Priti, a middle-aged British-born Indian woman, addresses the camera throughout. She is in a nondescript bare room with occasional flickering strip lighting overhead.

I didn’t even notice the T-shirt, to be honest. Not at first. It was only after everything had happened … the incident that I …

You can get anything put on T-shirts nowadays. We had some done for my daughter’s hen night. Pharmacists Do It Over The Counter. Bit smutty, her dad wasn’t best pleased but the print quality was excellent.

Got them done at this place in the town centre, West Midlands Print Shop. It’s not there any more of course.



We used to make things in this area, didn’t we? That’s why my parents chose round here when they came over.



My dad said, if you wanted to work the work was there, obviously twice as hard and for half the money of the English people but at least there were jobs. Now what do we have? Pound shops and chicken huts. Chicken cottages. Even got a chicken palace. How does a chicken end up in a palace? Probably said he was a refugee. (Beat)



(She listens as if being asked a question) How did I vote? I don’t see what that’s got to… (Beat) If I have to … well I voted leave, like everyone else I know. Except for Pavel next door, obviously … I mean he calls himself Paul but we all knew he was Polish … like my dad telling everyone to call him Bob when he first arrived … cos who’s going to hire a bloke called Balwinder? I said dad, wasn’t your turban a bit of a giveaway?



But tell you what, my family has never drawn one penny benefit from this country, not a penny … So when you throw the doors open and anyone can just rock up with their handout – paid for by our taxes – how is that fair? When our kids can’t get jobs or get into schools or get on hospital waiting lists when everything is full to bursting? And when we were here first?



(She listens as if being asked a question) Yes, I said some of that to Paul … Pavel, when we were chatting by the gate. Not all of it obviously, didn’t want to hurt his feelings and anyway it’s not personal. He’s very nice. It’s just a lot of the others … you know the Romanian gangs who keep mugging Asian women for their gold … the criminals, the benefit scroungers … the bad immigrants. Who give the good ones like us a bad name. I meant them, not him.



And then … that’s when the man in the T-shirt walked by. I didn’t see him but Paul did. I saw his face fall, saw his … shock … and I turned round to see what he was looking at and the man in the T-shirt … he spat. A proper one. A big green ball of phlegm. But not at Pavel. At me. Right in my face. “Paki bitch,” he said.



And I was 10 again. And it was 1976 and the jubilee and the heatwave and the National Front were marching … scared to go out, scared of what I was.



(Beat – she struggles not to break down) It’s all a bit fuzzy after that … Paul started shouting, there was some pushing … another man came running from somewhere … and then Paul was on the ground. And the T-shirt next to him, covered in blood, must have come off the man in the struggle. And only then I read what it said: YES WE WON! NOW SEND THEM ALL BACK!



Can I sign my statement and get home now?



(She signs the statement form on the desk in front of her in a shaky hand, almost rises and then…)



What’s the news … about Pavel … Paul? (She listens) Oh. Oh that’s … are his family with him? (Beat) Yes, obviously not the kids, not in intensive care. Could you get a message to Lucy, his wife … don’t think I have her number … just want to tell them both … I’m sorry.