Do you wish you had never mentioned these damn pyjamas, Bletch? 
Tom Bradby
A more serious answer from Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery#Early_history)
Evidence of slavery predates written records, and has existed in many cultures.[2] Graves dating to 8000 BC in Egypt may show the enslavement of a San-like tribe.[dubious – discuss][Capoid remains not found this far north][29] Slavery is rare among hunter-gatherer populations. Mass slavery also requires economic surpluses and a high population density to be viable. Due to these factors, the practice of slavery would have only proliferated after the invention of agriculture during the Neolithic Revolution about 11,000 years ago.[30]
In the earliest known records, slavery is treated as an established institution. The Code of Hammurabi (ca. 1760 BC), for example, prescribed death for anyone who helped a slave escape or who sheltered a fugitive.[31] The Bible mentions slavery as an established institution.[2]
Slavery was known in almost every ancient civilization and society including Sumer, Ancient Egypt, Ancient China, the Akkadian Empire, Assyria, Ancient India, Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, the Islamic Caliphate, the Hebrew kingdoms in Palestine, and the pre-Columbian civilizations of the Americas.[2] Such institutions included debt-slavery, punishment for crime, the enslavement of prisoners of war, child abandonment, and the birth of slave children to slaves.[32]
Originally posted by @Furball
Originally posted by @Redslo
It is everyone if you go back to prehistory where slavery was ubiquitous and where we are all descended from larger and larger proportions of the human race as it then existed. We are also all descended from slaves and, most likely, some kind of royalty. On the other hand, relatively few of us are descended from scientists.
I’m guessing you’re American.
I am, but I am not sure what is this paragraph would give it away.
Fred Dinage
IS the correct answer.
And that is why the title of my autobiography will be Tom Bradby Wore my Pyjamas.
I’ve often thought about contacting him on Twitter, and apologising for the insidious groin infection he no doubt gets.
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Back on topic, can I be the first to call you all a bunch of cracker motherfuckers?
I wonder what the title of Tom’s autobiography will be?
My Mum’s reaction was exactly the same 'slowlane.
I’ve asked her about that period many times since as I really do feel deeply uncomfortable about it. But as she is from an era where deference to your ‘betters’ was expected, she can’t understand my reaction.
I remember the couple in question coming round to our humble terraced house - probably to steal more of my clothing, and even though we invited them into to our house, my Mum still called him by his honorific * title and referred to her as Mrs X.
At no point whilst drinking our tea in our home did they feel the need to offer their given names to my Mum.
Again, I’m sure they were lovely people, and they were doing what they thought was right, but it felt wrong to me.
* He was an Admiral of the fleet or somesuch - which might explain some of the social distance they kept.
The way you use ‘most likely’ in a sentence. And the subtext of embrarrassment about slavery.
Well if anyone should feel guilt for the sins of our ancestors I think we’re all pretty much in the same boat, active or complicit. The list of families who were paid compensation for reliquishing slaves serves, what purpose? Historically interesting but to be used as a whip to punish their descendants as some will, seems bizarre.
It’s more a cultural thing. Slavery and race in general are very difficult subjects to talk about in the US.
I was unaware of that “most likely” was American. I doubt I have a particular embarassment about slavery (as opposed to the racism inherent in Ameriucan society in general). None of my ancesters came to American until after the civil war.
This link provides some information as to why I believe virtually everyone must be descended from somone who owned slaves:
Or this:
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As I say, Redslo, it’s a cultural thing, and not meant as a particular dig at you.
It’s also not restricted to whites in the US.
I worked in the 90s with a famous black American actor in Senegal and Mali, and he had to bring along an entire entourage of historical advisors in black history to make sure he said the right things. This usually loquacious man would become paralysed when talking about the history of slavery.
Most likely you are right.
You could also say the reverse is true here. We’re brought up being told we’re on the side of the angels because of Wilberforce and the anti-slavery movement (which was actually not a widely popular cause). Well, the slave compensation records rather give the lie to that.
No slavers on my family tree but on a different tack we did come over with the Huguenots and it was good to see a feature about their migration from Europe on The One Show the other night.
One version of legend has it that our nickname, “mush”, is derived from Monsieur - directly following the expulsion of the Huguenots from France.
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Just working on another page of my autobiography “Tom Bradby Wore my Pyjamas”, and the research led me here.
I wonder if he dived in wearing those pyjamas.