Original version

BBC World Service South Asia

Migrated podcast image for: Outlook

Outlook

Factual: Life Stories

True stories of ordinary people and the extraordinary events that have shaped their lives.

BBC World Service Australasia

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa Schedule

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa

BBC World Service Online

BBC World Service schedule for American satellite radio and the Caribbean

BBC World Service Americas and the Caribbean

BBC World Service

BBC World Service News Internet

BBC World Service Europe and the Middle East

BBC World Service West and Central Africa Schedule

BBC World Service West and Central Africa

BBC World Service East Asia

Outlook: When we were kings: the truth about my father

Magazines & Reviews

David Wright Faladé

09/08/2022 GMT

When we were kings: the truth about my father

BBC World Service - Outlook, When we were kings: the truth about my father

David Wright Faladé unearths a shocking secret about his family’s past

Growing up David Wright Faladé always thought he was descended from slaves on his father’s side, but a family secret was hiding a different history altogether

Growing up in small-town America in the 1970s David Wright Faladé, the son of a white mother and black father, found living in a heavily racialised society a tightrope walk. He understood he was the descendant of slaves on his father’s side, but a revelation when he was 16 set him on a path of discovery that would throw into question his own place in the world and bring him face to face with the secrets of his forefathers. 

He’s written about his experience in the New Yorker article, The Truth About My Father. 

Jonathan Cavendish is a producer of movie blockbusters including Bridget Jones’ Diary and Elizabeth: The Golden Age. But it was his own family’s story that held plenty of untapped drama. His father Robin became paralysed from the neck down after contracting polio when Jonathan’s mother Diana was pregnant with him. The story that followed would leave a lasting legacy for people with disabilities and Jonathan would go on to immortalise it on the silver screen in his film Breathe, starring Andrew Garfield and Claire Foy. This was first broadcast in 2017. 

Get in touch: outlook@bbc.com

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar 
Producer: Edgar Maddicott 

(Photo: David Wright Faladé. Credit: Courtesy of David Wright Faladé)

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Outlook

When we were kings: the truth about my father

Genres

Formats

Brand

BBC World Service South Asia

About BBC World Service