Black History Month 1
For Black History Month 2006, we have compiled stories of some of the people who have made their home in the Circuit from Africa and the Caribbean.
Harold and Olive - Guyana 1952
Having met each other in Guyana, we travelled to Britain in 1952. The journey by boat took two weeks. The first shock was the weather! It wasn’t tropical as we were used to and we had to find warm clothes.
We were accustomed to living in a house with a veranda in Guyana so it was another shock that we could only rent a room, not a house. We didn’t want visitors from home to see that we were just living in a room to begin with and we made excuses so they wouldn’t visit. Olive’s mother especially would have been distressed to find out that we had gone down in status. They held Britain in high esteem.
Many landlords advertising a room said, “No blacks, no foreigners and no children.” When we went to look at a room, they would say the room had gone. When someone turns you away because you are black then it makes you more determined. We were peaceful citizens. It was the Jewish landlords who helped us because they had also suffered. They knew what we were going through. We always think of them.
Harold didn’t have to seek work as a friend knew we were coming and so arranged for a job at his firm at a car garage in Camberwell. We struggled to live on low wages but the cost of living was cheap. We went through the struggle of not buying clothes and not going to functions. We just went to church or stayed at home to save money. The experience of our Anglican church in Peckham was good. They allowed us to use the church hall for free for our wedding reception.
We eventually bought our own place with a heavy mortgage and did overtime everyday to pay it off. As it was five years before our first children arrived, we had time to buy things for the house. Even when we became parents, Olive worked sewing from home to make a bit of money.
Those were very hard days but it made us strong and determined. That same determination helps Olive cope with her arthritic condition. It was not easy then but we made it. We tell our children what we went through and how it has changed so much since then.
The experience of Jewish landlords renting out rooms to those rejected elsewhere is a common story from those who arrived in the 1950s. They helped because they also knew about rejection and suffering.
Beatrice - Jamaica 1957
I came from Jamaica by boat on a two week journey in 1957 to look for a better job and life. When I arrived, I was a bit frightened because the place didn’t look happy to me. It had no life in it. However, I made friends and we started to go around together. People were very friendly. It was very cold, we didn’t have much heating but food was very cheap.
My future husband came here before me and we married six months after I arrived. We lived in Dalston and went to the Methodist church. We moved to Hackney Wick and to Clapton Park where I live now. I got a job very quickly working with gold jewellery. I had good jobs and good friends, and things got better for me.
Mavis - Jamaica 1965
I came as a 26 year old from Jamaica in 1965. My mother was working here before in a clothing factory and her employer invited me to work in the same factory. I arrived in Hackney on Saturday, started work on Monday, called in sick on Tuesday but had to return to work on Wednesday.
My pay was £6 a week. After a few months I asked to do piecework and then made £40 a week. My employer asked me not to tell anyone in case he had to pay them the same!
I was shocked at the houses; they were all joined together looking like factories. I was received well as plenty of black people had arrived before. Two white ladies in the factory, Mary and Doris, took me under their wings.
Nana - Ghana 1968
When I was 20, I started a course in midwifery in Kumasi and from there did the State Registered Nurse course in Accra. I didn’t finish this because I yearned to travel. (Nana is shown as a trainee nurse in Ghana on the right.) My then husband Emmanuel had already gone to England, so I joined him on 23 December 1968. I really cried to go back because of the grey skies and the grey buildings.
We lived in Temple Fortune, north London. I found it difficult to settle in London in the early days. Back home it is courteous for a child or young person to say “good morning” to a total stranger if they meet them on the street out of good manners. Here people could only say “Funny innit!” or “cold innit!”
Emmanuel was a lab technician doing EEG brain scans at Great Ormond Street and other hospital and I commuted every day to Chingford. Emmanuel was then transferred to Newcastle 300 miles away. I had to stop my training to join him and also because I was pregnant with with my first child, Barbara who was born in 1970. We lived in Jesmond. We settled well there even though it was very, very cold. People in Newcastle gave us a warm welcome. My husband finished his training but sadly had to go home with Barbara, who was four months old at the time. The Ghana government had paid for his training and wanted him back. My family and Emmanuel’s family looked after Barbara. With an extended family, it is not a burden to bring up a child, unlike here where you have to even make an appointment with your own family to see them.
Being black in Newcastle was tough. One day a white co-worker asked me if we all live in trees back home. I said, “Yes we do and do you know what, when the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh visited Ghana we put them in the tallest tree and they had so much fun swinging about.” He said, “Really, is that so?” I said, “You fool. You are such an ignorant man. Of course we don’t. In fact we have developed a hospital bed which is much better than what you use in England.” He was apologetic and we became friends after that.
My son Derek was born in 1977 and like Barbara, he also spent some time in Ghana. After he was born, I moved back down to London and worked at the North Middlesex, Newham General, Homerton and Royal London hospitals.
I’ve really enjoyed my years in nursing. Some people have been so thankful for my help. For example, one day I was in a shoe shop in Whitechapel and a woman said, “Don’t you remember me?” I couldn’t remember her but she said I had delivered her baby years earlier. That was nice.
On the left, Nana is shown outside Hackney church. Her story was also shared more fully in ‘Children Need Role Models’ published by the African Children’s Club, Walthamstow.
For more stories from Black History Month... Black History Month 2