Alex Wheatle, the Bard of Brixton
Great Lives
BBC
4.2 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 19 January 2026
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
After a childhood in care in Surrey, Alex Wheatle was moved to a hostel in Brixton aged fourteen. Later he was involved in the riots and given a prison sentence, events which were covered in one of the Small Axe anthology of films by Steve McQueen. But it is Wheatle's writing career that has prompted Ashley John Baptiste to pick him for Great Lives - and his success was rapid and inspiring before his early death in 2025. Joining Ashley in this celebration of the life and career of the Brixton Bard is Lemn Sissay and Vanessa Walters, author of Rude Girls and The Nigerwife.
Includes archive of Alex Wheatle MBE at the Hay Festival in 2024 and on Graham Norton's radio show.
The producer for BBC Studios in Bristol is Miles Warde
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio Podcasts. |
| 0:05.7 | Hello, you're about to listen to a BBC podcast, and I'm Ed Gamble, host of another BBC podcast, The Traitors Uncloaked. |
| 0:12.7 | But my show is available only on BBC Sounds, just like Ellis and John's Saturday bonus episodes, |
| 0:18.2 | The Pop Top Ten podcast with Scott Mills and Rylan, and comedy specials |
| 0:22.2 | from the likes of Harriet Kemsley, Susie Ruffle and Rommashranganathan. However, and maybe I'm biased, |
| 0:27.9 | it's really all about The Traitors Uncloaked. So for a whole bunch of exclusive scoops and podcasts, |
| 0:33.4 | listen only on BBC Sounds. Today's guest is Ashley John Baptiste, writer, broadcaster, one-time boy band member too. |
| 0:43.1 | His book called Looked After was about growing up in care and was published last year. |
| 0:49.2 | It's a proper, powerful read. |
| 0:51.5 | Welcome to Great Lives, Ashley. |
| 0:53.7 | Whom have you picked? I have picked Alex Wheatle. He is an author. His life was given a |
| 1:02.2 | broader platform because it was made into part of Steve McQueen's The Small Axe series, |
| 1:08.3 | which is essentially a collection of historical dramas about Black |
| 1:11.7 | Britain. It's absolutely amazing. I've seen it. Absolutely. Phenomenal, yeah. And of course, |
| 1:17.7 | he was placed into care in the 60s, a residential care home on the fringes of Croydon. And in that |
| 1:26.7 | care home, he experienced quite severe racism |
| 1:29.1 | and physical abuse. Here's a picture of him as a little boy. Oh, look at here. Yes. Yeah. I sound a bit obsessive. I do not really know him, but I feel like I know him so well. And I look at that photo, and I just feel like I see myself. Alex Sweetel, the Brixton Bard, was given an MBA for his services to literature in 2008. |
| 1:48.7 | But his biggest success came with his Croncton series of novels, which were for young adults. |
| 1:54.9 | Tell us about these, Ashley. |
| 1:56.3 | Yeah, so essentially a series of books about this fictional council estate touching... |
| 2:02.8 | Called Croncton. |
| 2:03.6 | Called Croncton. |
... |
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