Radcliffe? Bloomin' rural paradise, mate. You didn't get fog that made you cough up multicoloured phlem like we did in Swinton

You lived in Swinton? Eden itself. You should have tried Salford, the air was so thick that we couldn't cough up anything. Walking to school was like wading through head high treacle, except if it had smelt of gasworks we would have thought it fragrant. There was no racism because all the white folks were black. And when the Indian restaurant opened, everyone who could afford to go there was amazed that food could actually have a taste.

Well perhaps that's a tiny exaggeration. But I'm glad that the ordinary everyday racist language that was used then - vicious in its innocence- at least has to be apologised for or consciously brazened out now.

My (Catholic) parents, though indulgent of assumptions and stereotyping that even UKIP supporters would find offensive today, always insisted that all were equal under God, and I thank them for taking their beliefs to that logical conclusion. Dave's description of his father reminds me of some uncles (the female of that species seems to have been generally less deadly).

So I've had rather less to overcome than Dave, but all the same you have to be conscious of that sneaking jump to conclusions, and double- take on it. As my sainted Granny, who would have been white had she not lived in Salford, used to say when exasperated by the misbehaviour of some grandchild, "No wonder N**s eat 'em".