{"id":49112,"date":"2016-09-16T20:30:30","date_gmt":"2016-09-16T20:30:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=49112"},"modified":"2016-09-18T21:36:50","modified_gmt":"2016-09-18T21:36:50","slug":"mixed-blessings-from-a-cambridge-union-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=49112","title":{"rendered":"Mixed Blessings from a Cambridge Union"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mixed Blessings from a Cambridge Union<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Camden Review<\/a>
\n2016-09-15<\/p>\n

Angela Cobbinah<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a>
\nElizabeth Anionwu<\/small><\/a><\/p>\n

THE early years of one\u2019s life normally follow a predictable path with any unexpected twists and turns suitably documented for posterity.<\/p>\n

But it was not until she was in her 60s that Elizabeth Anionwu<\/a>, one of the country\u2019s most senior nurses, was able to discover why she ended up spending the best part of her childhood in the care of Roman Catholic nuns.<\/p>\n

The revelations came in the form of a thick blue dossier containing almost 60 documents handed over to her from a Catholic children\u2019s home in Birmingham<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt consisted mainly of letters dating back to my time in my mother\u2019s womb to when I left care, and the words that jumped out of the pages took my breath away,\u201d recalls Elizabeth. Up until then I had a few bits of oral history passed down, but literally only bits.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her mother, the darling daughter of devout Irish Catholics living in Liverpool<\/a>, had fallen pregnant while studying classics at Newnham College, Cambridge. The frantic back and forth correspondence between the family and the reverend in charge centred on concealing the pregnancy and whether the baby should eventually be adopted.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a great deal of stigma surrounding illegitimacy in those days but this was only the start of the drama \u2013 at this stage, my grandparents were unaware that my father was from Nigeria<\/a>.\u201d.<\/p>\n

Despite their renewed shock, they supported her mother\u2019s desire to keep the baby but insisted that Elizabeth be placed in a children\u2019s home at the age of six months so she could resume her studies. But, as her mother reveals in further correspondence, she planned to marry her father, who was also studying at Cambridge, and bring her baby home again.<\/p>\n

What happens next is told in Elizabeth\u2019s forth\u00adcoming autobiography, Mixed Blessings from a Cambridge Union<\/em><\/a>, how she did not get to live with her mother until she was nine, but then only briefly because of her step\u00adfather\u2019s hostility, and only met her father at the age of 24…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mixed Blessings from a Cambridge Union Camden Review 2016-09-15 Angela Cobbinah Elizabeth Anionwu THE early years of one\u2019s life normally follow a predictable path with any unexpected twists and turns suitably documented for posterity. But it was not until she was in her 60s that Elizabeth Anionwu, one of the country\u2019s most senior nurses, was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,395,5,8,10],"tags":[24988,24987,16594],"class_list":["post-49112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-autobiography","category-book-reviews","category-media-archive","category-uk","tag-angela-cobbinah","tag-camden-review","tag-elizabeth-anionwu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49112"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49131,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49112\/revisions\/49131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}