Somehow I’ve found myself standing before you all, in front of this podium, to give a ‘lecture’; ex-boyfriends have accused me of giving these; Universities have accused me of never attending them; but my relationship with this word has had a rebirth: The MacTaggart Lecture.

Let’s face it, I don’t really know how it works in this house, unlike my wonderful predecessor Jon Snow, this whole reading things I haven’t memorised from a screen for strangers, is brand new shit, but I’m so, so glad for this opportunity, this platform, and for the urgency it’s instilled in me, to learn, but I’m really nervous.

Who wouldn’t be nervous. Maybe only like 5%? 95% of this room would be a wrack of nerves, it’s a bit much innit?

Thank you again, for inviting me here to speak, as a creative, to you, our producers, our broadcasters, and those aspiring for careers in such fields today. As a creative, I’m going to do what I do best, I’m going to tell you a story. Maybe you can look for patterns.

I was born and raised in London. The Square Mile, sometimes considered Tower Hamlets, sometimes considered, “City of London”; home to both the Stock Exchange and the Bank of England.

Between its modern corporate skyscraper towers and medieval alleyways, exists a social housing estate. Right there, in plain sight, yet somehow unseen. It was originally built in 1977, with the aim to help homeless people in London, and that’s my proud home.

Even now, there may be someone rushing past it for the hundredth time, briefcase in hand, with no idea this council estate exists.

We lived directly opposite the Royal Bank of Scotland, which somehow felt, ‘other’ and slightly bizarre. Not the Scottish bit, the Royal bank bit.

At most, we were one of four black families there. Not something I thought anyone gave a damn about, until someone left a pile of shit on our doorstep. My Mum silently cleaned it up. But when we received a bag of shit through our letter-box, as an adult I had no choice but to take things into my seven-year-old hands.

I walked around the estate, swung on the swings, desperate for transparency wondering, “ who?”…“who are the enemies of my family?”

I figured it was Sam, so I’d call her an ugly wanker, then Sam would call me a dirty nigger. We would fight, that was just our way of expressing our mistrust and fear of those who were visually or culturally different from ourselves. But we also had fun. The same Sam would be at mine for Nintendo between scraps, my mum would make us scones.

The miracle of my estate was Noah, on the best of days, he’d lean out of his window and sprinkle halal penny sweets down. As they fell, every child of every colour and creed would scramble from the playground and scrabble for a sweet.

These sweets weren’t wrapped or nothing; the tastebuds were fully aware of the pavement in the mix, but we didn’t mind, the point was you got a sweet today and other people didn’t. Are you chewing?; ‘iss lit’. You’re lit.

Not far from the square mile, there’s a theatre, where you might say my route into TV started. Mother, a single, hardworking, immigrant to England, was a health and social sciences student and a weekend cleaner.

She discovered a theatre would allow children from low income families to join their youth workshops for free: free, was cheaper than childcare, and at eight-years-old I was a part of Bridewell Youth Theatre. The only black person.

I loved it, we played from morning till noon, and we’d sometimes even appear as ensemble in their main plays. I didn’t know or care what the plays were about, but I would cry for weeks when they ended ‘coz it meant a cast were leaving that had just started to feel like family.

Later I joined a girls secondary school in my borough, where new bonds replaced lost ones. A crew of ten misfits mainly hailing from Africa and the Caribbean.

I’ll never forget our first IT class, pretending to listen to a teacher ramble on about modems and CD Roms then the sudden sound of glass shattering out of what was a window, just seconds before a girls head was smashed through it. Even more disturbing was the sound in the room that immediately followed; laughter.

We 10-year-olds learned the rules of the game quickly; from nine to three, laugh or be laughed at, and after three? Go home, to your room, and cry, whilst in my case, attaching my head-brace.

This was a Catholic School in which student prostitution wasn’t a shock, but a gorgeous bit of gossip to spread; a school in which, you could, on weekends find the rare sighting of a teacher in the middle of an East London market slouched on a curb on the cusp of alcohol induced paralysis; and as one would a shooting star, you were lucky if you caught a glimpse.