Tru Talk

TRU-TALK

Tru-Talk Produced with the support of

Tru-Tales Team Representing National Black Arts Alliance: SuAndi. Sadie Lund. Kate Swainson.

Stephen Hodgkiss Designs. RFM. Charity 1065810 www.blackartists.org.uk. baa@blackartists.org.uk

Lockdown due to COVID 2020-2021 took many things from us that we accepted as normal to our lives. What we quickly discovered is that missing the company of others left a huge void. Gathering together; whether for a celebration, a meal or simply to enjoy each others’ company was forbidden as a threat to the greater good and health of others.

Thankfully technology advancement meant that there was a way to talk, reminisce, to laugh, sometimes shed a tear and to share a story. This is Tru-Talk

Tru-Talk Story Tellers The Pay Cheque Afshan D'souza-Lodhi. Dubai, United Arab Emirates 1992 Reminisces Of Guyana Betty Aileen Luckham. Buxton east coast Guyana 1930 Elroy Bisakha Sarker. Kolkata, India 1944 Five Rules Gwen Lindo. St Kitts 1936 Her Work Done Josephine Deane. Nevis, St Kitts 1935 The Pudding Lover and The Beautiful Doll Lorna Salame´. Jamaica 1950 Lost Socks and There are bigger places than Manchester Louis Felstead. Manchester 1962 I Am Woman Blessed Palorine Williams. St Vincent 1955 The Millet Field Sundar Kanta Walker. Illawalpur, Jalandhar, Punjab, India. 1944.

The Real Father Christmas and Crafty Cats Vian Louise Christian. Pecks Lane, Jamaica 1924 Simple Kindness Wilma Deane. Nevis, St Kitts 1956

REMINISCES OF GUYANA I recall my life in Guyana, in those days British Guiana, the capital being Georgetown.

As a little girl I would wake up and after breakfast, make my way downstairs to our back garden. This had a large vat which held the rainwater used for domestic purposes.

The yard had a “downs tree” among others, straight and tall, and it had two main branches. I usually waited until my brother came down and he chose which branch he wanted to climb and I was happy to climb the other.

Our Nana was known as Aunt Ella, hired by my parents to help to look after us as children. When the time came our Nana would find the tricycle and get my brother organised to depart for school. During the week, my brother Desmond, attended a Nursery school. I would stand at the gate and watch them depart, and I felt downhearted at being left alone.

Many years later, I recall making my way to St. Joseph’s High School, run by the Sisters of Mercy. This was a few miles away from home, but when my sister Joan started to attend I was expected to cycle while she sat on the carrier at the back of the bike. Really hard work! !

After a couple of terms, my sister Joan was given her own bicycle, and could accompany me. Riding alongside.

When it came to leaving school, I took the exams at age 14 years 11 months. I took my ‘O’ levels, and when I told the Headmistress of St. Gabriel, that I was leaving she said that I could not. This was December 1944, and I would be 15 years the next Month of January. But I sat there firmly and would not budge.

The next few years were spent helping out and in particular my Aunt Millie who was very unwell.

A couple of years later I learned office skills - shorthand and typing and eventually got a job in the Civil Service.

Betty

THE MILLET FIELD They decided to do things differently this year. Instead of sharing the crop with the farmer as a partner they decided that they wanted it all. After all, they had their own water and all that was required of someone was to plough the land with their tractor and sow the field. Millet, they decided would be a good choice. It made nutritious chapatis and they could sell the rest and use the stalks for fodder for the cattle and sell that too!

"It is a smart move, they both thought." They paid Shankar the young farmer over the odds to sow the Field and, now all that grew in it would be theirs! Daily they walked to the field together to see how it was doing. When the first green shoots, appeared they jumped up and down with excitement. They felt the moisture of the soil and when it felt a little dry, they watered it with the flick of a switch. If they saw a weed, they promptly pulled it up.

Their daily together journeys became a source of interest and ridicule by the village children. They waited for them to pass by and then shouted out, ‘There come the two old doves – love- birds’. They kept calling after them, ‘Kabootar, Kabootari’. A couple rarely walked together it was not the done, thing. But this couple had returned from England where things were done in the English way!

They started taking their lunch to the millet field and sat there drinking tea from an English flask and keeping an eye on the field. No-one could now use the field as a latrine and hide in the lush growth. They were there guarding it from morning till night.

The millet field was a sight to see emerald-green, tall and with thick fronds of pollen hung heavy, ready to turn into long ears drooping with heavy millet. They had to be more vigilant now as crows and other predators were ready to strip the field bare. They began to carry two tin cans and sticks to beat them with all their strength till no birds were in sight.

The old woman made a scarecrow from tree branches and dressed it with the old man’s trousers, a shirt and then made a face out of a woolly sock and lastly put his old English balaclava hat on. This was his favorite hat he used in the winter months to go to work to keep the cold away from his ears! It was not needed in Sare Mare.

They got more visitors to the milled field who came expressly to look at the English Scarecrow. The old man and the woman thought that they were after their millet. They became even more vigilant and came earlier and stayed longer at night. They learnt from Paras later that the English Scarecrow was the subject of much interest and visits.

The millet crop was now ready to be gathered They decided to cut the long millet ears with scythes and sell the rest of the scythed crop for fodder. She held a sickle in her hand, and he had a sickle in his hand to gather their much loved harvest.

All day long they crawled on their haunches and cut millet corn. In the hot noonday sun, they worked on not allowing themselves time for a drink or something to eat. As the sun was setting, they had cut the last ear of millet.

Their job was accomplished and old Ramu and Jaya gave a sigh of relief as they tried to stand up falteringly. Weary but pleased with their labours, they sat surrounded by piles of millet ears bent with corn!

They drank some water and got up again stiff and weary with their legs and arms aching. It took them a long time to put piles of millet ears together into a little heap that resembled a little hill. They both flattened it down to ensure that it was not too obvious for someone to take away their crop. They hoped to carry it all in sacks next morning. They covered the mound up neatly with sheets of hessian sacking, and slowly walked home feeling satisfied with the fruits of their labour.

Next morning Old Jaya got up with severe leg cramps and a throbbing painful head, and the old man was too tired to get up. After brewing tea for both, of them she poured it into two mugs and took it to bed. They stayed and sipped it in bed, and rested a lot longer knowing that the harvest was done, and the rich millet crop was safe.

The sun was high when they reached the field and they were already hot, breathless, and perspiring. The old couple were however pleased to see that their millet crop was still covered with the hessian sheet as they had left it! ‘Let us put millet corn ears in the sacks and take our time. We don’t want to get sick now that the job is nearly done’. When Ramu picked a handful of ears up they seemed very light. He held them to the Sun, and they could both see the ears were just empty husks with no grain of millet left!

An army of ants had feasted during the night and they had marched and taken the millet to their store, grain by grain during the night. The old man and woman sat weary and stunned not willing to believe what they saw! Another attempt on their part to be self-sufficient had evaporated before their eyes like the morning mist.

After their wasted harvest of Millet, the old man and the old woman became distanced from each other. The old man, as usual blamed her for making him put in all that toil that ended up in a complete waste of time. The old woman believed that she had offended the Gods somewhere along the way in her life.

She felt that was one of the reasons that out of her three sons, not even one was willing to return to share their good fortune. In order, to propitiate the Gods, she started fasting on Tuesdays, she also went to the Shiva temple to pray, and for good measure also went to the Sikh Gurdwara to join in the prayers.

Kanta

THE PUDDING LOVER This is a story about my dear Uncle Arthur a legend in our family as is my Mother, Sissy, and my Grandmother who I always called Miss Mack or Aunt’s Sister, as everybody in our community did.

When they were young, my Grandmother would rub up (as we would say in Jamaica), a Casava Corn or a corn meal pudding, or a potato pudding for their treat at the weekends. My Uncle Arthur, he loved pudding, he loved corn, he loved it.

This particular weekend my grandmother, Miss Mack, she rubbed one up and left it cooling, in the pudding pan. Everybody had gone out – then my Uncle was the first one back. So, he looked at it, and he couldn’t wait until my grandmother come, because as I said he loved it so much, so he cut off a huge piece of the pudding and he enjoyed it, or I hope he enjoyed it. He knew he was going to be in trouble, but he couldn’t help himself.

So, I guess in his mind he came up with a plan. My Mum used to wear lipstick.

So what he did was – he went in to my Mum’s little bag with her bits of makeup and he took out one of her red lipsticks and he smeared it on the side of the pudding pan. When my Grandmother came home of course she went to the pudding, because of course she was going to have a piece and you know, share it. Uncle Albert he gone to bed.

Miss Mack see at once a piece of the pudding gone, a big piece. Then she saw the red lipstick round the rim. Anyway, she didn’t wake him, she didn’t say anything.

When my Mum came home she said ‘Sissy, did you eat some of the pudding, because there is some of your lipstick round the rim of the pan?’ Sissy said, ‘No I wasn’t here, I just came in. So ‘no’.

But my Grandmother had already put two and two together and come up with twenty-two; knowing that the pudding loving man is my Uncle Arthur. She let him sleep on then in the morning, when he woke up, she called him and she said ‘Arthur what happened to the pudding?’

He said ‘Oh but Sissy blah, blah’. She said ‘No, Sissy wasn’t here, and I know sir you are the pudding lover’. So of course my Grandmother, as we would say, box him backside and then of course, he confessed that he is the one that ate the pudding.

Now it is a legendary story in our family, any time we get together…. The last time we all got together, in Jamaica, it was 2015 for our family reunion… and that is one of the stories that is always being told. Miss Mack, my Grandmother has passed away, my Mum sadly has also passed away, but between my Auntie Polly and my Uncle Austin, we all know this story because it has been passed down through the family, the story of my Uncle Arthur, the pudding lover.

Lorna

LOST SOCKS Ok I am going to tell you a little story about my Mum Coca Clarke and the outings we did, year on year, during holiday time. I suppose I am reflecting on holiday times now because we are just coming out of lockdown and we have to do staycations, well as a child, staycations were holidays for us.

For us a holiday was a day trip to Blackpool. My Mum would get us all new clothes for the day trip that we were going on. We would all have swimming costumes, so we knew that we were going to the beach at Mum’s favourite place, which was Blackpool. My Mum had been brought up in Blackpool by her Mum and Dad. There were lots of things that we would do. Every single year we would go to the place where my Granddad used to do his performances on the North Pier. Mum would always say that was her favourite place, when she was a child. Blackpool was always a fun place to us as a kids too.

So, this is how it would start. We would get up in the morning and we would find all our clothes and everything else. On normal days it was often first up, best dressed, but not on holiday day. We would all get up get our togs on and then we would literally get stuffed into the car and go to Blackpool. We wouldn’t get the train, we would get in whatever it was available. Sometimes Mum would either organise two cars to take us all there.

Because there were seven of us we could only go to Blackpool once a year, but what fun times we had. We loved the Pleasure Beach1 because it was cheap then, the Fun House2 and it was the cheapest thing to go in, and there were lots of different activities. We always had ice cream and rock, play in the sand and invariably whether it was sunny or not, we went on the donkeys. So the Blackpool holidays were really, really, special for us. For the whole family. All Coca’s kids, all dressed up to the nines, with our swimsuits and picnic. Picnics! You know picnics in them days was bread and butter, piece of fruit, possibly a biscuit and packet of crisps with fruit juice.

This particular year my sister Barbara couldn’t find her new socks. There was no way Mum was taking her to Blackpool wearing old socks - she had to have on the new pair. We searched high and low for these new socks. We lived in a really big house by the way. Three stories. An attic where we all slept, and a second level where my Aunt and her family slept and the downstairs level kitchen and living room and everything. which we all shared.

1 2

https://www.blackpoolpleasurebeach.com/ 1994 Fire gutted the 50-year-old building, the famous laughing clown survived.

Barbara couldn’t find her socks so my Mum decided to leave her at home! So it was we arrived in Blackpool, minus Barbara. Because of Mum’s strict routine we always left at the same time roundabout around ten or eleven o’clock from Manchester. Obviously it’s not a long journey. This is really weird, it’s not a long journey, but after living in London, anywhere longer than 20 minutes is a long journey. But from Manchester to Blackpool is not far at all.

About two hours after getting there, Barbara turned up – in her new dress, wearing her new sandals, everything but no socks!

It turned out that my Uncle had visited the house and found Barbara sat there upset with no socks on and in tears, saying ‘Mum has gone on holiday without me’. My Uncle Harry drove trucks to deliver things around the country. He put her in his truck and drove her to Blackpool. He was so upset with my Mum for leaving Barbara at home because she couldn’t find her new socks, that he decided to take it upon himself to take her on to our holiday.

What holidays those days were. They were the real original Staycations. I wouldn’t swap them for the world.

Louise

THE REAL FATHER CHRISTMAS My godfather, his name is Joseph Enrickets, he was a very nice man, very kind. He married with Auntie, my Auntie Lena.

This day he came with this big paper parcel, paper parcel, rough paper parcel with grease on it, and I said to him ‘Dad’– we used to call him Dad. I said, ‘What have you got there’ and he said ‘Mind your own business’. And I thought, ‘no, my godfather never say that to me, so he has got something up there’.

He handed my grandmother this parcel and she took it away and I don’t know what happened to it.

It was near Christmas and Christmas morning, I wake up and looked through my window blind and through to my Grandmother’s bedroom and looked around and didn’t see no present.

I said to my Granny, ‘Mamma’ we call her Mamma, I said ‘That Father Christmas didn’t bring anything for me, is that because I was naughty’.

She said, ‘Wait a minute let me help you look’. And she went into this big trunk and take out all this greasy paper that I saw my godfather with when he came in one day. She undo it quick, and she took this stuff out.

It was then I realised that there wasn’t any true Father Christmas. It was them buying the toys and saying it was Father Christmas. I will never forget that day.

The toy was a little bed and a wagon. Do you know what a wagon is?

Something like say a case, with glass to the bottom and wood on the top, that you can hang a toy and put in odds and sods and that is what I got for Christmas.

Vian

THE BEAUTIFUL DOLL I am originally from Montego Bay, Jamaica. And when I was about seven or eight years old my Great Aunt Winnie, (Winifred Miller to be exact) had migrated to the UK and she used to send us barrels with lots of wonderful things, foods, clothes and toys. When I was seven years old, she sent me a beautiful dolly. And this doll, it was as tall as I was. It was a huge dolly and she was beautiful. She had beautiful hair, a beautiful dress on. She had shoes and she had one of those things in her back that when you tilted her forwards and back, she would make the baby crying sound. And I loved that dolly and that dolly was a big hit in our neighbourhood. Loads of children and adults would come to our house, to our veranda, just to see the doll, and she could walk as well.

Well, we had a neighbour and his name was Jango and he had twin girls.

He lived at the back of us on a road called Longmans and we used to call it Longman’s corner. I don’t remember the girls’ names, but unfortunately one of the twins died.

I remember when I was small, I used to love to go to Deadyard (Nine nights3) set up because you would see the naked light bulbs hanging down.

But this time it was a very sad time in our community – because a child had died, but she was one of a twin. The concern and the culture was that ‘Oh my gosh, one of them has died and the other one is going to be all alone etc’ and the one that has passed is going to be without her twin.

When it was time for her funeral, her box was built in her yard. By Mr Tom, he was like the official coffin builder. They would go down to the lumberyard and buy the lumber. You would see the beautiful purple satin that they used to line the box even a child’s box.

They put my dolly in with the little girl. I am not sure who come up with the idea, but my family decided that when it was the burial, they would give my dolly to the family to put with her in the coffin. I must say even though at that time I was small - I didn’t feel bad about it, because they sat me down and explained to me. I think somehow I understood that she was going to be lonely, so my dolly would take the place of her twin and that was it, that is what happened to my dolly.

Lorna

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Nine-Nights, also known as Dead Yard, is a funerary tradition practiced in the Caribbean (primarily Belize, Antigua, Grenada, Dominica, Jamaica, Guyana, Trinidad and Haiti). It is an extended wake that lasts for several days, with roots in African religious tradition. During this time, friends and family come together to the home of the deceased. They share their condolences and memories while singing hymns and eating food together.

HER WORK IS DONE Josephine Deane (nee James) was born on the island of Nevis on 7th July 1935. 22 years later in 1957 leaving not only her parents but also her 2 infant children, she set sail for England. To join her husband. ("Mama sent me to Needle School"). A trained seamstress, her talent was quickly recognised. So by the early 1960's she was employed by the Leeds General Infirmary where she was a valued member of its in-house sewing room. Today we speak of front-line NHS staff but in those days Josephine, like so many others and so many others from the Caribbean, were the behind the scenes back bones of the health service. She remained a loyal employee of the NHS until her retirement.

As soon as finances allowed, her daughters joined her in England which meant she was in full time work while also being a full-time mother, to all five of her children. Taking the lead of her own mother she was an active member of the Mother's Union.

Now we have the understanding to appreciate the courage of a shy young woman who left all that she knew to travel 4000 miles, armed only with the core values of hard work and faith, to make a new life for and with her family. It is not therefore surprising that she leaves a rich and varied legacy, of opportunities seized and talent fulfilled.

Wilma

ELROY One day I received an invitation to dance. Nothing surprising about that but what struck me as unusual was the occasion. It was for Elroy Joseph’s funeral.

Elroy was my mentor, my friend and a great supporter of my work. In days when I did not know many people in Liverpool, northwest or even in UK, he came forward for no reason to give me a helping hand. He was a Liverpool based dance artist teaching in I M Marsh College. I believe he was the first Black dance tutor in a British university. He ‘developed a ground breaking fusion of AfricanCaribbean and European style’.

Irene Dilk and Judy Smith invited me to dance for their students. That evening amongst my other Indian dance items, I presented a new experimental piece on Bolero. In eighties, it was a part of my own contemporary development to see if Indian dance movements were compatible with European music. I finished the dance then sought the audience’s opinion as to whether it had worked and how maybe it could be better.

After the show Elroy approached me and said that he thought that my quest was genuine and he would like to help. He spent his time, energy and wisdom freely to help my dance style evolve and expand. He snatched time from his other commitments to work sometimes at Egg Studio sometimes in the corridors of the college and couple of times in my kitchen. Finally I got it. I gave my best performance of the piece in front of him. I will never forget when I asked him what colour I can wear to dance? He said “The colour is in the music”.

I arrived at the funeral parlour in London. I recognised a few faces. I don’t know if anyone was surprised to see the face of an Indian person sitting in the front.

I was full of apprehension - Would I do justice to the task meeting Elroy’s standard? He had given me the honour of ‘sisterhood’, embracing me in his dancing family.

There was a respectfully relaxed atmosphere. Then the music started as his dance students carried his coffin in a coordinated dignified manner. What a wonderful way to go wrapped in love, respect and admiration.

The service was about Elroy “Going Home”, about celebrating his life not about his death. The language and the tone of the speeches created a joyful atmosphere. When it was my turn, I cloud walked up to the front and addressing him offered my dance. I danced ’Gift’, William Radice’s translation of Tagore’s poem. ‘Oh my friend what gift of mine can I give you this dawn’?

What can I say about the ‘party’ that followed? Everybody seemed to have a sense of peace in them, laughing, joking and remembering him with tender fondness. That was my first experience of a Jamaican funeral. I have never seen anything as uplifting like that. It was a real celebration of the life of our friend Elroy.

Bisakha

SIMPLE KINDNESS My name is Wilma Dean I am sixty-five. I was born on the island of Nevis. Nevis, St Kitts, but we always say Nevis. I am going to tell the story of my trip to England with my sister. My Mother had to leave me when I was just a baby and my sister was a toddler, to come to England to join my father.

Then when I was – just after my fifth birthday and my sister she was a month or two off her seventh birthday, they sent for we two. I remember my Grandmother taking us to St. Kitts, where the ship that we were going to be sailing on was going from. And I remember that my Mum had sent me a doll and I wanted to bring it with me, and my Grandmother said ‘No, no, leave that for your cousins, you are going to get lots of dolls when you go to England’ - actually I never had a doll at all after that, but anyway.

We went to St. Kitts to get on the ship. In those days you could put children on anybody’s passport I think, because my sister and I didn’t have a passport, we were on the passport of one of my mother’s, maybe second cousins, or something like that – everyone is a cousin, so we were on the passport of a cousin who was going to be travelling on the ship as well.

Yes, I had just had my fifth birthday and we were two little girls on this ship. My Grandmother assumed there was a cousin looking out for us in some way or other, although I don’t remember seeing a lot of her – but I think a lot of people were having a great time on the ship.

The ship was the SS Monserrat, the crew were all Italian sailors, and I can remember that they were all very kind and took an interest in me and my sister.

We set sail on this epic journey for all of us coming from the Caribbean. There are two things that have stayed with me from my childhood from on that ship – it was the taste of an apple – which was the first time I had an apple, and the smell of cornflakes with hot milk, because that was the first time I had seen cornflakes.

Time passed as we were going along with our adventure not knowing what we were going to meet when we got to England. Then one day the ship stopped – my sister and I are fairly sure that it docked at Genoa in Italy.

Some of the sailors must have felt a little bit sorry for me and my sister, so they took us ashore. I can’t remember exactly what we did, we were just seeing things that we had never seen before. We had never been anywhere like it. It was so colourful, all the buildings.

I can remember the crew in their uniform. They looked after us and then took us back on board when it was time for the ship to go. My sister and I have revisited that and reflected on it much later as adults. Thinking about the world we live in now and how crazy our adventure must seem today. But there was absolutely nothing wrong with it at all – certainly from our point of view. It was simply an act of kindness.

Wilma

THE FIVE RULES My Granddad and Grandma were from Puerto Rico. My Auntie Evelyn brought her to Nevis, took her rings off and put her in a home. My grandparents had land in Nevis. Evelyn used to go and draw the rent, the ground rent every month, keep the money and didn’t give any to my Mum Emily Lavina Phipps or to the other sisters Lilian and Mary.

My Mum built the house that we had in St Kitts while my Dad travelled all around the world. My dad Alfred Ashley Phipps was a cook on the ships. He said his house was ‘on the sea’. My mum said ‘You have five girls - are you going to take them on the sea to live?’ So she built the house for us all to live in; that was Evelyn, Estelle, Gloria, Venetta and me Gwen. When my father he came home, it was a signal for everybody come to our house with a bowl for rice and cooked food. My Mother used to feed the whole street. When I came to Manchester everyone used to say ‘Your Mum used to feed everyone in St. Kitts’. Mother used to look after all the grandchildren. When my sister went to work, she would have the children and look after them.

Living in St. Kitts was fine, all the family were there. My friend had two kids, a girl called Etsa – we were working together. We went out together and then she got married to a man called Ashley from Barbados and he went to be an Overseer or Manager in St. Kitts.

When my Dad died, life was a bit hard. When he died there was Venetta, me and Gloria. Mother said ‘ I have got my three girls Gloria, Gwen and Venetta. I am going to look after them’ and she would take us with her and walk everywhere. It was hard but I knew from her that I couldn’t depend on anyone – not a feller, because my Mum had shown me that.

She was very strict, if she don’t like what you say she says ‘I’ll bust your arse’.

She would say ‘Be independent don’t depend on anyone’. She had five sayings that she told us to live by : Don't eat from people.

Don't have too many friends. I had another friend who was a midwife in St. Kitts.

They were twins and I came over here with one of the twins and I think the other sister went to Canada.

Don't watch what people have got.

Don't chat people's business Don't rely on no man; be independent don’t depend on anyone, don’t obligate on anyone, always do your own thing, be independent.

I was working at BATA shoes - men’s, ladies and children’s shoes, slippers - for over three years, before I came over to England.

When I first came to England I was supposed to live with Dot in Liverpool but the work had gone dry so her husband brought me up here, Oldham. I got a job straight away at Supercraft. I didn’t have to look a long time for a job. I went straight into machining. The boss lady taught me how to sew. I was a quick learner and good. I worked there for thirty odd years.

I worked from eight in the morning until four. I didn’t earn much - I earned about five or ten pounds a week. I’d do a full day’s work and then go home to sort the children out. When I was carrying Amoy, my last child, I wanted to look after her myself, so I started working evenings from five until nine or half nine/ten at Raven Mill and Supercraft rang me up and said anytime I want to come back my job is ready. So, I was able to keep the job at Supercraft and Raven– they both looked after me.

I was working at Henshaw Street Nursery when the newspaper wrote about me.

The paper said I was the number one worker for looking after the children. When new kids came and if they cried, the other staff would say ‘Go to Gwen, go to Gwen’.

I wouldn’t say I have had a hard life because I was happy in myself. I liked going to work because all the children would come to me, they come to Gwen.

Even though I have had to work hard I have enjoyed life. I was independent because my mum always said ‘be independent’ and I followed my Mum and did what she said. She said ‘Don’t depend on anyone because you will be disappointed. I brought my children all up on my own and they could never come home and say they were hungry.’

Gwen

THE PAY CHEQUE My mum Flavia D’souza grew up in India, in Mumbai and then met my dad in Dubai, got married, had me and then we migrated to the UK. We have family everywhere.

One of the things I grew up with this idea of abundance. This idea that if you give out into the world, it will find its way back to you. This way of life applied mainly to money and items we owned. My mum’s generosity with her time, love, energy and money is something that shaped my childhood.

She would have a habit of giving gifts to people. You had to give a gift to someone the first time they came to your house, or the first time you went to someone’s house. You couldn’t go to someone’s house empty handed, and people always had to leave your house with food in their hand. It’s the reason we collected Tupperware boxes.

A superstition, or rather ritual we grew up with was that a person’s first pay cheque was be spent or given to family. The first pay cheque I got, at the age of 17 was £125. I was doing some admin work for a youth organisation after school.

My mum, in her excitement told her family and my dad’s family in India, Pakistan, Dubai and in the UK. She told my grandma in India that we’d send her the money I made for my first job. And we did, so £125 got converted into rupees and were sent to my grandmother in India from my mother. I still hadn’t cashed the cheque yet.

My dad then told his family in Pakistan that we were going to send them the money from my first job. So, my dad took £125 from his account, converted into rupees and send them to my aunty in Pakistan. On another call to my uncle in Dubai, my mum sent money to him ‘from my first paycheque’. Still my actual pay cheque was in my hand and hadn’t been cashed yet.

I heard another two instances of my parents sending my paycheque money to different relatives and a charity across the world, in the guise of celebrating my first salary. And just like that, my £125 (which eventually got cashed into my own account and was spent on my school uniform), became multiplied by 6. Each part of our family began sending their good wishes for me and my job as they thought I had sacrificed my own pay cheque to spread it around. Little did they know.

Afshan

CRAFTY CATS I lived with my Grandmother in Pecks Lane, in Jamaica. Grandmother had two cats, they were pets and they used to sleep at the foot of our bed.

They were white, lovely white cats and we called one Tiny and I can’t remember the other one. I can’t remember a lot now at my age. I have got to tell my age because it would look silly, I am 97 and I am very forgetful.

Anyhow, these two cats, they were fed well, really well but they still used to steal from the tenant. We had three rooms up at the top where the tenants lived. Those cats used to go over the gate and go in the kitchen and steal the meat off the people, off the plate.

I’m about 12 and fed up of the tenants complaining because the tell me they would never be brave enough to tell my Grandmother because she was fierce. So, I got fed up of it, the complaining. I got so fed up that I decided, I am going to get rid of the cats. So, I asked the butcher man that used our shop to sell his meat.

One morning when he is going to the slaughterhouse, I ask if he could take the cat and get rid of him. So, the man promised he would. And so, this morning, he decided to take the cats, he catch one and put in his van and drove off. He went all the way to the railway. Now from where we live to the railway, is like from here in Chorlton to Piccadilly – it’s that far. Then he opened his van and let the cat out.

I thank God we got rid of a cat and nobody said nothing about it. My Granny looked for the cat and she can’t find the cat so she said, ‘oh he must be gone somewhere, he will come back’. But I think this cat is gone for good But two days after the cat came back, tired and weary – he walked in and the Granny said, ‘Tiny where have you been? We have been looking all over for you’. She was so glad to see the cat, she loved the cat. The cat couldn’t tell her about the evil done. But Tiny he settled down with the other cat for him never to go and eat the people’s dinner again.

Vian

I AM A WOMAN, BLESSED My Grandmother, Christabel Emily Louise McClean, nee Roache, was born in 1908 in Prospect Village on the Island of St. Vincent. She lived to be 102.

I am a woman, blessed to have been raised by her Grandmother. She was my first teacher. First in St Vincent, then later in England. So, what I have learned about what is important in life, I learnt from her. Throughout her long life, what was important to ‘Ma’, as we called her, was family, family and education. She was the second of fifteen children. She loved her family and would do anything for them, but they did not always treat her well, but that is another story.

All through my grown-up years, her repeating words were, ‘But deys your family, he is your family, she is your family and mek sure you take in education’.

When I say family, I mean people, because it wasn’t blood that was important to Ma, it was people. I remember after living in England a few years, our next-door neighbour, an old woman called Mrs. Farr, died. She had no husband, or children, in fact no family that we could see. Ma was really upset that she couldn’t go to Mrs Farr’s funeral. She could not understand that somebody died and there was no one to mourn her. I remember her saying ‘But funeral is for everybody nah?’ It took Ma a long time to understand England and the way people behaved.

She would say ‘ Me, me can’t understand these English people, me I don’t know why they don’t love people. Me, I love everybody - man, woman, black, white, cat, dog’. And it was true, Ma did love everybody. She had the capacity to love people regardless.

She was always picking up a friend, ‘It’s me friend, dis’. She was always ready to strike up conversation with people on the bus, in the Doctor’s waiting rooms, in the shops, the laundrette. She was already ready with a hug and a kiss. ‘Kiss Mina?’ she would say and grab and squeeze you tight and plant a big sloppy kiss on your cheek, mouth, wherever it landed.

When she died, long before covid restrictions, there were hundreds at her funeral.

People would come up to my Mother and say, ‘I just had to come to say goodbye to Miss Lazzi’. ‘I had to come to pay my respects to Tantine’. ‘I had to come, Miss Lazzi was always good to me’, ‘whenever I pass Miss Lazzi gate, she would always give me a cup of water and a piece of bread’.

My Grandmother very seldom went to church. Her church was her garden, the fields, the river. But she could pray. Every night I would hear her pray ‘Please Father God bless my grandchild, spare my life to see she grow up, open she head so she could take in her education’. I was frightened of Father God ‘opening up my head’, to ‘put in education’. When I asked Ma why she always asking Father God to ‘open my head’ so I could take in education, she would say, and not softly ‘You too stupid child, me, me…. me don’t have education. You want to come like me? You have to learn, you hear me’. I wish when people tell me to go to school and learn, I wish I did listen to them. When Mammy and

Pappy send me to school, instead of going in the classroom, me and Maisie Bradshire would run down to Argyle or Villa. Spend the day on Villa Beach or at Saltpine. Instead of learning with lesson, we would catch fish, whelks, light fire and pound sea almonds4. Pappa used to beat me and call me “good for nothing” and say “nothing would come of it”. I did try though, I did try to stay in the classroom, but the outside was always calling me’. Ma used to say, ‘I only had one’ meaning my Mother, but ‘she give me all of you’.

Ma died knowing her grand-children, great grand-children and great, great grandchildren.

Palorine

THERE ARE BIGGER PLACES THAN MANCHESTER One weekend while sat with my sisters talking about some of the trips our mother Coca organised for us and that our kids now do it, but back then we didn’t appreciate it.

Let me give you some examples; Whitworth Art Gallery, that was one, Lyme Park, was another. Or we would go to the Manchester Museum where we would see insects and statues and various things. And yep, Chester Zoo, we did Chester Zoo. We would go to Wales for the day, I don’t know how we would get there – sometimes we would get there on a coach.

We would do day trips with picnics. And the picnics were bread and butter sandwiches with jam in or ham in or cheese in and they were always the same.

I have been in London thirty eight years, which is quite a while, God it just seems too long. I have lived in London in various places but I started off in a flat.

Regularly, I would get a call from my Mum saying, ‘Right, I am on my way’ and I’d go ‘OK you coming, no problem’ and she would say ‘Yep, and just to let you know there’s about five of us’. Mum would turn up with the kids in tow and we would do the sights.

Let me tell you what sights we would see in London. We would go to Tower Bridge and then visit the Tower of London, then we would do Buckingham Palace to watch the ‘Changing of the Guards. Some years she would come for the Carnival. Now Carnival can get quite packed, so we would have the kids walking in chains with all of us having fun.

When Mum came to London we would walk the Embankment, say from the London Eye through to Tower Bridge. Or Covent Garden, which is still one of my favourite places today along with the Embankment.

When Mum had any of the kids with her, whether my sisters or any of her foster children because she fostered all her life, she insisted we did the sights. So, it surprises me when I talk to people who live in London, who have not seen or been to Tower Bridge, possibly because they didn’t go as children on day visits.

Sometimes I would drop my two boys with her in Manchester and off they would all go to a caravan with my Auntie Freda to Skegness or Cala Gran’s caravan park. One time about ten of us; Mum with five kids then me, my husband John with our sons Tayo and Kai. My Aunt had another caravan, so with the two caravans we stayed in Devon. I remember it being lovely weather and my Mum saying ‘down south weather was always better than up North’ but she still preferred ‘up North’ caravan sites. The tradition of caravans continues as my niece Kita is going to…. is it Clacton on Sea, in a caravan soon.

As more of us left home and money wasn’t as restricted, even though Mum was never well-off, she would fly out to places like Salou in Spain, or go to Italy. Tayo is now twenty three. When he was kid he got more than a day trip, he and the other grandkids would have a week on a campsite in Italy.

At the time as kids I am not sure we appreciated that our Mum was showing us as much of life as she could via locations and places totally different to how we lived. This is what we realised as we sisters were sat together not that long ago.

Michaela’s boys take their kids to places like Chester Zoo. I took my nephews to a museum because my Mum had taken me when I was kid. So now it has become a sort of ritual of day trips passed down the generations.

So a day out, like I have said, could be to a gallery - well we all take our kids to galleries now. I took my nephews to a Museum, because my Mum took me to a Museum, and it’s going through the generations. Michaela and Janie’s daughters - Kita and Angela - planning a day at Lyme Park. Walking about with the kids while Angela pushes her new baby in the buggy.

What our Mum taught us was that there were places to see outside of Moss Side where we first lived and later in Withington as we grew up. She showed us London with all its sights just so we knew there is more to life and that it’s bigger outside of Manchester.

Louise

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