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“Take opportunities, make the best of yourself and of life because we only get one life.” Deloris James was born on a tiny island in the Caribbean called Nevis. “My granny, she was my great grandmother actually, was lovely, she… bought me up until I was ten.” “My biological mother died… when I was about 21 months old, so I didn’t know her.” “She [my grandmother] did a bit of everything really… But I do remember at one point, she moved us to St Kitts, because there weren’t that many jobs on Nevis and she got a job in the sugar cane fields. “ “She’d come and pick us up, with a snack, and we would just be on the edge of the field while she was doing her job picking cane.” “I was ten years old… I arrived on 3rd August 1964… we got on a big ship and it was called the SS Sorrento. I would be coming to Cardiff. I remember being on the platform waiting for the train shivering with cold…” “Initially, my parents had a flat in Butetown, Loudoun Square. It wasn’t a bad experience. I do remember a couple of the kids saying nasty things, just a couple, most of them were fine.” “I was a very avid reader… I practically lived in the library. I devoured books.” “I went into the school and addressed, in the hall, all the staff, the students, I cooked some Caribbean food for the staff and I took a basket of fruit and veg… and explained what they were, so that was lovely. I enjoy doing that sort of stuff.” “I can say I’m now at the age where I am content with life, I’m not rich, but I am content. I have a job which I enjoy, I have two lovely sons, I have a few very, very close friends, I’m relatively healthy, and as I said, life is good, life is good.”