According to a report to which the Guardian has had exclusive access, the ethnic group most likely to uphold the "old-fashioned" structure of British family life is that from the Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities. On the other hand, white and particularly Caribbean relationships are increasingly characterised by divorce, cohabitation and single parenthood.

My two brothers and I were raised by my mother who was, in turn, raised by her mother. I am married to an African-American; both my brothers are married to white women (one Irish, one English). For my four small nephews and nieces, who range in skin tone from latte to pecan, the "formal Caribbean family" with two Caribbean parents is not "a thing of the past" (as described in Richard Berthoud's report on page 5) because it never existed in our past.

Robinson recalls: "She needed encouragement, for since her conviction as a law violator her head was not held so high. She did not look people straight in the eye as before." She received a scholarship to the local, historically black university, Alabama State, even though the college authorities were none too keen on having a "troublemaker" on campus.