Malorie Blackman said she has heard more racist comments since Brexit than she did in the previous 30 because "people feel they can say whatever they want".

The former children's laureate and best-selling author of the Noughts and Crosses series said she sometimes feels like she has woken up in the 1970s, because attitudes have gone so backwards.

She dated this change back to the referendum, and told the Sunday Times Magazine: "I've heard more racist comments in the past three years than I've had in the last 30. There's now more open hostility; it's like people feel they can say whatever they want. I've had people deliberately barging into me while shopping — stuff I haven't had to put up with for years."

"There are times when I wake up and think, 'Have I woken up in the 1970s again?' Maybe I became too complacent. I thought we've dealt with that, it's over and done with, we've moved on."

She also highlighted the "microaggressions" - seemingly small instances of racial discrimination which build up as they happen all the time - that she has faced in recent years.

Five years ago, she travelled first class on a train for the first time in her life when a ticket inspector spotted her through the window, boarded the carriage and demanded to see her ticket.