VICTORIA SIBTHORPE July 1928 by her son JOHN
We were born in the fifties just after the war really, so things were just the way they were. Ours was the kind of home where your Dad ruled. Life had its ups and downs; some days we would have loads of money, some days we wouldn’t’. My Dad Ronald Victor Sibthorpe was a gambler, but he was also an entrepreneur. He used to make shakers and he would import fish from Africa and sell it at the market. He was good at what he did, so we would never starve. There was always food on the table, you know what I mean, and we had good clothes. Victoria S Robert, my mum, made our clothes. When I went to school she made my trousers. When I was young and couldn’t afford flares , my Mum made them for me. My Mother was half Spanish, half Irish, she had long Black hair. I suppose a bit of a beaut’ really. She was one the few whose hair stayed Black, most of my Aunties went blond. I don’t know why, probably because they thought that it was – Black man’s kryptonite. Nearly every one of my Aunties or Mum’s friends who were with Black people at some point or other dyed their hair blond, but my Mother stayed Black haired. I think they met at a forces club and got married at Salford – Registrar, I believe. Mum’s sister married a guy from Sierra Leone. Her brother married a white girl, so it’s weird to say, that we have a white cousin, whereas all the rest of the family are half caste. Mum had six siblings; my Auntie Marion, Auntie Adie, Auntie Doris, Auntie Minnie who died, a brother called George and a brother called Victor, who died.
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