I love living by the sea, I often look out and imagine myself sailing off over the horizon. I could sail the Atlantic and say hello to America, or head due south to explore the many wonders of Africa. If I kept on going, sooner or later the whole world would be within my reach.

My ancestors made all those voyages, and what discoveries and adventures they found, what wondrous treasures and knowledge they brought back across the seas to old England. Those treasures are now my inheritance, they're all around me, they're even in the clothes that I wear and the language with which I speak.

I think how lucky I am that I didn't have to lift a finger to gain all those riches, like a Queen I had them all freely placed at my feet. Now I'm free to choose what I do with my wealth, and whether I appreciate it or not.

To fully understand, I need to learn the true cost. I need to know the price that those born before me and elsewhere in the world had to pay, for only then will I know the real value of my inheritance.

And that's why I like listening to my dear friend Chloe so much, when she talks of her tribal culture and her homeland of Ghana. Her nation's treasures were seldom exchanged in fair trade, instead they were too often taken by force and brought back to England. Or even worse, stored as a cargo of slaves in the filthy holds of merchant ships headed for Jamaica and beyond.

"I'm so sorry," I keep repeating, when she tells me the stories of heartless, colonial oppression and one sided wars, most of which I've never even remotely heard of.

"It wasn't your fault," she kindly says. "Besides, it's all history and we're friends now."

She doesn't just mean our personal friendship, but also that of our two nations. Everything she says is true, part of Chloe's inheritance is the fruit of that cultural friendship. She has an education and wealth most Africans can only ever dream of, plus a much better knowledge of the true cost of her inheritance than I'll ever have of mine.

For one thing, not all her riches arrive quite so freely I'm afraid. Thankfully, it doesn't happen too often these days, but sometimes she still has a price to pay. I'm ashamed she has to pay anything at all, for the only reason she does so is because she's a black girl.

"I try not to let them upset me." Chloe always says of her tormentors.

But she has a right to be upset, even so, there's not much we can do about those people who insist on being ignorant and squandering their inheritance. We're not going to squander ours, we both believe it's a wonderful thing, and our love and friendship are by far the biggest jewels in it's crown.

steffanie xxx