Merrice Crookes

Q1. How did the Government’s “Right to Read” programme shape your entry into adult literacy?

The *Right to Read* scheme recognised that millions of adults had reading and writing difficulties—often because wartime disrupted schooling. National TV publicity raised awareness, and local authorities were tasked with practical delivery. The model paired trained volunteer tutors with learners for one‑to‑one sessions (often in learners’ homes) and small‑group classes.

I was employed through the Birmingham Settlement to promote the scheme: recruiting learners and tutors, running tutor training, and coordinating placements. That was my first committed step into community‑based education.

Q2. What happened after those first two years? How did your role expand?

I joined the Handsworth Alternative Scheme (HAS), a new, predominantly Black team working alongside probation and the courts to divert young people from custody. We focused on three pillars—education, employment, and housing. My remit was education: getting young people into courses, colleges, and skills training.

A striking pattern emerged: many young people we saw—Black and white, but disproportionately Black—had left school with no qualifications and significant literacy needs. We set up reading and writing classes within HAS, and I began recruiting Black tutors via churches, community groups, and personal networks. We trained them to teach adults in culturally aware, learner‑centred ways.

Q3. You stress “learner‑centred” teaching. What did that look like in practice?

With adults, vocabulary and life experience are already there; the difficulty is decoding and encoding print. So you start with *their* world. If a learner loves church, we read church notices and hymns; if she gardens, we write about seeds and soil; if he’s a mechanic, we build content around tools and safety. We wrote bespoke materials from scratch and used them to teach phonics, spelling, sentence structure, and form‑filling—what was then called “functional literacy.”

Crucially, we worked with dignity. Adults often hide the fact they can’t read; there’s shame attached. Our job was to lift that burden. One learner cried when she read a book cover‑to‑cover for the first time. Another’s goal was simply to sign her own name before she died. Moments like those stay with you.

Q4. How did Black history and cultural representation enter the curriculum?

In the 1970s–80s there were virtually no school or library materials that reflected Black lives in Britain. No Black teachers in many schools. Young people lacked heroes and historical anchors. So we began producing our own resources—basic yet affirming—on Jamaica, the wider Caribbean, African roots, and Black resistance.

We created easy‑read books that mapped Jamaica’s parishes, cities, industries (tourism, agriculture), everyday workplaces, and natural environment. We profiled historic figures and movements—enslaved rebels, abolition struggles, and, for some learners, Rastafari (including “return to Africa” narratives). The point wasn’t ideology; it was recognition. Learners needed to see themselves—and their parents’ journeys—on the page.

Q5. Tell us about Handprint and the *Survival* magazine.

Because nothing relevant existed, we set up community publishing. With support from adult literacy bodies and the city’s economic development unit, we acquired equipment and premises, and Handprint became a self‑financing press. We printed for local organisations (annual reports, posters) and trained young people in layout, typesetting, and printing.

*Survival* was a magazine by and for local women—commissioned, written, illustrated, and edited by community contributors. We designed it like a mainstream women’s magazine but filled it with practical and cultural content that spoke to Black and working‑class readers: health and contraception, budgeting, tenants’ rights, recipes and a seven‑day vegetarian meal plan (useful for Rastafarian diets), interviews with musicians (like Marcia Griffiths), poetry and short fiction, and signposts to local services (Rafiki, Harambee, A4, advice centres, etc.). We ran reader research and found it flew off college racks because it had a Black woman on the cover—unheard of at the time.

Q6. Can you share a teaching story that captures why this work mattered?

George, an older white gentleman, had lived with his mother all his life and never learned to read. His goals were modest—sign his name, write a short paragraph, read a simple booklet. We co‑created a piece on a local cinema and church: he dictated memories, we shaped them into sentences, he practiced, revised, and finally read his own published words aloud. He beamed. That little booklet sat proudly in his home for years; it validated a lifetime of experience. Stories like George’s are why learner‑made publishing is such a powerful pedagogy.

Q7. What happened to Handprint and the wider ecosystem in the 1990s?

The early 1990s recession was brutal. Funding streams dried up; some long‑standing customers went under and couldn’t pay invoices; we lost cashflow. After years of training, printing, and publishing, Handprint had to close. It was heartbreaking—but many of the people trained there carried skills into new jobs and projects. The ecosystem’s spirit persisted even as institutions rose and fell.

Q9. You later sent thousands of books to schools in Jamaica. Why?

On a return visit to my old school, I saw how few books they had—and how expensive books were locally. Libraries were rare outside high schools. Back in Birmingham, I partnered with libraries de‑accessioning older stock and shipped mixed bundles to set up school libraries in Jamaica. Teachers and children treasured them. It’s a simple, sustainable way to keep the circle of learning going.

Q10. What were the wider politics around education and race at the time?

It was a class‑bound, post‑colonial society in transition. In schools, most teachers had never been trained to serve multilingual, multicultural classrooms; Black staff were scarce; and the canon was white by default. Community organisations—A4, Harambee, advice centres, cultural groups—filled gaps with anti‑racist practice, arts, and advocacy. We campaigned for Black History Month, for cultural days in schools, and for more Black governors and headteachers. These changes didn’t fall from the sky; they were won, often by mothers, activists, and teachers working in concert.

 Q12. How did community arts intersect with literacy?

Photography, theatre, poetry, and zines were gateways into reading and writing. A portrait workshop becomes a caption‑writing exercise; a poster‑making session becomes a lesson in audience and verbs; a poetry reading models rhythm, vocabulary, and metaphor. The arts offer pride, voice, and public space—especially when mainstream institutions are slow to validate Black creativity. Community centres were our Greenwich Village: one building, many disciplines, democratic governance, and open doors.

Q13. Looking back, what are you most proud of—and what remains to be done?

I’m proud that we refused to wait for permission. We trained tutors, built presses, published our own books, and made space for learners to author their lives. I’m proud of every first signature, every learner‑written paragraph, every parent who walked into a school and felt they belonged. I’m proud we pushed for representation—in libraries, curricula, and leadership—and helped normalise Black History Month and Caribbean cultural days in schools.

What remains is the structural work: funding stability for grassroots projects; proper adult‑literacy provision embedded in FE and community settings; and the ongoing task of decolonising curricula so that all children recognise themselves in what they study. The tools are the same as ever: respect, relevance, and representation—plus a bit of print ink under the fingernails.