My countryside CHIILDHOOD

Brought up in Devon, Louisa Adjoa Parker was aware that she was the first black person someone met, but explains how things are changing

- KIM WILLIS

Louisa Adjoa Parker, 49, is a writer of EnglishGhanaian heritage who lives in Somerset with her husband Peter Fry.

There's a photo of me giggling in the surf, smiling in the sunshine, yet bracing myself as the cold water laps my legs. I remember the moment so well. I was seven years old and visiting my maternal grandparents, who had recently moved to Devon. I was happy there, yet never felt I belonged in rural Britain.

My dad is from Ghana, my mum is from Reading, Berkshire. They met when a friend of my mum's set up a dating agency and Mum agreed to go on a few dates. My dad proposed on the fourth one and, after my siblings and I were born, we moved from Yorkshire to East Anglia. Their marriage didn't last and they broke up when I was 12. We then moved to Devon and rarely saw Dad.

As a child, I never felt completely equal to my white friends. White children didn't understand why I looked different and asked why my skin was darker than theirs. After we moved to Devon, I never met any other black or mixed heritage kids, and I longed for a friend who looked like me because I wanted to feel normal.