let's have a look together.

The first record Carina's found is for travel to South Africa.

So this is from 1902.

Although it just says "Cape,"

we know that they're in Cape Town, South Africa.

Right. OK.

Here are the names of the passengers

and I think you'll see a name that looks familiar there.

Yates, there we go. Yeah.

Yates... Is that an M?

-It's a W.

-W?

-Yes.

-OK.

You're right, it's GW Yates.

-In your affidavit we have...

-George Edward.

-..George Edward Yates.

-Mm.

We can track a GW, or a George William Yates,

from South Africa to Sekondi, going back and forth.

There is no George Edward Yates,

so we believe that the affidavit is incorrect.

Is incorrect. OK.

So this George W Yates was him

and he was George W as opposed to George E?

Yeah, so... Exactly.

Does that say that he's married?

Yes.

So he was married in England before he came to Ghana?

Yes. So in 1902 he's married

and he appears to be travelling with his wife.

-Wow!

-And, er, there's something else below.

That's not children, is it?

Yes.

-Oh, my God! OK.

-They have a one-year-old son.

Let's have a look at the next one.

It shows us your great-grandfather

travelling in April, 1907 to Sekondi.

The important thing about this particular document

is that it shows him arriving by himself in the Gold Coast.

George Yates followed the typical pattern

for British men working in the gold mining industry.

Wives and children often went to South Africa

but not to the Gold Coast.

The danger from malaria and tropical diseases

earned it the nickname "white man's grave".

So, most British men travelled here alone.

Would it be fair to say that

it was almost expected of, sort of, Englishmen to find a new wife

when they came to West Africa for long periods of time?

Yeah. For sure, it was not uncommon for European men

to have relationships with African women in the colony.

This had been, you know, a very long tradition.

George and his British colleagues

were contracted for long stints in the colony

interspersed with visits to their families at home.

Carina has tracked George Yates in England as well.

Let's have a look at a census from 1911.

George William Yates, Ethel Rose Yates. So what's this?

This shows the family in Middlesex.

Wow. So you've not only got my great-grandfather,

George William Yates,

but his wife, Ethel Rose,

and he's got children, he's got two sons and two daughters,

William, Rose, Douglas and another Ethel,

Ethel Jr, look at that.

This allows us to know

that even after he resettled his family back in England

and came to Sekondi,

that he continued to go back and forth

between the Gold Coast and Middlesex

and continued to have children with his white wife.

So would this be the complete family in the UK?

No. There's more to come.

Oh, my God! What is wrong with these Yates men?!

They just can't stop.

-Prolific!

-Yeah.

I think if we look at the affidavit

we see that your grandfather, Harry,

was born in Broomasi on November 15th, 1915.

Yeah.

So what I want to show you is an excerpt from the Gold Coast Leader.

It's in very fine print, so I'll just point it out to you.

"Our good Paymaster Yates

"was among those on the sick list last week.

"Mr George W Yates, our chief accountant here,

"is to leave for England on the 13th of next month."

So this is June, 1915,

and so he leaves in July, 1915.

Yeah. With the imminent birth of his son.

-Right.

-It's funny he got sick around that time, isn't it?

Well, you might be surprised to see something.

Let's look at this.

OK. "September, 1915." This is him arriving in Liverpool.

-No.

-Is this not him?

-This is him leaving Liverpool...

-Leaving Liverpool, OK.

..going to West Africa.

Right. So he's come back?

-He comes back before his son is born.

-Right.

So, you're right that he fell ill and he left during the pregnancy...

-It was almost a little too convenient.

-Right.

But I think that puts a little bit of a different spin

-on the idea that...

-Slightly.

-..he would have been a man

who impregnated a woman and then left.

It says to me that he intended to be in the Gold Coast

when his son was born.

Reggie has heard that George got ill again

when his son Harry was very young

and left the Gold Coast, never to return.

He also, according to the history, again from JB,

he left Dorothy with some gold dust to look after herself

and to look after her son.

So...it's quite tough for me.

I'm kind of torn as to... as to his motives.

What I see is an itinerant father,

not just to Harry,

-but to all of his children.

-Yeah.

And it was the nature of the work that he was engaged in.

You know, that the mining industry was a global industry

and men had to go where they could get a lucrative contract.

But I think that we can say that for the time that he was here

he had a meaningful relationship with Dorothy, cared for her

and he cared for his son.

After he leaves the Gold Coast,

he doesn't settle permanently in England,

he actually takes a position in Nigeria.

He doesn't start another family in Nigeria, does he?

-Not that we know of!

-THEY LAUGH

And Nigeria wasn't his last stop in his mining career.

Is that him?

-"Death of Mr GW Yates." That's him!

-Yes, that is your great-grandfather.

Wow!

He leaves the Gold Coast in 1917

-and he dies in 1925.

-Shortly after. Yeah, 1925.

"The news of the death of Mr George William Yates, aged 44."

Wow! "The greater part of the past 18 years

"he spent abroad fulfilling appointments with gold,

"silver, platinum and tin mining companies, first in South Africa,

"then the Gold Coast, Nigeria and Colombia, South America."

Wow! This is a massively well-travelled man.

-Yes.

-He's been... "While in New York..." Wow!

"..on his journey home,

"he contracted a chill which was followed by pneumonia.

"He reached England and passed away on December 22nd."

Wow!

That's a lot to take in. That's...

That's crazy, I now know what he looks like.

-What did you imagine he looked like?

-I don't know.

I genuinely had absolutely nothing in my head with, um,

my grandfather Harry being so racially ambiguous, you know.

In some photos he looks quite mixed race

and in other photos he looks very European.

So if we put them together...

Wow!

-Yeah, he's definitely his father's son, isn't he?

-Yeah.

Sort of squinty little eyes!

Some might say that's carried on through the family.

Wow!

Where do you think that left Harry,

being here in Ghana without a connection to his father

and his father's lineage?

I think Harry was absorbed into his mother's family.

The parallels in this story between Harry and myself are...

a little scary because that's essentially what's happened to me in the UK, you know.

My relationship with my father is distant.

I know that at quite a young age I felt, not abandoned,

but I felt that there wasn't a connection to my father's side

and that history of European men.

-That's just so fascinating to me.

-Yeah.

It's even more fascinating to me because it's my family!

Yeah! Yeah, yeah, of course.

And there's so much more to this story than I thought.

-It's incredible. Thank you.

-Yeah.

-Thank you very much.

-It's a pleasure.

George Yates is someone I was a little undecided on

because on face value it's a wealthy white man

who's come to an African country, with a family at home,

and started another family, then he's gone.

But the intricacies of that story

say a lot more about him as a man.

I don't agree with having

a couple of families that don't know about each other,

but I think the fact that he wanted to take Harry back to the UK

throws into question what his priorities were,

how much he loved his son.

So my feelings on my great-grandfather have changed.

By 1917, George Yates had left Reggie's great-grandmother, Dorothy.

Their son Harry was just two years old.

To find out what happened to Dorothy and Harry,

Reggie's on his way to have an audience with a local chief.

Ghana's traditional hereditary rulers

still play a significant role in Ghanaian culture,

not least as keepers of their community's oral history.

Reggie's meeting a chief of the highest rank -

Paramount Chief Nana Kwabena Nketsia.

JB will make the formal introductions.

And look at JB, he looks amazing!

-JB!

-Yes, sir.

-How you doing?

-All right, bro.

-You OK?

-Yes.

-Good to see you.

Nice to see you, too. Nice to see you.

So is he... Is Nana Nketsia ready?

-Yeah, we're going to give him...

-Right.

Also in attendance are Nana Nketsia's mother

and another elder.

They must speak first through the chief's spokesperson.

Thank you. Thank you first of all for, er...

MAN SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY OK. OK.

Thank you for...for finding the time to speak to me.

Um, and thank you, JB, for bringing me, as well.

Having an audience with you is really important to me

because I'm trying to find out as much as I can about my... What's that?

MURMURING Oh, of course.

In a chief's court in Ghana,

it's considered disrespectful to gesticulate

or to give or take with the left hand.

You see an African with that English head.

And much as you are African,

as soon as you stood up, your mannerisms -

throwing your left hand around -

I understood that...

I was wondering which side of the divide you belong to.

So the little things that we are showing you

are to do with basically our culture and the way we do things here.

HE CHUCKLES I'm learning as I go,

so forgive me if I make mistakes.

I'm trying to find out as much as I can about my family

and in particular, my great-grandmother Dorothy

and my grandfather Harry, Harry Philip Yates.

I know very little and from the time that I've been in Ghana

I've learnt a small amount,

and I was hoping maybe you could add to that.

OK.

When I learnt that you were coming here

and belonged to the Yates family...

The name Yates, it's a Sekondi name.

Most of us have even forgotten that Yates is an English name.

We say Obruni Yates. That's "the white man Yates".

He was more African than we could ever think about.

You used to see Obruni Yates sitting there and he was always smiling.

You have a very wonderful family and I think that, um,

there's one thing about we Africans, and that is the ancestors.

You know, they live in us.

Can I ask about my great-grandmother, Dorothy?

A very interesting woman.

Dorothy came from another place west of here,

called Dixcove,

with her mother, called Sarah.

But they moved to...to Tarkwa.

As a young woman,

Reggie's great-grandmother Dorothy moved from her home at Dixcove

to a boom town called Tarkwa.

Tarkwa was linked to Sekondi by a railway line

that took men north to the gold mines, including Broomasi,

where Reggie's great-grandfather, George Yates, worked.

Tarkwa was the first major stop from Sekondi from the coast.

That's where your great-grandfather, I believe,

saw Dorothy and married her.

Dorothy was married to George W Yates

and he was an Englishman.

The details of her relationship with my great-grandfather

have almost directly affected me,

based on the fact that it was a customary marriage.

So, in the mind of somebody like Dorothy,

it was a real, traditional and an authentic marriage.

It was not acceptable for British men to marry African women

in colonial courts or churches.

A customary marriage, a local wedding ceremony,

was one way a mixed race couple could legitimise their union

in the Gold Coast,

even if, as in Reggie's great-grandparents' case,

the marriage would never be deemed legal in Britain.

It is a fundamental problem brought in by colonisation.

So, um, I always laugh that our great-grandmothers,

and the ones before them,

our ancestors, our shared ancestors,

that was the form of marriage they took.

So according to English law, we are all bastards!

I mean, it's absurd.

We have our own way of doing things.

You bring English common law, which is English customary law,

and you want to impose it on me.

Your great-grandmother was well married.

Well, well...your great-grandmother was well married.

It's customary, it's accepted.

I saw this and wanted you to read something about Dorothy Lloyd.

This was, er, a paper that was run by Casely-Hayford.

In January of 1919,

Sekondi's most prominent citizens called a meeting

and put the prohibition of alcohol on the agenda.

The Temperance Movement was at its height in Britain and America

and its influence was spreading.

Many at the meeting spoke out

against importing alcohol to the Gold Coast.

-Make sure you use your right hand.

-Yes, I've made sure.

-My left is taped to my thigh, now!

-This is about liquor.

Just read somewhere here and I'll give you an explanation of it.

-You'll see Dorothy Lloyd.

-Where am I reading?

Dorothy...Miss Dorothy. "..said Miss Dorothy Lloyd,

"striking a note in favour of the continuance of the traffic.

"'The discontinuance of liquor in the Gold Coast

"'will be a great detriment to females.

"'Liquor helps a woman a great deal after childbirth.

"'It also helps the native doctor

"'in preparing medicine for his patient.

"'And as such, I say that the importation of liquor into the coast

"'must be continued.'"

So she's fighting for liquor to come into the area

and she's saying it's for health reasons!

THEY LAUGH

-That's brilliant.

-Yeah, better.

I'll get there eventually.

It also says a lot about my great-grandmother, Dorothy,

and the standing that she had.

And at this point she's still quite a young woman

who seems to have quite a respected voice.

She was educated. She could speak the white man's tongue.

She was a very formidable person.

In fact, in our own way of speaking,

I always refer to her as a she-elephant, you know.

So let's put it this way -

the house that Dorothy built was in the heart of the market area,

you know,

and definitely, because she was one of the powerful women

controlling commerce in this city,

that's how formidable she was in the society.

Can you tell me anything about Dorothy's parents, then?

I'd love to find out more about her lineage and her family.

Dorothy was half black, right?

-Her maiden name was Lloyd.

-Yes.

-And so that's an English name.

It seems like those Englishmen really loved our women, didn't they?

So the mother, Sarah, right, was the wife to Lloyd.

Dorothy came from the small port town of Dixcove,

home to her mother, Reggie's great-great-grandmother, Sarah.

I'm slowly but surely

learning more about the next generation of the family.

Mm-hm.

-OK.

-You've come home.

-Thank you so much.

And you should always know that you are my son.

And whenever you come to Sekondi,

know that you have the right to everything in here, OK?

-Not to my stool, though!

-HE LAUGHS

Can I have some gold to leave with? HE LAUGHS

-I think we had better go!

-Is that my birth right?

Thank you so much.

I think Dorothy definitely is one of those characters

who has almost become a force of nature because she's had to be.

As a woman of such a young age,

it's amazing how successful my great-grandmother was

and how well she did on her own.

There seems to be this direct relationship

between the British colonial history and my family -

the actions of the British people who came to Africa and left.

Reggie wants to know about

his great-grandmother Dorothy's British father.

He's meeting Carina Ray at the Sekondi Archives once more,

to see if there are any records of Mr Lloyd.

-Hey.

-Hey.

-Good to see you.

-Nice to see you. I'll just put this away.

-OK.

Let's...get to it. Right.

So I should probably pull out this bad boy once again.

-Yeah, I recognise that.

-Yes.

The affidavit of my grandfather, Harry Philip Yates.

And here he talks about EJ Lloyd,

who is my great-great-grandfather, I believe.

-Is there any other information you've found?

-Yes.

There is, I believe, some information

about what could possibly be your great-great-grandfather.

And as we understand it,

he was a commissioner in the Colonial Service.

And in fact, we do have a file.

However, it's for a Mr AG Lloyd, rather than an EJ Lloyd.

It would be possible in the context of oral history

to have the initials handed down and change over time,

and from EJ to AG,

one can see there's some kind of resonance there.

And this is his pension form.

And I'm just going to give it to you, here.

-This is the actual document?

-This is the actual document.

-You'll feel it brittle in your hands.

-Yeah.

And it indicates where he started his career

in the Colonial Service, and where he finished it.

So if you look at here...

-Sierra Leone.

-..his first post is in Sierra Leone.

-And if you take a look...

-Then to Nigeria

and then on to the Gold Coast, yeah.

We see his first appointment being in Sierra Leone.

And you'll note, here, that he begins his position in 1896.

Mm-hm.

And he concludes it in 1899.

We know that Dorothy was born in Dixcove in 1898,

or we believe she was born in 1898.

So either we've got the wrong birth date for Dorothy,

perhaps she was born in 1900 and not in 1898,

which would place him in the Gold Coast to have met Sarah.

The other possibility is that

he travelled to the Gold Cost at some point.

What we do know is that this Lloyd that we have here

is the only Lloyd that is employed in the Gold Coast Colonial Service

during the time period that would be relevant to Dorothy's birth.

-And that narrows it down, doesn't it?

-It does, it does.

And if we go through the file,

you'll see here that AG Lloyd was in the Gold Coast

-as a travelling commissioner.

-Mm.

Commissioners of the Colonial Service,

like AG Lloyd,

were Britain's men on the ground in the Gold Coast.

They travelled to meet chiefs to recruit workers for the mines.

They secured land for timber and farming,

built roads -

whatever it took to make the colony a profitable part of the Empire.

Lloyd would have learned the local languages

and mixed with the local people.

So the description that is recounted in your family's oral history

matches not only his last name,

it also matches the position he held.

So there are some points that suggest that he...

-Heavily suggest.

-..he could be the right man, yes.

Thank you so much once again.

I think I have to go to Dixcove, then.

Absolutely you do. Safe journey.

Yeah, thank you.

Reggie's heading an hour's drive west

to the port of Dixcove,

where his great-great-grandmother Sarah was from.

He's hoping to learn more about her

and how her relationship with Mr Lloyd may have come about.

Elders from Sarah's extended family live here.

Hello.

We are heading towards the head of the family's place.

-I see. Hello.

-Yeah.

HE CALLS OUT AND THEY RESPOND

Nana Kojo Mensah is the head of the family.

Madam Ekubak knew Reggie's great-grandmother, Dorothy,

and has heard stories of Sarah.

-Shall we sit?

-Oh, yes!

-Hello.

Thank you so much for finding time to meet us.

So you know my dad?

You've met Jojo?

-They call your father Music Man.

-Music man, yeah!

Yeah, he plays music. Yeah, a musician.

My mouth is on fire! THEY LAUGH

It seems like you remember a lot about the family.

You seem very happy to see me.

Thank you for pouring libation, I appreciate it.

And thank you for having us in the house.

We've come here because I'm trying to find out

as much as I can about my family.

I've got to a lady called Dorothy who was my great-grandmother.

How about her mother? How about Sarah, my great-great-grandmother?

I was hoping that you might be able to tell me a bit about Sarah.

So Sarah was a trader?

-She worked in trading?

-She was a trader.

Was she the first person in my line that mixed?

Typical African Ghanaian.

And her father was a Ghanaian man?

Sarah, she doesn't have any...

-No mix in her family line?

-..mix in her.

What was Sarah's surname?

Sarah Arku.

The father's name's Arku,

so she was named Sarah Arku.

So she was the first person that mixed with the English...

-First person, yes.

-..and that's why Dorothy was so light?

-That's right.

She was the first person to meet a white person.

So that's why you are fair.

Do they know much about the man that she married, Lloyd?

-English man?

-Yeah.

She started a business, before she met Mr Lloyd.

Sarah was doing her own business before meeting Lloyd.

Maybe Lloyd wanted to buy some pineapples or something

-and they become friends and maybe they had that...

-Yeah.

..baby girl with Sarah.

When Lloyd came and met Sarah,

did you hear about a customary marriage?

In those days there wasn't any weddings.

He comes there and go.

Comes backwards and forwards.

-Yeah.

-So they were together to create a child

but they weren't together in a relationship? He didn't stay?

-He left?

-Yeah, he left.

Do they know if Dorothy was really similar to Sarah?

Was she like her mother?

OK, OK.

They look alike. They look alike.

Only Dorothy is more fair than the mother.

-So Dorothy and Sarah, they were close, right?

-Yeah.

The mother and the daughter were together,

so they were very, very close.

So they were like mother and daughter and business partners?!

Business partners, yes.

-OK. So they were really close?

-They were really close.

She was the only daughter to her.

Only had one, yeah.

That's her only daughter,

so just like steel and metal, you know?

-So they are like this.

-Always together. Very close, OK.

Well, based on the closeness of Dorothy and Sarah,

that would make sense,

that he wasn't there and that it was Sarah raising Dorothy.

Thank you so much.

I'm not a drinker.

I never have been, but that Schnapps don't half burn your mouth!

Geez! Seriously, I think my chest is still warm now

and it definitely isn't the sun!

But beyond getting a teeny bit of alcohol, um,

I'm pretty sure I was sober enough to understand

that my great-great-grandmother, Sarah, and Mr Lloyd were a couple

but I don't think that Mr Lloyd

was a part of Sarah or Dorothy's life, unfortunately.

He essentially traded, in more ways than one,

with Sarah,

and my great-grandmother was a product of that.

But what came from that was an amazing relationship

between mother and daughter

and it produced two very strong women.

It's an amazing feeling

to know exactly where that European bit of my lineage began.

My great-great-grandmother, Sarah,

was the first person to mix with a European

and it seems to be a recurring theme

throughout the generations.

And it really does explain this!

It explains this!

And I've sort of known but I've never really known,

and it's a great feeling to know for sure today.

Coming out here on this trip

has made me feel connected, definitely, to my father more,

without a doubt.

My father's side is mixed as far back as we can trace,

and that mix, I think, has leant to the feeling of resilience

and...I wouldn't say abandonment

but I would say that there has BEEN abandonment.

Mr Lloyd and my great-grandfather,

George William Yates, left.

But my grandfather Harry stayed and looked after his children,

all 16 of them.

He was there for them.

Harry seems to have been an amazing man

that I wish I'd known, or at least met.

But in the UK,

myself and my siblings and my cousins

have over the last years made an effort

to get together

and to build relationships and build bridges.

And it's starting to feel more and more that we are a family.

I feel like I'm part of something.

And being here and learning about our history

has made that even more real.