Race in Britain

Elbow bass player Pete Turner: "I don’t walk round telling people how black I am – unlike my friend Chris! – but I know that when I walk into a room the first thing someone’s going to see is a black man." Photograph: Gary Calton

Maneera Stenhouse works for a disability charity: "We have our differences and we might have a different way of looking at life, but in essence we’re all the same; we all wake up in the morning the same way and brush our teeth at night." Photograph: Katherine Rose/Observer

Kelly Regan-Mears works for a construction company in Kent: "I’ve always been absolutely blind to race. I’ve had several boyfriends who weren’t white, but it was never a pride or trophy thing, they were just people I liked." Photograph: Karen Robinson/Karen Robinson

Shezad Dawood, an artist, lives in east London: "As a teenager I remember running for my life when I was chased by a gang of skinheads with Stanley knives and baseball bats, and I certainly ran a lot faster than I did at school doing PE. There was also this thing of bowing your head at school – a sort of 'know your place'. ... Now I think London is the most advanced place in the world in terms of being allowed to be who you are." Photograph: Katherine Rose/Observer

Daren Nelson used to be in the RAF and now works at a police training academy: "You do get the jokey stuff from the older guys who think that the Bernard Manning/Jim Davidson sense of humour is still tolerable. So they’ll come out with daft comments, like in the summer they’ll say: 'Oh blimey, you’ve got a good tan there, mate, where did you go on holiday?' But these are the same sorts who come out with mother-in-law jokes, so you can’t really take them seriously." Photograph: Richard Saker/Richard Saker

Katherine Gibb is a teaching assistant: "I live in Plumstead in south London, and the place where Stephen Lawrence died isn’t that far away from me. I think the area’s changed a lot since he was killed and it’s certainly become a lot more cosmopolitan." Photograph: Katherine Rose/Observer

Ade Akinbiyi is a striker for Burnley football club: "I had a bunch of kids wanting to touch my hair at one club I played for. I didn’t mind, I just let them do it because they had never felt hair like that before and they wanted to know what it was like. It was the first step for them, finding out about someone else’s culture." Photograph: Howard Barlow/Howard Barlow

Radha Jenkins's parents were both British. Her mother was mixed race, her father is white: "Even now when I fill in those forms there’s not really a box for me – sometimes I tick 'white' and sometimes I tick 'other', but I do wonder why we have to be put in a box. Why can’t we just stand outside it?" Photograph: Richard Saker/Richard Saker

Ed Davidson is an IT manager: "My mum and dad are from a generation where it’s far more politically correct to be 'politically incorrect', but they’re both intelligent enough people to realise that’s not right." Photograph: Katherine Rose/Observer

Abdul Chohan is an assistant head teacher in Lancashire. His parents are both Indian: "Years back I went to Pakistan and Nepal, but after two months all I could think of was a cheese-and-onion pasty and I wanted to be back in Bolton. The weather’s not great here, but this is home." Photograph: Gary Calton/Gary Calton