'Arsenal means more than the royals': Jamaica gives its view on the coronation

Jamaicans admit they're more excited about the Premier League than the coronation, as they share their views with ITV News Global Security Editor Rohit Kachroo

To the regulars at Tracks and Records, a bar in central Kingston, there is only one must-see event being broadcast from London during coronation week.

It’s a bright Tuesday afternoon but the bar is busy. People have arranged to leave work early to gather and watch on the big screen. A group of colleagues still wearing their red work uniforms have booked a table and ordered plates of burgers in advance. A mother has perched her young baby on top of the bar.

It’s the London derby, Arsenal versus Chelsea, that people have come to see - and as the match begins, football fans tell me they don’t plan to watch the coronation later this week.

I ask Mark, an Arsenal fan and Kingstonian, whether he is more interested in the English Premier League than the British royal family. He thinks my question is a joke.

“Look at me” he says, pausing to stare at the TV screen. “The English Premier League of course. The British royal family? Irrelevant!”

Another weary fan says: "Click on your phone and it’s something about Harry, it’s something about William, it’s something about King Charles. And what is it? It’s nothing positive.

'What happened to Meghan looked from our side of the fence really disappointing,' journalist Barbara Blake-Hannah says

"There’s more positive coming from the Premier League than there is coming from the monarchy. At least you’re being entertained and it’s positive entertainment. What’s going on in the British monarchy is negative entertainment."

Jamaica is “moving ahead” with plans to remove a “foreign monarch”, Minister of Legal and Constitutional Affairs Marlene Malahoo said in March.

But at Tracks and Records it’s clear that the monarchy is much more than just a constitutional matter for many Jamaicans who believe it provides a cap on their sense of self-worth - a legacy of the colonial past, but a symbol of present-day racism. In contrast, say the gathered football fans, the English Premier League tells a different story about the relationship with the UK.

Only one of those British institutions, say many Jamaicans, appears to be open to black people. Some compare their pride in Kingston-born Raheem Sterling, a star at Chelsea, with their sympathy for Meghan Markle, whose experience is widely seen as a familiar one - a woman of colour receiving the cold shoulder in a white world.

“We will never forget, we can never forget,” says Barbara Blake-Hannah, a journalist and campaigner speaking to us on Bob Marley Beach near Kingston.

“You would think the relationship would have improved, but that confession about the colour of Archie’s skin: what might it be? That was a big blow - that was a punch in the solar plexus that really stunned us and stunned all the people in the Commonwealth.”

“What happened to Meghan Markle looked from our side of the fence really disappointing. That’s the word I would use. We were really disappointed to learn that the idea of having a member of their family of the same racial mixture as ourselves was not a nice thing. So if they didn’t like to have one of us in their family, what about all of us who have been growing up in the belief that we were part of them?”

ITV News Global Security Editor Rohit Kachroo sits down with Barbara Blake-Hannah to discuss what it was like to be Britain's first Black female TV reporter, how Jamaica views the monarchy, and if she will be celebrating the King's coronation

Barbara’s view of the royal family is shaped by the racism she was subjected to in the UK more than half a century ago. As the first black female reporter on British television, she became a pioneer in the 1960s. But after an angry response from some viewers, she quietly disappeared - the story of her journey through a glass ceiling was for decades untold.

“Well, Birmingham was the most racist place I experienced in Britain” says Barbara of her time at ITV in the Midlands. “I was eventually able to get a room at the YMCA after I had been there for quite a few weeks on a six-month contract.”

Not long after delivering his inflammatory "Rivers of Blood" speech, Birmingham MP Enoch Powell agreed to participate in a local news programme - but he made one demand.

“I remember one night being sent out to do a story on a very cold night, then coming back to the studio and finding it all closed,” Barbara said.

She said she was told that Powell had stopped by for an interview - "but he only agreed to come into the station if ‘that black girl wasn’t there'".

"So I was like, ‘wow’, I mean that really stunned me,” Barbara said.

Back on Bob Marley Beach, Barbara hopes for Jamaica to lead itself into a brighter future.

“Many Jamaicans want to abolish the monarchy, to change from being a monarchical head to state, to having our own head of state, a Jamaican national," she said.

But she will be watching the coronation on Saturday.

“I like television…. It’s a TV spectacle… I watched the Met Gala, and I will watch the coronation. It’s Saturday morning - what else to do on a Saturday morning?

"But I’ll be hoping that we hurry up and make Jamaica a republic."