THE 1960s were good for me. Brought up by a father who was slightly to the right of Adolf Hitler in outlook, I was encouraged from an early age to hate “blacks, Jews, homosexuals, goddam Yanks and commies”, beware “funny smelling cigarettes” and to regard the rest of mankind beyond Dover Harbour as being suspect and, at best, lesser humans.

Many entered the 1960s with parents adopting, to varying degrees, diluted versions of my father’s strictures. It should be noted that Gallup Polls, supported by newspaper campaigns (58) suggested the country wanted to end immigration as the 1960s dawned. The Government was under considerable pressure to limit immigration and duly did so.

The local “problems” or “issues” with colour were typical and, while just as unpleasant for those on the receiving end, very much small beer compared to elsewhere in the UK, as is revealed in the new book Watford in the 20th Century (south west Herts 1960-79), which was launched on October 3.

The programming from my father had droned on from the age of two until I was 19 and was initially influential, but, so it proved, not deep even if it did cause me some confusion. For instance, I found myself enjoying the occasional company of a couple of Jewish lads at school and buying records by The Drifters, Sam Cooke and Jackie Wilson (60. I enjoyed the humour of Dick Gregory and I remember thinking Dorothy Dandridge in Porgy and Bess was pretty (when too young to know what “burning up the celluloid meant”), yet opting to keep these facts quiet at home rather than face the inevitable confrontation. Imagine having to deny your music, comedy and film-star preferences for the sake of peace.

It was bad enough in those days to like rock’n’roll but to admit you bought records by black singers was just outasight as far as my father was concerned.

Concepts change down the years. In the 19th century, after a young officer beat his Indian stable-hand to death in a rage in London, The Times expressed the hope this “unfortunate incident should not blight an otherwise promising career”.

Some 80 years on, my father told me not to read Uncle Tom’s Cabin as it was “a load of pro-black liberal nonsense” but in the 60s, a black person referring to another as “an Uncle Tom” was an insult, portraying him as a subservient black, pandering to white man’s claims of supremacy.

The reference to Uncle Tom came in 1963, mouthed by one Cassius Clay, as he was known at the time and he dismissed the giant Sonny Liston as an “old Uncle Tom”. My father struggled to make sense of the interview when it came on the television screen but I realised that, in the USA, the black population had long moved beyond Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1852 hero. Incidentally, the alternative title to that book back in the 19th century was patronisingly, Life among the Lowly.

There were racist jokes about Irish, Welsh, Scottish, Germans, Asians and blacks and they were common currency throughout the 60s and 70s and beyond. But as for colour prejudice, that was something indulged in mainly by people in the areas where immigrants were more populous. Black people in south west Herts were rare and were something of a novelty, in that you would stare at them in fascination, probably beyond the duration that would be deemed polite.

My father had warned me that if I ever brought as black person to the house he would be shown the door and if I married a black woman, I would be cut off from the family. The likelihood of such an event happening was so remote as to be beyond consideration. As with many in south west Herts, I did not meet any black people socially until the end of the decade, not from choice but because there were not many around.

In fact, I have always recalled my first conversation with a black person as having occurred in 1970 when I was standing at the bar of the Pickwick Disco in Queens Road. It was a good chat, nothing remarkable about it other than the significance in my life.

Yet distance does add the occasional delusion, because the old newspaper files reminded me I had conversations with two black people some seven years earlier which, for some reason, I had forgotten, probably because they were in the course of my work.

It was at the Gaumont on the Parade in September 1963 when I was standing at the top of the stairs back-stage during a concert interval. A black man came up the stairs and said “Excuse me, Sir.” I treasured the moment but I knew my father would never understand. It was in fact Little Richard, who actually made his comeback at Watford, under the Everly Brothers’ headline tour.

I thought without analysis and had the natural reaction of pride that Little Richard had called me “Sir”, not that he was black or white and that made me realise I had arrived by a different tack to my father on the whole issue of race and colour.

After a brief exchange with Little Richard, I then spoke at some length in an interview with Bo Diddley, the black r and b legend, who was also on the show. He told me that “without Buddy Holly I would not be talking to you today”, which had nothing to do with race but is a whole other story, that could be a quiz question*.

Also, I enjoyed interviewing the Everly Bothers and came away with some good quotes all round.

A few days later came a pivotal moment for I did happen across the sight of a young Tina Turner at the California Pool at Dunstable (63) whose act was quite provocative. I became a fan but was inwardly glad she did not frequent the Beat Club in St Albans Road, otherwise I might have been tempted to chat her up and ‘take her home to see daddy’.

I told my father about this a couple of years later and for the rest of my life he would shake his head every time he saw Tina Turner and tell me the next day he could not understand me, or her appeal.

As the priests have it: it does not matter how you come to the Lord, only that you have come. By her demeanour, appearance and talent, Tina Turner confirmed to me, my then growing awareness that I could never be a racist.

When she made her comeback in the 1980s, I was pleased for her. She had acted as an important stepping stone in my journey through life.

PS *In 1963, posthumous tracks by Buddy Holly were released reaching number 3 and 2 in the UK charts, which sparked an r and b revival. The biggest hit was a track called Bo Diddley and that brought the singer of that name to the fore.