Notwithstanding its success, Braithwaite had ambivalent feelings towards the film, as he admitted in an interview with Burt Caesar conducted for a 2007 BBC Radio 4 programme entitled To Sir, with Love Revisited (produced by Mary Ward Lowery).

[1] Also in 2007, the novel was dramatised for Radio 4 by Roy Williams and broadcast in two parts, starring Kwame Kwei-Armah.

The play was directed by Mark Babych and starred Ansu Kabia in the title role and Matthew Kelly.

[5] Ricky Braithwaite is a black engineer from British Guiana who has worked in an oil refinery in Aruba.

After discussing his situation with a stranger, he applies for a teaching position and is assigned to Greenslade Secondary School in London's East End.

Students attempt to discourage and demoralise him by disruptive noises, constant use of the adjective "bleeding" in the classroom and, finally, the burning of a used sanitary towel in the fireplace.

Her parents are openly disapproving of a mixed-race marriage, but realise that the couple are serious and intelligent and must be trusted to make the right decision.

Mr. Braithwaite is shocked when refused social status equal to a Briton with academic qualifications and level of conduct similar to his own; and he constantly stresses the ease with which he could assimilate into British society if only his colour were disregarded [...] Prejudice against him is unfair, he claims, because of his social accomplishment, not because of his humanity; and he implies thereby that prejudice against black people who lack similar cultural habits may be justified.Alfred Gardner self-published An East End Story, in which he recalls being a pupil of Braithwaite.