Slave trader Edward Colston has left my family with this moral dilemma – Yorkshire Post Letters

YOU report (The Yorkshire Post, August 26) that the British Museum is to relegate a bust of its founder to a back room display. This has reinforced a dilemma that I, and my siblings, have had for some weeks now.

Our father, born in 1907, was the sixth of nine children of a tram driver in Bristol. A clever boy, his ability and the drive of his parents won him a scholarship to a well-known public school.

He did well there and realised the importance of a good education, so in his turn, he and our mother ensured that all five of us had the best opportunities. We have all done well in our particular fields and, for decades, we have been grateful for the foresight and sacrifices made on our behalf.

But herein lies the dilemma. The school to which our father won the scholarship was the Colston School in Bristol, founded by the same Edward Colston whose statue was recently ignominiously dumped into Bristol Harbour because of his links to the slave trade. Do we abandon our family heritage and gratitude to our parents and grandparents, and do we replace it with feelings of guilt because, in the final analysis, it is now argued that we have benefited from the oppression and suffering of others?

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Thank you

James Mitchinson

Editor