Touched with Fire (edited by Jack Hydes) is an HKCEE text.
Telephone Conversation by Wole Soyinka
The social context
This poem is set in Britain in the 1960s and 70s. Things were very different then, although nowadays there are people from many different nationalities and cultures living in the country.
After the second world war, there was a shortage of labour because so many men had died during the conflict and the economy was expanding. The country looked to its former colonies for labour, especially the West Indies, Africa and India. In the 1950s, a steady flow of immigrants entered Britain looking for work. Many of these families were blacks. Many British people found this difficult to accept, and the result was widespread racial prejudice.
Racial prejudice