Gen
eral Pu blic
An oral history project involving St John’s Primary School & the Narthex Centre, Sparkhill, Birmingham
We Have No Bananas Today
‘We Have No Bananas Today’ was an oral history project in which pupils from St John’s Primary School, Sparkhill, interviewed elderly residents of Sparkhill (an inner city area of Birmingham) who emigrated to the UK from Ireland and the West Indies from the 1940s to the 1960s. Two classes (5H and 5L) at St John’s Primary School, Sparkhill, received initial training in how to record oral histories. Eight pupils were then selected for additional training. As part of this they conducted a series of interviews with their own family and neighbours. The pupils then went on to do a number of longer interviews with members of the Narthex Centre’s Good Companions Lunch Club. The interviews explored food memories, the changing availability of food in the UK since the second world war, arriving in the UK from another country and how Birmingham has changed in the last 40 years.
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Bridie Bradshaw interviewed by Mariam and Ayman Bridie Bradshaw was born Ireland in 1931. She came to the UK in 1949. She lives in Sparkhill. Ayman: What are your early memories, including food? Bridie: Poverty. When I was young, everyone was practically starving. Very very little food, and what you had, you’d eat, you didn’t waste it, cos there wouldn’t be any more for another day. A very simple life. Mariam: What was your favourite food as a child? B: Well to be honest, there was no such thing. Potatoes and cabbage is what we had most days, and eggs. And that was just about it. There was no such thing as ‘favourite food’, you were lucky to get whatever was on the plate. A: What do you remember about going food shopping? B: When I was young? There wasn’t much to go about. We all had potatoes and cabbage growing in our gardens, and didn’t really have to go shopping. M: Why did you come to the UK? B: Oh, to work. There was a factory in Small Heath called the BSA, a big factory in them days, and they were applying for girls to work in the factory. And a few of us girls were working in people’s houses, scrubbing floors, minding children, and we applied, and we got over, and worked there for four years in that one place, and then left there and went to another factory, and had just forty years there when I retired. So I had two jobs in all them years. Proud and pleased, honest money. A: Where did you stay? 4
B: Small Heath, in lodgings. A land lady. It was all arranged by the BSA. This land lady, she took us girls in
and fed us, and we went to work from her house, and that was life then. M: What food did you miss that you had in Ireland, but you didn’t have in the UK? B: Deep down, we had nothing, just more or less the same thing, day after day after day, year on year. Different place today! When I was in the 30s, 40s, it was a different world. Poverty, in everyone’s home. A: What was it like growing up in the UK? B: Oh, very very nice. We worked all day, then of a night time we all met up and went dancing, that was life then, and enjoyed every moment of freedom. Yes, I was over content always, happy with the people I was with. A: Where did you used to dance? B: Irish clubs. Down Small Heath. There was a few places then, and we used to all meet up there. M: Did you enjoy that time a lot? B: Oh yes! After working all day, you’re prepared for the weekend, for that, and look forward to it. That was special. M: Could you tell us a little bit more about what it used to be like in Small Heath and Sparkbrook? B: There was a lot of places that didn’t really want us. I was Irish, and there’d be notices on windows, “No Irish need apply”. And if somebody was coming over, they’d see the notice on the window, and they’d know not to go to that door looking for lodgings. I was lucky, it was all arranged by the BSA for me and the other girls. But it was rough at times. Chris: Maybe you guys could ask Bridie about what it was like in the 1960s round here for example. B: There’s only one white shop left now in Sparkhill, and that’s an old lady, and she’d been selling dresses, different types of wear over the years, and she’s now the only one left. And she doesn’t do a great trade. I was in with her one day, she said some days she only takes five pound. And that isn’t very good business! If I can’t get it from one place, I go to
Acock’s Green. I go there to Iceland, and I get what I want from there. And I like the Charity shops, I’m very big on going to charity shops. What I say, if they’re selling, then I’m buying. If I see something I want, then I have it. And I like what I get from there, and I give them the money, honest money. M: What do you mean by giving them honest money? B: Oh, today people are using drug money, or they’re doing shoplifting, doing things like that, and then spending it in someone else’s shop, which is thieving and deceiving and all the bad things you can say. But before, you had to go to work. And if you didn’t work, you didn’t eat. First thing we got here, a ration book. And you got the food you wanted, and that was it. M: Would you like anything changed on the Stratford Road that we have now? B: Well I’d like to see some of the old properties back, but it’ll never happen, so you just don’t think about it. Some shops were well known and in the shops you’d meet people there and have a chat and… the atmosphere, that’s the word I’m looking for. A: Do you feel that there’s less communication with people now?
M: Do you feel they like and respect you a lot too? B: Oh they do, and they like me, and I know it. Yes Asian families, and couldn’t speak highly enough of them. Then there’s another Asian lady, and her youngest now is twenty. I’ve been going to her house from when that baby was born twenty years ago, and we’re still friends today A: What are your hopes for the future? B: Well of course, for me, it’s for you young people. I’ve had my days, it’s you young people now, you gotta have your days, and I hope you have peaceful ones, as I did. But having said that, when I was young, there was only two religions in Ireland, and that was Catholic and Protestant. And… we didn’t get on. Catholics didn’t like Protestants, Protestants didn’t like the Catholics. What can I say? Where do you go from there?
Poverty. When I was young, everyone was practically starving. Very very little food, and what you had, you’d eat, you didn’t waste it, cos there wouldn’t be any more for another day.
B: Oh, very much so, died out. It’s just Asian shops now. They do their own bits and pieces, and they do a good trade, and there’s shops emptied by it who open up another business and that’s it, that’s how life is now. I count myself very lucky, I like myself, and I like other people. And I can get on the bus any time, or stand at the bus stop, I and others, we always speak. Just something friendly to say, if it’s only the weather, or the buses. And I always say to people, while we’re talking about the weather, or the buses, we leave no neighbours alone, because the buses and the weather can’t answer back! But the neighbours can, if you say something bad about them, which I wouldn’t do. I like and respect my neighbours.
M: Do you feel like the future generation needs to have more of a friendly atmosphere, needs more connection?
B: I do, because you’re educated. Years ago, people were, as I was when I was young, I was ignorant. You young people, you got an education. You see like the others’ way, the other side, and it’s a healthy lifestyle. You can see other people’s point of view, and you can hear other people, and not afraid to speak to one. Yes, that’s freedom. When I was young, there was a job for everybody. You could go, finish in one factory, start in another on Monday, and there was a job for everyone. Now you young people, you haven’t got that choice. Not that you’d want to be in a factory, because you’ll be some type of office worker, doctors, lawyers, you can be anything, the future is there for you. And the first thing starts with good parents. And when you respect your parents, do what they tell you, you can’t go wrong. Other people can tell you what to do and what to say, now listen to mom and dad, they’ll never put you 5 on the wrong road.
Ruby Martin interviewed by pupils of St John’s Primary Ruby Martin was born in Jamaica in 1931. She came to the UK in 1961. She lives in Sparkhill. Interviewer: What were school lunches like?
A: What was your education like in Ireland?
A: Can you tell me about poverty?
B: Very very simple. Started school when we were seven and left at fourteen, and you left to work in someone’s house, scrubbing floors or minding children, something like that. We had a very simple education. But we could read and write, and we got by.
B: Well, poverty is not having enough food to go round, and not knowing where the next bit of cabbage and potatoes are gonna come from. You knew where they were gonna come from - from the garden - but there was nothing to replace them, you just carried on, more of the same thing, day after day. Friday, we had eggs. And that was it. Nothing like today, that doesn’t happen today, most people are better off than what the people here are.
M: Can you describe your life in Ireland? B: Well it’s been so long ago. I haven’t got any happy memories, and I mean that. Just, father and mother was there, every year, the factory holiday. We had two weeks in July, and I went home every year to spend the two weeks with them. And on the way back, I cried all the way, and I’d think, “I wish I’d never gone”, because of the pain here, in walking off and leaving them old people. And in them days, when you got your wage packet, first thing you done, sent - it was a ten shilling note you’d send ten shillings home to your father and mother every week, today that’s fifty pence, and carried that on ’til wages got a bit better, then you sent a pound, and that was it. And I always looked after my father and mother. Sometimes I needed the money myself, they didn’t know that. I put them first, and it’s all 6 come back to me. And I mean that, I’m a better person for it.
A: When we talked to you about the UK, you mentioned fish and chips a lot. What are fish and chips to you? B: Memories. Something I still like today, and I mean that. I used to really look forward to them then, and on the way home from work, sixpence, you’d get fish and chips, or just chips, with your sixpence, and enjoy them, instead of being hungry.
Ruby: School lunches? Well I used to have someone that takes my lunch to school, in a container they call a carrier, sometimes you see them in the shops here in the tin, but do you still have them in like a white porcelain two-storey or three-storey with an handle on it? So, someone would take my lunch to school, and then after I didn’t like the lunch coming to school we used to buy patties, cupcakes, flapjacks, and we used to sit in bunches of children and we would break a piece of what we had and give it to someone, someone break a piece of theirs and give it, so when you look at our plate, it would be loaded with different items on it, used to share. I: Is it a Jamaican tradition to share your food? R: Yes, we’re very kind hearted that way, to share, we don’t let anyone go hungry as long as we’ve got food. Whatever we’ve got, we break and we share, cos the Bible tells you that you should share. I: Like you shared the food, did you ever share anything else? R: Oh yes we shared many foods... in England, you’ve got people that do an allotment, but we call it a cultivation home that people do, and they plant yam and bananas and whatever, so they share it amongst the other people in the district where we live. I: Why did you come to England? R: Well my friend came to England first, and we used to correspond, and one day she wrote and she said, “why don’t you come to England as well?”, so this is how I came here, cos she’d asked me to. I: And do you like the food here?
R: Well I like my sort of food, not English food really, because you know it’s only potatoes really that are here. I: What did you think of England when you moved here? R: When I moved here, England was… halfway there. It was bad, it was, should I say it? There was a lot of racial tension here. I’d seen some of it but it was worse before I came, as I said there were people in the fifties that came here, maybe ten years in front of me, that experienced a lot of it more, but I have experienced some of the tensions, racism when I came here. I: Tell me more about that.
Well I like my sort of food, not English food really, because you know it’s only potatoes really that are here. R: Well, for sure, when I came, West Indian people started to buy houses, and Asian people, Pakistani people started to buy houses so that we could get a room to let. First, what I heard, which may be tittle tattle I don’t know, but I heard first when people came here, you couldn’t get anywhere to live. There were notes on the door, on the windows saying, “No Blacks, no Irish, no dogs”. I didn’t experience it, but there were people who came years before me, they experienced that. But what I did experience is going to a bread shop, standing in the queue to get a loaf of bread, with a man standing behind me, and the clerk look around me and says, “Can I help you?”, and the man says, “She was in front of me”, that’s how I got a loaf of bread. I: Tell me about your family meals in England R: My family meals in England, very nice. Nice dinners, because now that we can get the Caribbean food to buy, we have more or less the same thing like what we used to have in Jamaica. So we have nice curried goat, and rice and peas, ackee and salt fish, thanks to the people that own the shops and start getting them to, from the docks to Birmingham, so we could get them 7 to buy in the shops.
I: What was shopping like when you first came? R: When I came, it was just, as I said, potatoes, rice, flour, until there was two Asian brothers in Stratford Road, bottom of Stoney Lane and T & Harris, they open a provision shop, and they started to sell yam, bananas, and things like that. So when we left work on a Friday evening, we could go there and purchase our stuff for the weekend. I: How have the shops changed? R: Oh they’ve changed a lot. There used to be beautiful shops along Stratford Road. Woolworths, we had about three Woolworths shops in Stratford Road, a nice television shop, jewellers, but it’s all changed now. I: Did you ever have time to get things like jewellery and stuff?
R: Oh yes. There was a jewellery shop at the corner of St Johns Road and Stratford Road. I: Did you have any pudding? R: Oh yes. We used to have a pudding, because it was so cold when we came here, you see, when we came to this country, your kitchen was just enough room for a cabinet and a cooker. So we used to make jelly in a bowl, put it on the kitchen window and leave it overnight Saturday, and it would freeze for Sunday, so that we could have it for dessert. When I came here it was only £5 a week for earning, so you had to balance your money out to pay your rent and your gas, you had to clock two shillings to have a bath, two shillings to watch the television, two shillings to cook your dinner, so you had to balance your money out.
Margaret Buckley interviewed by Jaan and Bilal Margaret Bucklay was born in Small Heath, Birmingham in 1942. She lives in Sparkhill. Jaan/Bilal: How has the local area that you live in changed in your life time? Margaret: Well, it’s different cultures now, and I’ve only lived round here for 35 years, cos I lived most of my life in Small Heath. J/B: So what was it like living in Small Heath and then living here? M: They used to have football matches there every Saturday, and when we was children we used to mind the cars for the people what was going to the football match, and then after when they came out, they’d give us like, a shilling, or two shillings, for minding the cars! That was good. J/B: Can you tell me about the cars? Were they old? M: Yes, and they used to get out and we used to be playing hop scotch in the street, and they’d come out and we’d er, “Could we mind your car, sir? We’ll look after it”, then you’d say “Yes alright”. Then when they came back, they used to give us a shilling, which is ten pence today, or half a crown, and they used to say, “Thank you for minding our car, you’ve done a good job!” J/B: What were the things that you didn’t like, where you lived? M: Well, because I was born during the war, three of the houses where I was born, there was three next to the house where I was born which got bombed down. It was, I didn’t like it, I was only about two when the war was almost finished. There were some good times, and bad times. J/B: Can you tell me about the different jobs that you did when you were young?
M: In factories we used to make saucepan handles. And then I worked at a place where they made swan kettles, and I was on the assembly line of that. J/B: What was it like going to the cinema? M: I used to go to the cinema a lot on my own. We used to go to the matinee, me and my sister, and we sat there and watched Superman, Batman, I used to like Roy Rogers, he was a famous cowboy. J/B: Where did you go to the cinema? M: I used to go, there was one called the Kingston, by the Blues ground. Then there was one called the Coronet along the Coventry Road, and The Grange. I used to go to various ones. J/B: And how do you feel about the one that’s gone now, on the Stratford Road? M: The Piccadilly? It used to be the Piccadilly. I’ve never been there. I’ve never been to that one. It’s a banqueting hall now, there’s no cinemas there! J/B: Was it black and white? M: There was black and white, there was colour films as well. Chris: Did you used to go and watch anything in Small Heath? M: I used to take my sister’s children. We walked round the park, which was on Coventry Road in Small Heath. We used to go there, me and my cousin, we used to take our sister’s children out for walks in the park in the pram. That was mainly of a Sunday. It was quite interesting, they had shows on in the park as well, sometimes. So we used to go and sit down and watch the people singing and doing their acts. The people that put the shows on in the park in the summer, you’d have people singing, they’d take off Tommy Steele, people like that, but they was quite good, and we enjoyed it. And they used to have, you know the band stand in Sparkhill Park, they used to have brass bands there as well, and we used to go and listen to that.
M: Yes well I did factory work. 8
J/B: What kind of factory work?
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Sheila Thompson interviewed by Hansa and Salihah Sheila Thompson was born in Nevis, West Indies in 1939. She came to the UK in 1959. She lives in Sparkhill. Hansa/Salihah: Can you tell us your early memories including food? Sheila: Yes, there was different types of food. Mostly, when we were little, we used to have loads and loads of fruit. So when it was dinner time, mostly we didn’t want any food cos we had that much fruit, cos they were fresh, we used to just go into the garden and pick them off. We had apple trees, we used to climb the trees, pick the apples, soursops, we had pineapples, all different type of fruit. The most times my mother used to get upset, cos we wouldn’t eat the dinners, cos all the fruit, different fruit, so much fruit. H/S: Who else did you go and pick the fruit with? S: My friends, mostly. You would prefer to be with your friends than your sister! My sister was younger than I am, and my friends were the same age as I am, and I’ll tell you a little secret, we used to go to the neighbour’s garden and pinch their fruits as well! [laughs] H/S: How was your journey to the UK- did you like it? S: Well, the journey to the UK the first time was, we came on the boat, so we saw different countries, and actually I came here to study nursing, but when I went to the hospital, it was very racist and I did not like it. I went straight to Nottingham hospital, and after a couple of months I left and went to London to be with my relatives. H/S: Did you have any difficulties in the UK when you arrived?
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S: Well only when I went to the hospital to nurse, because they were a bit racist. I didn’t take it,
take an offence, all I did was, I was gonna leave, and go back to my cousins in London. It wasn’t so difficult, just that we wasn’t welcome, and I thought well if I’m not welcome here, I’ll go where I’m welcome. H/S: How did you react when that happened? S: Just normal, show them that I was the better person. So that’s how you act when somebody be racist to you. H/S: When they were being racist, what did they do to you? S: Say different names, spit on you, things like that, which isn’t very nice, and yeah most, one time, I meant to hit somebody, but I thought, “No! Pull back quick”, cos if I did that I would be the same as the same, the person that was being nasty. H/S: What do you think of a British style of food?
We had loads and loads of mangoes, and we used to kick football with mangoes, play cricket with mangoes, now you’ve got to buy one mango for £2.50! S: I think it’s okay, because it’s what the British are accustomed to, well we get into it sometimes because instead of doing my own foods that I’m accustomed to, we just mix it, like you have one day of West Indian food and another day of English food, like roast potatoes. H/S: What foods did you miss when you came to the UK? S: Fresh fruits off the trees. Because there’s a lot of food here but they’re not fresh, I couldn’t just go and pick something. Like white bananas. My father had a plantation where he had lots and lots of banana trees, and so when the bananas are full, he used to chop them off, put them in a bowl with the dry leaves, and when they’re ripe, just gives us full hand, and you’d take them to school and share it with your friends. I used to love that!
H/S: What foods did you miss when you came to the UK? S: At first, fresh fish. Which again, my dad had pots, which he used to put at certain parts of the sea, we used to pull them in, and they had a lot of fresh fish, there was always fresh fish, always had fresh foods. So mostly I miss, and when he used to butcher pigs himself, or a cow himself, we just share it with the family. So all those things were fresh, they were what we missed, the freshness of the foods. H/S: Were there any foods that you tried first in the UK, and if so what were they? S: We used to have something that was called Whelks. I think they still sell it in the market. And when I came to this country, I saw it and I thought, “Ooh great! We’ve got whelks”, and I bought some, brought it home, thinking it was cooked like we do, and it was raw. And I never bought it since. H/S: When did you first eat a banana? S: Oh, when I was little! [laughs] We had bananas, we had guineps, we had pineapple, we had grapefruit, which I didn’t like much, we had loads and loads of mangoes, and we used to kick football with mangoes, play cricket with mangoes, now you’ve got to buy one mango for £2.50! H/S: How has the local area changed in your life time? S: In Sparkhill? Changed a lot, there’s so many Asian shops just selling clothes. There’s not much food shops on the Stratford Road as we knew it when we came first, so we have to go further afield. That’s a big change that we had, yeah.
H/S: Tell us about your father’s plantation. S: We had Mangoes, we had nuts, we had peas, and on one side of here is cattle, we used to graze on one side, and the goats. The pigs used to be in the back yard of where we lived, and the chickens. And he grew loads and loads of stuff, even though he had a job at the sugar factory. He used to get this bloke who used to keep the plantation clean, and when he’s off work, he used to go and help. H/S: Where did you get West Indian food from when you arrived in the UK?
It is a tradition with the West Indians that whatever you’ve got, you share. S: We started asking in the shops, “Would you get this?”, and there was an Asian man that used to live, that used to be on, in Balsall Heath, I can’t remember the name, facing the mosque anyway, and they used to sell fish, so then we used to start asking, cos we everybody used to go there to get fish, cos that was the only shop with the fish, and we started asking, “Are you gonna get some breadfruit are you? Are you gonna get some sweet potatoes?”, and so they start bringing it in, slowly. And they started doing it in the market, so then we left him and went to the market, cos it was cheaper! H/S: Was it a tradition to share food with your friends? Cos in Jamaica that was. S: It is a tradition with the West Indians that whatever you’ve got, you share. Cos I tell you, with my father and his plantation, whenever he used to go and reap whatever he’d got planted, my mother used to just share it around with all the neighbours. And when she done the dinner, if the next door neighbour, they hadn’t finished yet, she’d get all the kids in, and then everybody would just, we never used to sit at the table, we just would stand at the door, wherever, and we all used to just eat, enjoy yourselves and be happy. 11
Yusuf interviewing his neighbour Eileen Dawe
and things got better then, everything came off rationing. I don’t know whether the teachers have ever told you about rationing, when you was only rationed you was only allowed so much per week. And when you’d had that, you had to go without. Y: And did you have any chickens?
Yusuf: I’m Yusuf, I’m going to be interviewing my next door neighbour about her food experience. So when was the first time you ate a banana or something like that?
N: We could get chicken and we could get beef, we used to have a nice big Sunday roast when we was little, but as the years went on, things started to come into the country, we were okay.
Neighbour: Ooh, well when I had a banana my lad, I was about six or seven. And honestly, I didn’t know what they were. I’d heard about bananas and I didn’t know they were that shape, I can tell you, and I was speechless, I always thought they were round or something like that, but when I first had a banana I thought, well this is it now, sheer bliss.
Y: When you came to Birmingham, what did you feel the food was gonna be like?
Y: So what kind of foods did you eat before you were here in Birmingham? N: When I was small you mean? Y: Yeah N: Well, you had to eat what you could get hold of. You see, I was brought up after the war, and there was no food about, so you just had what your mother could dole out. I mean sometimes, you didn’t have a meal, because you couldn’t afford to buy one. You’ve heard of OXOs haven’t you? Those little square things? We used to have some of that with a piece of toast - and that was our dinner. Y: So was that when you were very little? N: Yes, when I was small, that’s all she could afford. Y: So when you were in Birmingham, was that all you ate? Like, bread and… N: Yes, well as the war become, when the war, you’ve heard about the war? Y: Yeah, the world war. N: Well when the war was over and the food started to come into the shops, providing your mother could afford 12 it, we used to have a Sunday joint,
N: Well, I was born in Birmingham, so I don’t know any different. Y: So have you always liked the food here? N: Yes yes, I like the food here. I don’t go for foreign foods, or anything like that, I stick to English foods. Y: So have you ever ate any other food, like Afghan food?
Y: How was the food sharing? Was it hard to share the food?
Y: And then once you got older, how was the food like then?
N: Well, it was really. I mean, you know, if you was hungry and you wanted something, I’m afraid it was a case of, “Well you’ve had your share, there’s no more”. But we managed, you do manage. But now, food is so plentiful, it’s unbelievable.
N: You see it took years for it to sort of work itself right. But when you’re your age you don’t take any notice, all you want to do is go out and play, you’re not worrying about household things. Know what I mean?
Y: During the war, have you ever wanted more food to have, if you were hungry?
You’ve heard of OXOs haven’t you? Those little square things? We used to have some of that with a piece of toast - and that was our dinner.
Y: During the war, have you ever been really hungry and you haven’t had food? N: No, I don’t think so. We were brought up to eat what was put in front of you. If you didn’t like it, you just had to go without, so it encouraged you to eat everything that was put in front of you, whether you wanted it or not. Y: So there was no choice? N: No, there was no choice. You just had what your mother put in front of you, end of story. Y: And was there, on the book, could you order anything? N: No, there was no choice of, you just had what was in the shops. You can’t imagine what it was like in those days. It was incredibly hard. How some of the mothers coped I do not know. As I say I was the youngest of six, and I had to have all my sisters’ hand-me-down clothes. Now, I can go out and buy whatever I want, when I want.
N: Yes yes, I’ve eaten Chinese, I like Chinese, because that’s not too spicy, I don’t like spicy food.
N: Well, you just didn’t ask. You just didn’t ask, cos when you’re young, like you, you don’t take life seriously. If it’s not there, then you just go without.
Y: During the war, was it hard to collect food?
Y: During the war, what did you have for dinner?
N: Yes it was very hard, very hard. What you had to do, before the war was over, well, after the war was over, if you wanted, say, some bananas or apples or oranges you had what they call a ration book. And this ration book you had to take to the grocers, and they had to mark it at the back to say you’d had it. And it was always in a pencil that you couldn’t rub out so you couldn’t go back and start again! That’s what it was like then, until you come off the rationing.
N: Dinner, well, we used to have things like, which you wouldn’t eat today, how should I say, beef’s kidney, heart, liver. But you couldn’t get anything like steak, or anything like that, no, you just couldn’t, you know, you had to sort of have the cheaper meal at the end of the scale, if you know what I mean.
Y: Did you come from a poor family?
Y: So you bought stuff?
N: No, I will say this though, the neighbours in those days, if you hadn’t got anything, they’d come and bring a bit to you, and vice versa if you know what I mean. You give to them and they give to you.
Y: So you had to have like, a limit of food? N: That’s right. There was a limit per family. Every member of the family had a ration book. If mother had got six children you’d have six books, and you can get a little bit of allowance, say for you, and then to come to the sweets, you was allowed how many sweets coupons, I think it was for the week, and once you’d used your ration up for the sweet coupons, you can’t get any sweets. But you couldn’t get any sweets! There was no sweets.
N: Yes, we bought stuff. And we had to queue for it. I mean if you wanted, say, my mom used to send me over the road, say, for a cooking apple or something like that, you’d have to take your ration book with you, and have it marked and then that’s it and you’d see how much you’d got left for the next time. Y: Is that what you had to do every time you went to get food? N: Yes, ’til the rationing came off, definitely.
N: No no we didn’t come from a poor family! We were sort of say, ‘make do and mend’ sort of family, if you know what I mean. Y: Have you ever borrowed food from someone?
Y: So it was like swapping around? N: Yes, and everybody was in the same boat together, so everybody sort of helped each other. Y: And the area you lived in - was there plenty of food there?
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worked in different factories doing machining, hospitals, all type of jobs. Y/A: Did you have any difficulties when you came to the UK? M: No, why? Because Jamaica was ruled under the British colony, so the custom of the British was similar to us, so we had no difficulty. Y/A: What food did you eat when you first came to the UK? M: We didn’t have a lot of West Indian food like now. What we used to have, potato, cabbages, turnips, rice, and recently when, y’know, things get popular, this late sixties, we begin to have the West Indian food, we have banana, breadfruit, sugar cane and things like that. Y/A Did you have Jamaican food? M: We would go to the shops and because we are accustomed to the English food, it was no problem. We had chips, fish, everything, beef burgers, everything the same way. N: Well, yes and no. How can I say, when it come off rationing, yes, it was okay, but until the rationing came off, you couldn’t get butter, there was no butter, you had to have margarine. And it wasn’t like margarine today, it was like cart grease, it was horrible, horrible… Y: The food there, did you have apples and all that? N: Yes, we had apples, yes. It was the bananas we couldn’t get hold of! Y: And the bananas, were they hard to get? N: Well, when they first, mind you, I will admit, when they first come out, I was greedy and had two! Which gave me indigestion, but as a child I didn’t know what indigestion was. But I thought it was lovely. And I’ll tell you another thing we used to have. If mom hadn’t got any money, she used to, when she cooked cabbage, we used to, you wouldn’t like this, we used to drink the cabbage water, and put an OXO in, and that was like a soup for us!
Marian Smith interviewed by Yusuf and Abdulrahman
Y/A When did you first eat a banana?
Marian Smith was born in Jamaica in 1931. She came to the UK in 1961. She lives in Sparkhill.
M: Well, some of us didn’t like it, because we weren’t accustomed to that, we had proper paper or whatever, you know. So you just got to adapt this principle of what others are doing.
Yusuf & Abdulrahman: Can you describe your early memories including food and home cooking? Marian: Well, we West Indians love cooking! We love chicken, we love rice and peas, we love vegetables, fruits, and we are from a country that had a lot of fruit, and I love to cook. Y/A: Have you got a reason you came to the UK? M: Reason? Well, yes, I was a young married wife, or what you said, and my husband was a general builder, so we came to this country on a contract of building, so we worked all our life. Y/A: And did you have a job here?
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M: Yes, every job, I worked in the hospitals, I
M: I was brought up, my dad was a farmer, and they used to grow these bananas, and they shipped them to England. Y/A: What did you think about fish and chips inside newspapers?
Y/A: When you came to the UK, did you miss any food from Jamaica? M: Yes, in a way. Because as I’ve said, the fish that we were accustomed to at home, it was quite different to the ones that they had here. We used to get, what do you call it, plaice, hake, and other fish, but in our homes, you got to make what you have do. We were quite happy.
People say it wasn’t cleaner, but where I live it would always be clean. When the children go to school, and the milkman would come and leave the milk by the door, or the bread, our neighbours would pick them up for us. If the children go to school, forget to close the door, our neighbour would come over. Cos as matter of fact there was only two blacks on the road where I live, and we all get along. My children play with their children, come over, they go to the park together. We always go to church on a Saturday, the children, you know. Y/A: What are your favourite shops on the Stratford Road? M: At the moment, Aldi. Aldi and, what do you call the other one, halal. We buy mutton there, we buy chicken there, and a lot of veg. We love salads, tomato, turnips, all those stuff. Y/A: What don’t you like about the local area? M: What I don’t like is the untidiness of the streets, you know. People eat along sometimes, they go along, they’ll be eating and drop the papers on the ground. You say to them, “Pick that up! You didn’t find that there”, not because we are, you know, but I love a tidy place, I love cleanliness. Y/A: How was the area in Jamaica? M: As I’ve said, you live to what you can afford. My husband was a general builder, their wage was good! So we were able to live according to our means. Y/A: Was it a rich area or a poor area? M: Well we would have said, medium. But where we lived, we all mixed together. We go to the same shops, everybody shops together. You buy to what you can afford. Those days there were not crime like now, we weren’t scared of each other.
Y/A: How has the local area changed in your life time? M: Here? Well it changed a lot. Because when we came here the street was much cleaner.
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Fyffes Warehouse, Coventry, 2018. Europe’s biggest banana ripening facility.
The first banana’s after World War II. Bethnal Green, East London, 1946.
Oral histories as part of The Endless Village, Aspex Gallery, Portsmouth, 2018.
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Restaurant ‘Hajee’s Spices’,Stratford Road,Sparkhill (formerly The Antelope Public House, famous for its bas-relief carvings designed by local artist William Bloye).
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Further Information Narthex “Narthex Sparkhill is a Charity that works to promote inter-cultural harmony. We aim to do this by bringing together local people, voluntary and other organisations in an effort to advance education and to provide facilities in the interest of social welfare, recreation and leisure. The purpose of this is to improve the conditions and quality of life of the people of Sparkhill.” St John’s St John’s CE Primary School is a two-form entry school in Sparkhill, Birmingham. St John’s was last inspected by Ofsted in November 2014. The last Church school inspection was in March 2018. They were graded ‘outstanding’ for all elements in both reports. General Public General Public is the collaborative platform of artists Elizabeth Rowe and Chris Poolman. Broadly speaking, they devise large scale public art projects that incorporate elements of fiction, myth-making, local history reinvention and heritage rebooting. Often this process involves reworking or inverting an established model or institutional structure. Their approach is interdisciplinary and collaborative: they produce artworks (writing, film, print), devise collaborative frameworks, organise events, curate / commission other artists. Previous projects have included a reinterpretation of the biennale concept in inner city Birmingham (Balsall Heath Biennale, 2011–2013), a science fiction themed light festival exploring the politics of regeneration (Longbridge Light Festival, 2014), a competition resulting in 4000 new coins (with a specific cultural value: free museum access) for an inner city area of Birmingham (Handsworth Currency Competition, 2014–15) and an 18-month touring exhibition that used the migratory movements of hop pickers as the conceptual basis for a tour (The Hop Project, 2016–17). www.generalpublic.org.uk
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The Endless Village The Endless Village is an exhibition investigating life, localism and trade relations in an imagined future post-Brexit Britain. The exhibition’s central element is a sitcom pilot, ‘Banana Day’, which presents a satirical meditation on future daily life in NFKATUK (the Nation Formerly Known As The UK): It is 2066, 50 years since Brexit and 1000 years since the Norman conquest. A devolution revolution has gripped the public consciousness as countries then counties seek political control on a local level, leading to a succession of tribes, small self-sufficient communities, and ‘endless villages’. The resulting breakdown in global trade renders legally-sourced bananas virtually nonexistent. But each year in Kingdom#3, a special community celebration is held, called Banana Day, to celebrate the forbidden fruit. Why do Kingdom#3 insist on celebrating the banana, an unavailable fruit with a colonial history? How will they find a banana in time for Banana Day? And what ethical compromise will its purchase entail? The Endless Village is written and produced by General Public, with a cast of professional actors, and shot by Oli Clark, a filmmaker whose TV credits include the BAFTA award winning series Coast. Alongside the moving image work, the exhibition features props and costumes from the film, historical material documenting the global banana trade, Toby jugs of politicians involved in Brexit, archive news footage, interviews with elderly residents of Sparkbrook, fictional artifacts from life in NFKATUK, and of course, bananas. 30 March – 10 June 2018 Aspex Gallery (Portsmouth) 2 June – 21 July 2018 Eastside Projects (Birmingham)
As well as featuring in this publication, the interviews also feature in an exhibition called The Endless Village which is on at two contemporary art galleries in 2018 (Aspex Gallery, Portsmouth, and Eastside Projects, Birmingham). The project was supported with funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund. The wider project is conceived and produced by General Public (artists Elizabeth Rowe and Chris Poolman). Thank you Narthex Centre – Dyan O’Garro & Mary Carroll; St John’s Primary School – Mrs Hudson-Evans, Miss Clarke, Mrs Hughes and Mrs O’Keefe; Oral historian Helen Lloyd Interviewees Sheila Thompson (aged 78), Bridie Bradshaw (aged 87), Ruby Martin (aged 86), Margaret Buckley (aged 75) and Marian Smith (aged 86), Eileen Dawe (Yusuf’s neighbour) Interviewers Hansa and Salihah, Mariam and Ayman, Jaan and Bilal, Yusuf and Abdulrahman ISBN 978-0-9929667-1-3