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Here is Shirley Campbell, “the three-year old tap dancing piccaninny”. She was abandoned on the streets of Liverpool by her mother in 1938. Her grandfather from Jamaica, living in Sheffield married a local woman in 1874. Their daughter is Shirley’s mother.
In the newspaper headline, “A few hours previously the child had been brought to the shelter by a coloured woman who asked that it should be taken in while she went to work...this request was denied had to be refused”.
It? The shelter refused?
She is put into Grenoside Institution.
The questions are as ever a part of the story. What happened to her?
Was she really a performer? Was she 3? The adultification of Black girls continues to this day. What do they mean by piccaninny? Did she perform? Where? What happened when she got to Grenoside? I will probably never find out enough.
Look at that smile.
It looks like a new coat.
I’m claiming Shirley now, she’s living in my chest with the other children. I have room. I think we should all have room.
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