Angie Mason is the most interesting person of Sir Roger Graef
Roger Graef kindly offered to put me in touch with Angie Mason, his nominee. And this time I brought my camera with me when I went to meet. I began, what I would come to call, following the trail.
I went to meet Angie at her home in West Hampstead and before long we were sitting in her living room drinking tea. This too was significant as it was the first time I felt how the project would literally open doors into people’s private lives and treat me as their friends, or at least a friend of a friend. And in some senses that is what we were.
Transcript of interview – Angie Mason nominates Nicky Ezer
“The person i would like to nominate as my most interesting person is Nicky Ezer. I’m fascinated by Nicky because she comes from a very middle class, south african, jewish background. And she has been catapulted into other scenarios that are not that, that have really challenged her. She’s taught me loads because you would think that middle class, jewish south african woman was going to have a trouble free and unproblematic life. Well, things hadn’t gone quite how one would have anticipated for Nicky but she’s come through. She comes through everything, she battles through everything. She comes through being happy.
And I think she’s admirable because she’s brought up two daughters as a single parent and those two girls are a wonderful tribute to her. Yet even one of her girls has challenged her in terms of her schooling and bringing her up. But Nicky keeps with it, Nicky’s faithful, Nicky’s loyal to her daughter battling on her own, in completely different circumstances to those she was brought up in.
And talking about different. Nicky’s also had a very interesting professional life Because of the relationships that she’s built up. And I think because the father of her two children is Jamaican Nicky has immersed herself into a Jamaican background. And she has single-handedly, as a white, middle class woman brought a lot of the Reggae scene of Jamaica to London.
If you ask any Jamaican person who’s interested in Reggae, and the culture of Jamaica it will be Nicky Ezer’s name that will come to their lips. Because she has done amazing things bringing the culture and music of Jamaica to mainstream Britain. And she’s done it along with all the other things that she’s done. And I take my hat off to Nicky.”
Angie Mason is an ex supply teacher who became BBC executive producer for Panorama until 2012
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