I was working at the engineering factory in Willesden. But Claude Butler started a company in Penge, and they want a wheel builder. But when I go there, there was about 20 white, one Black. Do you stand a chance? I was the only Black.

The foreman took me to a room like this, and said, ‘How many wheels you can do for the day?’ One man say he can do 80 and I say, ‘I can do 200.’ Everywhere I turn, my record still shows. There is no cycle mechanic, no one beat my record.

I was working at Penge, and an Irish girl, and she looked and she said, ‘So many wheels!’ that I’ve done. She says, ‘What must I call you? Sam the Wheels!’ Yeah, yeah. She give me that name. And that name made me history.

I started filming in 1960. I’ve got the history of Lambeth for seventy years. When Brixton was slum. I film everything. And I never leave my camera behind, I’ve always got my camera in my car. People start ask me to do weddings, funerals, church, everything like that. And that’s how I just make me get my name.

1960. No one teach me. I learn by my mistakes. What did you film? Everything that I can find. Good and bad.

The best thing that I saw with my camera? Well… Brixton riots. The rioting. 1981 riot. 1985 riot. I do it here. Now, if I were to ask many people, how many people give different stories about the riot? Some never even born yet and tell you about the riot. But the riot start at Vining Street here. Where a Black guy gets stabbed. And they call the police. And the police started questioning the injured man on the ground.

The crowd called them now. And the Black man said to them, ‘Call the ambulance.’ Police saw… And they took him away and take him to hospital.

And from there Railton Road was the frontline. Brixton frontline. Where all the bad boys are, very bad they was. And that’s where the rioters start from.

It was terrible. It was not a riot, it was a war between the police and the Black boys. And they used petrol in the bottle and throw it, and it explodes. And police cars, they caught fire.

But at that time you couldn’t just go around with your camera like this. You would be in danger of your life if you take your camera. You have to hide the camera in here and go like this.

It was a terrible day it was a war. The battle for Brixton started from Leeson Road. The battle for Brixton, the police and the youth, the Black youth.

Oh, I live in Brixton here for 70 years. And if you would give me a flat in Westminster, I wouldn’t accept it. I wouldn’t exchange Brixton for nowhere. I came here and I make history in Brixton here.

Well, I was home one morning and a letter dropped through the letterbox here. I say, ‘Let’s see what these people want.’

And I receive a letter from the King. It says, I work very hard, to receive this OBE.

They’re giving me an award for the Black culture in Brixton. I couldn’t believe it. The man from the bush read it. From the bush to the palace! You understand? Jamaica, I lived on the farm. Donkey, goats, pigs, everything like that. Not more. I come from nowhere, I end up in the palace. Now my daughter can go into Windsor Castle because of me.

You see, everything changed now. But I don’t regret these 70 years that I spent in Great Britain, in Brixton. I don’t know how much I’ve got to live but I’m still going on. I have little regrets. Says the man from the bush! Laughs.