Hello and welcome to the History Hour podcast from the BBC World Service with me Max Pearson,

the past brought to life by those who were there.

This week from Nicaragua in the 1980s, how a completely new sign language emerged.

My little linguist brain, looking at them signing to each other,

was going, oh, this is happening, this is that rule,

this is what's happening with the grammar.

You could see if they all understood each

other. Also the story of Native Americans and gambling, the much-malined 19th

century Dowager Empress of China and the things that went wrong as Nelson Mandela

was freed. This was like the biggest event in the history of South Africa and of course

we were completely unprepared.

That's all coming up later in the podcast, but we begin with the story of

Norwell Roberts who became the first black policeman to join London's Metropolitan Police in

1967. His enrollment was heralded as a symbol of progressive policing at a time

when there were clear tensions between the British police and ethnic minorities.

But as Norwell Roberts himself has been telling Alex last, he endured decades of racist abuse within the force.

They asked me, why do you want to join the police force? I said, well, I want to help people and it's a secure job.

But I had a particularly rough time.

I suppose if people warned me I may have thought of had second thoughts about it.

I don't know.

But because no one warned me I learnt on the job, should we say,

and I came through it. nobody should be subject to that

...