Scottish national poet Jackie Kay talks about racism she endured as a child

Scotland’s makar recalls being taunted and beaten up by older boys as an eight-year-old and reflects on a much-changed country

One of Scotland’s most garlanded poets, Jackie Kay, has spoken out about the racist bullying she experienced as a child in the 1970s.

Kay, who is Scotland’s makar, or national poet, said that while growing up in Scotland, she “got beaten up quite a lot”. As an eight-year-old, she said, older boys would wait for her after school, “fill bubblegum wrappers with mud and get me down and shove them into my mouth and say, ‘That’s what you should eat, because you’re from a mud hut,’ and then I’d get beaten up.”

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