Brassy side of Bassey

Miss Shirley Bassey

Her story has all the elements of a rags-to-riches saga. As the author says: “Shirley Bassey’s story is a remarkable one of triumph against the odds.” It’s also a story of contradictions. “When she was born, in the late 1930s, to be a mixed-race child brought up by a white mother in Britain was highly unusual.”

Surprisingly, given this background, she remained indifferent to the race issue. “For a long period, during the radicalism of the 1960s and 1970s, her stance seemed out of place. When black Britons were fighting against racism, and for a distinct black British identity, Shirley Bassey was busy flirting with Prince Charles in a see-through blouse, and sipping cocktails with Joan Collins, almost as if denying there was such a thing as racism to worry about.”