Isabel’s story
Isabel’s story is one of movement, across countries, cultures, and identities. Born in London to a West Indian father and a Welsh mother, she describes a childhood shaped by contrasts. “I was raised in London,” she says, “and when I was six, I moved to Khartoum in Sudan because my father had a job there.” The move was profound, not just because of the geography but the social context. “I went to an Italian school, because in the white school they didn’t have brown children.”
Returning to Wales in 1959, she was struck by how grey and closed the world felt. “I remember looking out the window and wondering when I was going to go back home to Sudan. There, we were more physically free to wander about. Here, it wasn’t possible.” She was just a child, yet she was already learning what it meant to live between cultures, and often outside of them.
Her mother was from Bethesda and had family in Wales, but her experience of those connections was uneven. “I stayed with different aunties, or they stayed with me. But I didn’t feel a sense of belonging, not really.” Despite the extended family, the sense of being different both racially and emotionally persisted. “I wasn’t like them,” she says, “I identified with my mother. I liked music, sewing, art. My sisters identified with my father.”
Outside her family she also felt the differences. “Growing up, there were maybe three or four brown people in town. People thought I was a Barnardo’s child. The woman at the cinema used to let me in for free because of that.” There were no local salons for her hair, so she used a hot comb on her mum’s stove until, inspired by a musical she saw in Liverpool, she let her natural hair grow out. “There’s still nowhere to go here for my hair,” she notes.
Speaking openly about her early naivety around race. “Even though I wasn’t allowed in the white school in Sudan, I didn’t really think of myself as different. I thought I was white, only in the sense that I didn’t question my identity as white people tend not to do. I didn’t have any strong sense of identity.” But that changed dramatically in adulthood. “I had a shock when I started teacher training in Bangor. I suddenly began to think about race and racism and who I was. It wasn’t a breakdown, but something changed.”
That awakening was the beginning of a creative and emotional journey. Encouraged by her partner, she began to write. “I started writing and that sort of sorted me out,” she says. Her first manuscript, ‘Black Girl’, was written and put away. Finding her voice was very important to her and her writing, and later painting, became tools that helped her cope.
Despite her talent, she struggled to find recognition. “It took 14 years to get my book published. No publisher would touch it. Then I won the Wales Book of the Year, and it was all rather odd—they’d rejected me, but I won the prize.” She recounts contacting over 100 academics and teachers after publishing her book, “and got no response at all.” A few positive reviews online, but nothing more.
Still, she continued to work. One of her proudest moments came when she was commissioned by the National Library and Museum of Wales. “The piece was called ‘Going to Africa’. It was a five foot by seven foot, painting of my family. That was special. That’s my story; out there in public.”
Today, when asked about her sense of identity, she’s pragmatic. “I just put ‘mixed’ on the forms. I say I’m brown rather than black. I don’t worry about it like I used to. I’m just myself.” And what about belonging? “I’d like to feel I belong to Wales,” she says carefully, “but I don’t feel that yet. What’s important is that I belong to myself.”
“I don’t live in a community of other Black people. I don’t meet them. Sometimes I think it would be nice to move to Manchester, where that could be possible.” In Bethesda, her mother’s hometown, she had hoped to find a welcome but found instead more isolation. “Me and my children weren’t really welcome there, except by the old gentlemen. I liked them. They had good stories.”
Speaking candidly about racism she recognizes it has impacted her family. “Racist incidents have happened to me and my family.”
“I’ve used these experiences to inform my creative work, and in doing so, I’ve transformed them. They’ve made me more confident, more ready to help others.” But that transformation came at a personal cost. “I had to leave my family. They couldn’t accept the new me. They were used to me being the scapegoat.”
Today, Isabel wants to give back. “I teach children at weekends, but I’d love to teach minority women, to help them be more confident, more creative. Writing, painting, whatever. Creativity gives you a sense of who you are. It’s not just about minorities integrating into Welsh culture. Welsh people need to make room too. There has to be mutuality. People should talk, share food, create space for each other.”
In a way, her art and writing are that space—a seat at the table she is building, even if it hasn’t yet been fully recognised. “I keep working. I keep writing and painting. Maybe one day I’ll get noticed. But I do it because I have to.”
For Isabel, belonging isn’t a destination, it’s a continuous act of self-definition. It’s in her art, her resilience, and her commitment to transforming pain into beauty.
Stori Isabel
Isabel’s life has been shaped by movement, between countries, cultures, and identities. Born in London to a Welsh mother and West Indian father, she spent part of her childhood in Sudan. “I went to an Italian school, because in the white school they didn’t have brown children.”
When she returned to Wales in 1959, belonging felt out of reach. “I remember looking out the window and wondering when I was going to go back home to Sudan.” Despite her Welsh roots, she never felt fully accepted.
Her understanding of identity deepened later. “I suddenly began to think about race and racism and who I was… it wasn’t a breakdown, but something changed.” That shift led to writing, first as refuge, then as resistance. “It took 14 years to get my book published, but then I won the Wales Book of the Year.”
“I’d like to feel I belong to Wales, but I don’t feel that yet. What’s important is that I belong to myself.” She builds her place at the table, not for validation, but because, as she puts it, “I do it because I have to.”
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