Black British Stories – Christina Shingler: In this short film Felix, aged 10, talks to his grandmother Christina (Tina) Shingler, a writer who decided to do something about the lack of black characters in British literature.
Felix interviews Tina to find out what life was like growing up as one of the only two black children at her school in Ripon, North Yorkshire.
Tina was often teased and her ‘frizzy’ hair in particular, became a target. To deal with this, Christina lost herself in books and spent much of her time at Ripon library.
She always dreamed about was being a princess but she never found any princesses in books that looked like her. They all had “silky smooth, grade-A blonde, princess hair”; this was something that Christina could not identify with.
In 2004 Tina decided to do something about the imbalance of black characters in British literature and she wrote Princess Katrina and the Hair Charmer.
This film is from the series Black British Stories. A collection of short films for primary schools, exploring the experiences and contributions of people from communities across the UK, and celebrating the rich contribution of the black community to the culture, society and economy of the UK.
These short films are suitable for teaching history at KS2 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and at 2nd Level in Scotland.
For teachers’ notes and more episodes: https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/class-clips-video/history-ks2-black-british-stories/z3w84xs
As this film is embedded you will not be able to download it.
The TrueTube and CTVC team made this film for BBC Teach, so for more resources go to BBC Teach: https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach
The Black British Stories series was commissioned by BBC Teach and produced by CTVC/TrueTube.
