A childhood spent in racially charged California in the Sixties has inspired a book by a Bermudian living overseas. Bruce Gibbons released Ashes to Ascendency this month on Amazon.com. He was born in Bermuda, but moved to Alameda, California, as a young child with his Bermudian mother and American serviceman stepfather.

“America was in the process of heavy racism,” Mr Gibbons told The Royal Gazette.

He and his family were housed off base because, at that time, minorities did not live on the base with White military personnel. Instead, they lived in a predominantly Black village called The Estuary in a dreary block of two-storey apartments.

His stepfather and mother were both Black while he looked White.

“My father was Portuguese, but not in my life,” he said. “I underwent a lot of abuse because of my skin colour and hair texture.

Once, another child lured him to an oil pit at the nearby Todd Shipyard, then pushed him in.

“He said now you look like everyone else, because I was covered in black oil,” Mr Gibbons remembered. “As I returned home, a group of Black girls started singing a song that went: ‘White Patty, White Patty, you don’t shine cause yo momma didn’t polish your black behind’.”

As he got older, his life slowly improved, as the racial climate in the United States got better.

“Some of the events that occurred in my life could appear as hard knocks to some people, but it was a positive journey unfolding,” he said.

He worked on the book for 20 years, but struggled to bring the story to a satisfactory conclusion.

“Finally, I got the ending I wanted,” he said. “For some reason, I had a hard time trying to write it as myself. It became easier when I called the main character David Parker.”

In hindsight, Mr Gibbons thought he kept rewriting his story, because he did not want the creation process to end.

“I felt that if I completed the book I would not have anything to do,” he said. “I would suddenly lose this one part of my life that I used to keep me company. It was my little hobby that I did not want to end.”

He started writing when he was 8 or 9. “I have always loved writing, words and reading,” he said. “It is something I cannot stop doing. It is a lifetime addiction.”

Writing the book proved to be therapeutic.

“When the abuse was happening, I did not look at it as traumatic, or out of order,” he said. “I just assumed the abuse was a normal process of life for everyone. I just carried on.”

Writing Ashes to Ascendency helped him look more deeply at what had transpired.

“It showed me that a lot of the choices I made in life, good or bad, were the direct result of the lifestyle I was living,” he said. “Writing helped me shift my perspective on the type of lifestyle I desired in my heart.”

The hardest part about writing the book, was just getting it finished and on to Amazon.com.

“Amazon has some really strict format structure for putting your book on there,” he said. “I had to do the cover myself using the app Canva. I had to do my own layout and design.

“Through trial and error, I got it to work properly. It took about two months to get it all correct, before they finally said they would publish it.”

Publishing it on Amazon was also an expensive undertaking.

“People are trying to gobble up your resources and take your money with promises of putting you out there in the lights,” he said. “That is quite costly. If I get some notoriety from this, maybe I will be able to get a publisher for my next book.”

Despite the challenges, Ashes to Ascendency was released on January 14. Since then, he has had a few buyers, mainly people he told about it. He plans to do more marketing and promotion through social media.

When Mr Gibbons spoke to The Royal Gazette he was still waiting for a physical copy of the book.

“It felt great to see it listed on Amazon.com,” he said. “I was really happy. It felt like I could breathe for a moment.”

He considers himself to be Bermudian, despite the many years he spent in the United States. He visited the island frequently when he was little.

“My stepfather was always out to sea in the Navy, and my mother did not work back then, so we would spend summers in Bermuda,” he said. “I even went to Francis Patton Primary for a short time.”

It has been eight years since Mr Gibbons last visited Bermuda. The cost of the plane ticket prevents him from coming more often.

He moved to the Britain from the United States in 2013, and now lives in Emsworth, Hampshire.

“It was difficult to find work in Bermuda, and I had a British passport,” he said. “Now, I am a material analyst for a manufacturing company, partly retired.”

Ashes to Ascendency is available on Amazon.com, but Mr Gibbons would like to see it sold in Bermuda bookstores. He is working on that.

In the meantime, he has already started writing his next book.