Small Island

As a young girl, Queenie Buxton visits the British Empire Exhibition. The trip is organized by the Butchers’ Association, and Queenie goes with her parents, who are butchers, and most of their employees. To their dismay, Queenie’s younger brothers have to stay home with one of the hired girls. Mother orders two of the employees, Emily and Graham, to watch Queenie, but they spend most of the time flirting.

Amid crowds of sweating people, Queenie, Emily and Graham visit different exhibits, which are themed according to different countries in the British Empire. In “Canada,” they see a butter sculpture of the Prince of Wales, and eat apples in “Australia.” By the time they get to “Africa,” they’re tired, and Graham needs a toilet, but they can’t find their way out of the recreated African village. As they watch a woman weaving, Graham announces loudly that these people aren’t civilized and don’t understand English.

Suddenly, Queenie sees a tall black man. It’s the first black person she’s ever seen, and she’s scared. Graham jokes that she should kiss him, and Emily laughingly eggs her on. However, the man smiles and offers, in perfect English, to shake Queenie’s hand instead. He gives Graham directions to the bathroom, but Graham can’t find it and urinates behind a trash can.

Later, Father declares the man Queenie met must have been a prince, since only rich and powerful Africans know how to speak English. Father takes Queenie on a specially constructed railway to a lookout point from which she can see the entire Exhibition. Queenie is dazzled by the spectacle, and Father says, “you’ve got the whole world at your feet.”