A few times, me sent into the town. Is a shock to see how the streets full up with people that all look like Massa, them skin the colour of cow milk. And when we pass the broke-down houses where the poor live, on the way to where the rich live, I come to see, here in the Mother Country, Massa might not be so special. Have no power, like when he ruled in a world where black had to grovel under white. Here in the Mother Country, you only special if you have plenty money, big name, big title like Lord and Lady. Families with many a servant to do them bidding, and them servants even dressed up better than Massa.

Christmas time come round and the longing and loneliness I feel get much worse. No days of rest to look forward to. No celebrations where we put on our best clothes and dance and sing to keep our spirits up. No family to sit and talk with, the only people that really know you. Just cold and more cold and the white rain that fall down from the heavens keep coming till it cover everything up. White powder, thick cross the buildings, the hulk, the dockyards. But nothing going cover up the copper colour of me skin. Here in the Mother Country backra call me half-caste like it mean something. What they know bout the Ancestors? Who I is? Where I come from? What they know bout the need to feel the sun rise hot and strong, to remember the plantain walk, the quiet, the green leaves rustling in a gentle warm breeze?

The world of white and ice make plantation life seem a whole lot sweeter, even though I know is not. One day, I see how bad the Mother Country treat her children, when we all get mustered up on deck. Word go round a young runaway named Pete get caught trying to escape. Turn out him was a chimney sweep, and the reason him going get transported is because backra catch him stealing silver. We made to watch as little Pete get dragged up on deck, him begging and pleading ignored as one of the guards tie him arms, him legs to the whipping post. And just like back on the plantation where Massa use a slave to whip a slave, the overseer use a scourger to do the whipping for him. Twenty lashes little Pete condemned to get while the overseer stand there counting them out, one by one. The scourger use a cat-o’-nine-tails. Them knots flay him back wide open. Is a terrible thing to watch as pieces of flesh get whipped out and blood run down his legs onto the wooden deck. Even the rib bone start to show through. Make me grip me fists every time little Pete cry out, beg for the whipping to stop.