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Books: Atlas for working people
CHRIS SEARLE pays tribute to Peter Blackman, whose collected poems have just been published

Born in 1909, Peter Blackman was the son of a quasi-illiterate stonemason and a laundress in St John's parish, Barbados - one of the poorest parts of the island.

He was given a scholarship to an exclusive colonial school by an Anglican church eagerly seeking "native" recruits to the priesthood.

Despatched to Durham University, he became a priest in 1933 and was sent to Gambia as a missionary. There he very soon discovered that black priests like himself were on a lower stipend than their white colleagues.

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