Home Again: Stories of Migration and Return E-Book

• Herausgeber: Papillote Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 363

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

"Frankness and insight." New West India Guide What happens when people return to the land of their birth after decades away? The migrants' journey is a well-told story but much less is known about those who return. Why do they go back? What is it like to be back home? Home Again is a collection of contemporary real-life stories by men and women who have returned to Dominica. Their feelings and experiences, expressed in their own words, link the challenges of the past to both the positive aspects of return – a sense of belonging and well-being – and also to its difficulties – of rejection and frustration. Compelling, moving and intensely personal, Home Again, is a revealing insight into the lives of these pioneering migrants.

Leseprobe

Home Again

Stories of migration and return

First published in Great Britain in 2009

© 2009 Papillote Press and Dominica UK Association

All rights reserved

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Typeset in Novarese

Design by Andy Dark

ISBN: 978-0-9532224-5-2

Papillote Press

23 Rozel Road

London SW4 0EY

United Kingdom

www.papillotepress.co.uk

and Trafalgar, Dominica

NOTES

The publisher would like to thank the participants for the loan of their personal photographs. All contemporary photographs are by Celia Sorhaindo.

Celia Sorhaindo was born in Dominica and moved to the UK at the age of eight. She returned to Dominica in 2005.

Polly Pattullo is a journalist and the publisher of this book.

Contents

Foreword by Vincent John

Map

Introduction by Celia Sorhaindo

Jean Popeau

Alexandra Sorhaindo

Clayton Shillingford

Helena Durand

Janet Heath

Franklyn Georges

Eustace Maxim

Bernadette and Leonard Alexander

Nursie Frederick

Michael Baron

Sylvester Joseph

Francis Edwards

Christopher Valerie

Kenneth Bruney

Heskeith Clarke

Patricia Bobb

Joan Etienne

Billy Lawrence

Stanley Paul

Philbert Aaron

Robert John

Foreword

The idea of a book focusing on returnees to Dominica originated at the general meeting of the Dominica UK Association (DUKA) held in London in September 2007. Under the “reports and information exchange” item of the agenda, DUKA’s past vice-chair and local representative in Dominica Franklyn Georges reported on his experiences following his recent re-settlement on the “Nature Island”. While enjoying Dominica’s beauty and tranquillity, some returnees, he said, appeared to experience a degree of isolation as they sought to re-adjust. This feeling was more pronounced among residents returning from the UK who were sometimes referred to as “English” in marked contrast to ex-US compatriots who were viewed as Dominican. This may be explained by the more recent emigration experience of the latter group, but it nevertheless remains a sensitive issue. The situation could not be treated as trivial as it reflected deeper concerns that needed to be addressed such as the anecdotal claims that returnees to Dominica are only valued for their money. DUKA members agreed that the experiences of returnees warranted some positive response through an investigation and exposure of their experiences to a wider public. So the foundations for a publication were truly laid.

The purpose of this book then is to catalogue the journeys and experiences of individual Dominican returnees and thereby break the “wall of silence” that all too frequently encourages suspicion and prejudice. It also aims to address the myth that life experiences in “Motherland” England or, indeed, elsewhere were either a “bed of roses” or riddled with constant challenges.

As a way of sharing these different journeys, I hope that Home Again will both entertain the reader and foster an appreciation of some of those who emigrated – mainly for economic reasons – from the mid-1950s onwards to the UK, and later to the US, Canada and elsewhere, but who have returned to live and work in Dominica. A minority of the stories, of those born in other countries but who are now “Home Again” to their "Nature Island”, provides a special twist and points to a door of opportunity for those still resident overseas.

The personal histories depicted in Home Again contribute to the focus on togetherness that underpinned the strap-line for Reunion 2008: “Celebrating the Journey Together”. I hope the stories will help to resolve any misconceptions – the perceived wealth of returnees or an inadvertent display of grandeur – for it is humility that best characterises the lives of these journeying men and women. The cross-cutting themes that permeate their experiences are particularly significant and useful to those interested in the social history of migration. The book also highlights the networking and support dimensions of the overseas Dominican associations, and the sustained personal commitment of those who hope to realise their dreams.

Home Again succeeds both in fostering a better understanding while also giving deserved recognition to those Dominicans who have made important contributions both to their host countries and to their homeland over the last half century, and who continue to do so – now from their home base.

It is hoped that you will find the book interesting, informative and a source of encouragement in whatever you do.

Vincent M John, chairman, Dominica UK Association (DUKA)

& Mas Domnik UK

Dominica

The map shows the main places mentioned in this book and parish boundaries. Dominica is situated in the eastern Caribbean between the islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique. Approximately 47km long and 26km wide, it is wild and mountainous with many rivers and waterfalls; much of the island is covered in rainforest.

Introduction

Global migration has influenced the shape of the modern world and in many countries immigration has become a topical and controversial subject. But rarely is the focus on those migrants who make the journey back to the place they regard as home. Home Again is a selection of interviews with 22 people who left the eastern Caribbean island of Dominica to live overseas and then to return, sometimes after 40 years or more. Each account documents their early days in Dominica, life in a new country, the decision to return and, most importantly, the experience of being back home. A former British colony, Dominica has been an independent nation since 1978.

Documenting the life stories of these Dominicans is important and timely. We are at a unique point in history when those who left in the 1950s and 1960s during a period of mass migration are reaching retirement age and many are coming home, mainly from the UK. The book also includes another group who are rarely mentioned – a younger generation of returnees, including those of Dominican parentage who were born overseas.

Of the 22 men and women featured in Home Again, 17 settled in the United Kingdom, three in the United States, one in Canada and one in Barbados. They left Dominica between 1957 and 1975 and range in age from 40 to 73 years. They came from all sorts of backgrounds and worked as nurses, trade union officials, London transport drivers, social workers, care workers, teachers, clerks, chefs, and in factories. Among our 22 Dominicans there is also a software engineer, a scientist, a scuba diving instructor, a mannequin maker for Madame Tussauds, and a mayor of a London borough. Two returnees moved back to Dominica two decades ago, but most have returned within the last five years.

Most stayed away for decades – although they had planned to be away for only five years. Indeed, the desire to return began from the day they left Dominican shores. Dominican novelist Phyllis Shand Allfrey claimed “love for an island is the sternest passion” and this sentiment echoes across the stories. They may have left Dominica but Dominica never left them. In telling their stories, they make an important contribution to Dominica’s history.

The pattern of coming and going is central to Dominica. Its first inhabitants were Amerindians from the Orinoco basin in South America. Later, Europeans arrived as the French and British laid claim to Dominica. In the eighteenth century, slaves were brought from West Africa. Today, the majority of Dominica’s population are descendants of these early arrivals.

But Dominica has been shaped as much by those who have left as those who arrive. In common with other Caribbean countries, Dominica has a long history of economic migration – starting with departures for the gold fields of South America in the nineteenth century and later, to Trinidad, Panama, Aruba, Curaçao, the French Caribbean islands, and North America. But after the second world war came a new opportunity. The British 1948 Nationality Act granted all Commonwealth subjects the rights of citizenship in the United Kingdom. At the same time, Britain was suffering from a chronic labour shortage. And in 1948 the SS Empire Windrush set sail from Jamaica to England with 492 passengers lured by the promise of work. Although no Dominicans were on board, that journey marked the start of events which would change the face of the Caribbean and the UK forever.

The numbers of people leaving the Caribbean as a whole for the UK rose from a trickle in the late 1940s to over 2,000 in 1953, peaking at 70,000 in 1961 just before the 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act (this only permitted those with government-issued employment vouchers to settle in the UK). Between 1955 and 1960 a total of 6,296 Dominicans left for the UK of whom nearly two-thirds were men, and 70% were 30 or under. Nearly one third of this total left in 1960. This was migration on a scale never experienced before, to a country culturally and environmentally very different and far enough away to make returning home often financially unfeasible.

Between 1959 and 1962 it is estimated that 14% of Dominica’s population of 61,783 migrated to the UK. The ravages of hurricane David in 1979 triggered the start of another exodus from the island, and between 1981 and 1993, one quarter of the population left, this time mainly to US and Canada.

Currently, it is thought that up to 200,000 adult Dominicans live abroad: around 40% are in the US, a similar percentage in other Caribbean countries, and most of the remainder in the UK and Canada. Unfortunately, no statistics are available of those who return.

Many of the interviewees in Home Again recall growing up in Dominica with a great deal of fondness – childhood freedoms, and adventures such as cricket, dominoes, hunting, story-telling, swimming, fishing. But in adulthood, job shortages pushed them to leave at the same time as they were drawn by opportunities overseas. Going away was not a rejection of home, it was perceived as a way to help those left at home. For those going to the UK, the island’s colonial relationship with Britain meant that many saw migration to the “mother country” as, symbolically, going home.

However many migrants did not, and still do not, always tell family and friends back home about the realities of life in the new country. These stories include the negative aspects of leaving such as separation, hardship, prejudice and culture shock. Of course, there were also positive features: material benefits, educational opportunities and the chance to interact with other cultures.

Those interviewed for Home Again also told us of how they sent money back for family and friends, and supported community projects, especially during times of crisis such as after Hurricane David. Many also worked with Dominican organisations to raise funds, to maintain connections with the island and its culture, and to socialise. Remittances by Dominicans overseas have been significant and were estimated at EC$176 million in 2007 (about 16% of its GDP).

The important role of family is very evident in these accounts, and in the majority of cases family members helping each other made the transition from one culture to another easier. Those at home funded passages so that other relatives could leave; migrating parents left children with remaining family members until they were able to send for them. Those settled in new countries sent for their relatives, welcomed them on arrival, fed, clothed, housed them and found them employment. And those who remained in Dominica purchased land, managed home builds and provided continuity and the vital connection, for those returning.

Home Again highlights the highs and lows of what it has been like to come home – to be a “returnee”. Everyone talked of the wonderful environment, a sense of mental and physical well-being, a re-connection and a feeling of belonging. But there was also discussion of rejection, isolation, and the frustrations generated by a slower pace, and by the lack of facilities, goods and services. Some returnees felt that they are regarded as “cash cows” and are seen as arrogant. They highlighted how they brought back valuable skills and knowledge and different ideas to Dominica, contributed capital and created employment. Some also lamented that those skills and experiences are largely under utilised or ignored.

Dominica has one of the highest rates of migration in the world, with more than 80% of its work force with secondary education migrating. Ensuring that a percentage of those who leave do return are important considerations for the development of the country. A robust local population, which includes educated and enterprising people, is required for economic growth, to maintain family structure, to care for the elderly and to foster culture and national identity.

Home Again highlights the contributions of Dominicans residing overseas and the important role they play in mitigating the negative impact of migration. Furthermore, it highlights the need for all Dominicans, those who remain, those who reside abroad and those who return, to show tolerance, respect and understanding to each other, to establish common goals and work together for the continued development of the country.

My sincere thanks go to Franklyn Georges, Vincent John, the chairman of the Dominica UK Association, and others for the initial concept, support and encouragement throughout the project. To Polly Pattullo for her immense efforts with transcribing, editing and publishing. And a special thank you to all who feature in this book in generously giving of your time, and openly and honestly sharing your stories with us.

Celia Sorhaindo

Just before I left Dominica in 1957, the headmaster of my school in Belvedere made me stand up with everyone sitting there, and said: “Who is the one going to England?” And I said, “Me”. And he said, “Boy, you’re going to be a big shot.” I was 11 at the time and the assumption was that one of the reasons you were going to England was to get a better education.

That school, near where I’m now building my home, was basically one large crumbling wooden building – there were no room dividers, just a series of benches and each bench was a class and you had teachers shouting at each class to get your attention. There was a sign that said, “Cleanliness is next to godliness”, but there were outside toilets and no facilities for washing your hands. We would get free powdered milk which they would mix every morning to provide something to drink. We learned about England at school, and I probably knew more about English heroes than the fellas I met when I went to school in London. We learned about Rodney and Nelson and their exploits in the Caribbean but not much about the rest of our history. Education was limited to colonial matters.

My father went to England in 1955 to seek some better sort of economic situation. My parents were essentially peasant farmers from La Roche, but it was so dire on the island that it was impossible to get on and look after your family. We would go to our garden which was in the mountains with our mother at the weekend and during school holidays. We would all carry a basket of food and have to cross the White river on foot to get home and if the river was high we would be in trouble. We had to walk everywhere; we only had shoes for going to church, we had few clothes. It was a precarious form of life. Flour and rice and codfish were luxuries but perhaps because all families had poverty in common, as children it didn’t hit you hard. The only thing you knew was that children in town were probably better off.

Even so, there was time for enjoyment – dances on a Saturday, cricket matches, celebrations for first communion (photograph previous page), and at Christmas people would celebrate for a whole week; then you would have carnival – and there would be bands going from village to village. There was a great sense of communal activity and caring. Things started to change, however, in the 1950s, when people, especially the men, started going to England. And then you began to get an atmosphere of people saying, “Well if you’re getting money from your man and if you want me to do something for you, you’ll have to pay for it.” Then money started to figure in transactions.

When my father had been in England a couple of years, he decided to send for the rest of us. For my sister and I it seemed that we were going to be plucked away from the island because our father wanted his family with him, and there was no alternative but to adjust to a new way of life. I had mixed feelings about leaving Dominica. On one hand you wanted to get away from the poverty and you were told you would get a better education, on the other hand the natural setting and beauty of the place was still something that struck you. My father would write when he was away but he did not say much – he would write about practical matters like “I have been able to send you a little bit of money, look after it” and so on. We knew that it was cold in England though and that there was prejudice – those stories filtered back. And there was an awareness that there was poverty there because a lot of them were sharing a room, and, wages being limited, they had to really scrimp and save to send any money back home. I didn’t have a concept of England as a mother country, but as an alien place that I would have to get used to.

My mother, sister and I left on a Greek ship crowded with emigrants in September 1957. It was an atmosphere of chaos on the ship, children running around and spilling things on people’s clothes, belongings spread all over the place. It docked in Genoa and then we went on a train to England where my father met us. We ended up living in the most run-down part of east London you could imagine, among the gasometers of Millwall, on the Isle of Dogs. We lived in a terraced house, in a couple of rooms with my uncle. It was very cramped and crowded. You were basically in very meagre conditions, and you looked out at a dank and rather depressing street. You were suddenly in a very enclosed atmosphere from what you were used to. But then London was still in a state of post-war poverty – terraced houses with no bathrooms and outside toilets, coal fires for heating the rooms.

We had a radio but there was no TV to talk about – and anyway we couldn’t afford a television. I enjoyed the radio because it helped me to improve my English – I started to listen avidly and I remember listening to a programme called The Clitheroe Kid – the comedy helped you to get used to the language and the working-class culture. There was also a programme called In Town Tonight about the West End of London, and Vic Oliver’s dance music show.

We met people from other Caribbean islands – a lot of men on their own, who had left wife and children behind, living in one room as in Samuel Selvon’s Lonely Londoners. But there were not many children coming from the Caribbean at that time – it was very bleak. People would ignore you when you went to the shops and serve others.

‘They sometimes say to returnees, why don’t you go back to England – they see you as complaining too much. But as everyone knows, this island wouldn’t be able to continue without those informal contributions that people abroad send back.’

When I arrived there was no time to take the eleven plus exam and there was no real assessment of me so I just fell into an all-white, working-class, secondary modern Catholic school in Poplar. A certain way to ensure that you become an atheist is to go to a Catholic school. It was very run down, there was a lot of disruption, poor behaviour, poor standards. There were the usual racist remarks from the children and also from the teachers, who were really quite ignorant about the Caribbean. I was shocked. The school provided a very crude education and it was assumed that you were factory fodder.

I was a school failure really and came out with only one O Level. But I was interested in science and got a job in a science laboratory doing control work for a factory. I had to educate myself after work with evening classes and part-time study. Eventually, I got qualifications to do a degree, and went to North London Polytechnic as it was then, in 1970, to do a degree in philosophy of all things.

My parents never discussed coming back – it was too early on in that period. But they enjoyed talking amongst themselves about people they knew and funny experiences they’d had back home. There was very little discussion about what was going on in England. Neither of them went back to Dominica. Mother was killed in a car accident in 1966, and father had no interest in going back – which was strange because he didn’t really belong in England; he might have enjoyed life better in the Caribbean but he’d cut himself off. By then I was trying to educate myself, and my sister and I were established in England. England was becoming much more a part of your life.

But I’d kept up my interest in the Caribbean. There was something called the Commonwealth Institute in Kensington – with exhibits about Commonwealth countries – and I’d go there and just look at these pictures of the Caribbean, and I’d get into a nostalgic haze about the flora and the fauna. It was basically nostalgia, because I knew there was no work in the Caribbean, and people wanting to emigrate.

My first visit back to Dominica was for about six weeks in 1974. We had a relatively rich aunt who lived in Roseau and I stayed with her, and then with my uncle in La Roche. I was happy – I like fishing and walking, and I went back to that. My needs were not great, but I could see there was a general air of depression. I made inquiries about getting a job in teaching but I couldn’t continue my own education here so I decided to go back. It was very vague but I thought at that point that I would want a home here to keep my acquaintance with the island.

I got married in England in 1975 to a Trinidadian, and had two children. I must say I didn’t tell them much about Dominica and the kids weren’t that interested. We came here as a family in 1992 – my daughter was about 12 and my son was a couple of years older, but they never really took to Dominica, even to visit. I’ve come to terms with the assumption that my children will identify with British culture – let’s face it is a dynamic culture, and there’s a new generation of kids who are creating a new culture in which all sorts of inter-cultural interchanges are taking place. It’s now a world in which my children can fit. It’s a completely different world to the one I emigrated to.

In London, I ran a youth club in Fulham, but didn’t like it much so decided to go into teaching. I taught English in secondary schools in east London, then decided to go into multi-cultural education, teaching children who needed a boost to develop their academic work. I also taught privately and met other cultures on a very intimate level. I’ve taught Muslim children and a Sikh child who was physically handicapped – I had cultural relationships with very different cultures. I also taught in Bedford and then in Dudley, in the Midlands. My best time in England was getting involved in the education system – it expands your horizons in the way that nothing else does.

I stayed in teaching for 30 years – but my primary interest was not in terms of a career but of self-development – I did my Masters degree in the sociology of literature and then for my doctorate I tried to chart the philosophical background of the Negritude movement and the literary way it expressed itself. The movement, led by Aimé Césaire from Martinique and Leopold Senghor from Senegal in the 1930s, was basically a literary attempt to place the black man in the European world of the time and to reject the French policy of assimilation. My thesis was published in 2003 as Dialogues of Negritude by Carolina Academic Press in the States.

Off to England by sea. An advertisement in the Dominica Chronicle in 1957

My work was, I suppose, my way of coming to terms with my personal relationship with European culture. I felt it helped me to root myself in the black world and to try to maintain my contact with this island; I also thought it helped to have some kind of relationship with the black world which is more authentic than just staying in England and losing myself in an English culture. I was constantly aware that I was not born into that culture, and that the first 11 years in that other culture did mark me, and had a profound effect on my thinking about and relationship with European culture.

There are things I’m highly critical of about European culture – its materialism leads to rootlessness, and that affects one’s own children; the lack of an authentic relationship with nature and the spiritual drift, and, of course, its attitude to the black world and third world countries in general. And I am heavily critical of certain attitudes of white males – that they see black women as sexual objects – and for that reason I can’t get on with some of them. A lot of other things you’d recognise as crudely racist. Therefore that has all shaped the way I see Europe and the way I see my life in Europe.

All this was a reason to maintain contact with a place like this which is rooted in a cultural background with which I am much more sympathetic than the European culture I happened to live in over the years. I felt that my soul never belonged in Europe.

I kept in touch with Dominica through the Chronicle newspaper which I received by post – and, later on, the internet. My sister was also living here – she moved back before I did. At one point, I did join a group who met in Earls Court who were going to do something about the school system in Dominica but I wasn’t comfortable there, and then I moved to Bedford. So I really didn’t get involved in groups, although I went to DUKA meetings, used to go to their celebrations and I gave a talk for them once.

The actual mental decision about coming back to live started I would say about a decade ago in 1998 when I came on holiday by myself and I made inquiries about getting a piece of land. It starts as a vague wish and then you have to keep questioning yourself and think how am I going to do this. I bought a piece of land in 2002 in Belvedere and I had at the back of my mind that I might build a small place which I can come to as a holiday home. Then in 2004, when my new wife and I visited, we bought an extra piece, and we discussed building about a year or so later. And it took off from there. I came back in January 2008 and started building.

My experiences coming back here have been pretty good. I think I prepared the way: I’m living and working in a place where I am known. I know for other Dominicans who are living in a different community to the one they were brought up in that might be a problem. If you say Ruthina’s my sister, then straight away they know you are part of this community. It helps you to fit back in. Then you also need Creole to communicate authentically, especially to the older people. If I came back with a Yankee accent and no Creole, it would have been much more difficult. I learnt Creole as a boy even though they tried to cane it out of you.

‘I see my return here as spiritually uplifting.’

When people call you English, it may be on a friendly or an unfriendly basis, because you have an English accent. It may be a way of suggesting you’re alien – you’re English in your attitude, you’re stiff, you’re formal, and you don’t understand the goings on here. It’s shorthand for saying you don’t belong. They seem to recognise you’re English from your walk, your appearance. I’ve been called English in town without even opening my mouth. I wonder how they can work it out. Perhaps you’re brisker in your walk, more purposeful – it could be all sorts of things. But there’s an attitude towards the people who they call the English. In its most benign form it simply means that you’ve lived in England for a long time.

What I’ve experienced is the idea that you’re better off. I remember talking to one guy and I said the pension I’m getting from England is not that much. He said that it’s much higher than a top civil servant’s salary here. It’s a widely held view that you’re much better off – and that somehow you should be paying more. You can afford it, so you ought to be making a bigger contribution. Then the civil servants think that you hassle more. They will want to deny you your rights. They sometimes say to returnees, why don’t you go back to England – they see you as complaining too much. But as everyone knows, this island wouldn’t be able to continue without those informal contributions that people abroad send back.

Migration is a common historical fact within the whole Caribbean – it’s been a very big factor of life. So many of these people have relatives who have been to other islands to better themselves. They’ve all made the attempt. They’re all economic migrants. We’ve just gone further – it’s difficult to understand this resentment for the people who’ve gone to England. I got the impression that Yankees are more admired because US culture is more admired than British culture. America is somehow seen as a more friendly nation to the Caribbean, whereas England is the colonial culture and so on. The assumption is that you will have picked up some of those embedded colonial attitudes, through osmosis as it were, from having lived in the culture for so long, and you are indirectly bringing them back. I suspect that has a lot to do with it.

The government needs to step in and set a tone. The prime minister needs to set a tone nationally and say we need to recognise that these people have come back, and are making a positive contribution, and we should stop calling them English and say they are Dominicans like the rest of us. If they did that and there was a discussion in the media it would help to change attitudes because so much of this is based, of course, on ignorance.

The situation around returnees creates dynamics which we’re obviously experiencing at the moment, and the government would need to get involved more actively if it is to be a successful social development. It just can’t be allowed to develop ad hoc without the involvement of the government – it needs a training of the population.

But I see a great complacency here which needs to be tackled if the island is going to progress; there needs to be a certain kind of refusal to accept this complacency. The island won’t survive among other Caricom countries unless this complacency, this poor attitude to business and service, is tackled. There needs to be self-criticism – this attitude of “it’s our way” and “this is our life style” is ultimately going to cost a hell of a lot. It’s much better if this criticism comes from inside – but if it means the returnees doing it, so be it, because we bring some kind of financial clout and, because we’re engaged in business, we can make that kind of critical approach. Also there is the question of how does a small state like this survive? At the moment it begs to every Tom, Dick and Harry. That’s a big worry for people returning. How can Dominica maintain services, infra-structure, with very few means to produce the finance to service those needs? The survival of the island is a big question mark.

For myself, my wife and I are thinking about opening a book shop, selling books for light reading, and some artefacts, fabric and so on. We would hope to contribute books to the schools and try to develop writing in the island. I am thinking of doing some writing myself based on my experiences here because my whole life has been charted through my writing and what has happened through my educational development. I’ve done three stories for children based on my childhood here – it was a contribution to a book of short stories, based on ghost themes, called Under the Storyteller’s Spell. So I will try to follow those kind of lines, and as I get more socially involved here I will try and record that in writing. My wife and I are also planning a book for children based on five cats so we’re hoping maybe to get that published.

The worst thing about England for me was that I always felt a lack of an authentic relationship with nature in England. Even when you visit the English countryside, I don’t have that intimate relationship with the countryside that I have here. For example, I never felt that I could go fishing by myself – I never felt at home in the countryside – you always feel a bit out of place. So I think I see my return here as spiritually uplifting – just for being here for a longer period than before, and doing my favourite activities. It’s been a learning experience in all sorts of ways, for example, supervising the building of the house. The alternative of living in England in retirement would not have suited me – this has been a much more dynamic retirement. ■

I had just turned 21 and was a teacher at the Convent High School when early in 1957 I got a letter from my fiancé, who was studying in England, asking me if I would be willing to come up and marry him. We had originally thought that we would wait until he came back home but I guess that loneliness caused him to ask me to come up. It was a surprise for me because although a lot of people were going up to England at that time, it was the farthest thing from my mind.

Life for me was pretty good. I grew up in Roseau although my father was a planter in Castle Bruce and my mother the village postmistress. At that time many more people lived in town – so you could visit each others’ homes. There was always something to do. I was a very happy person, and involved in a lot of youth groups, such as the Young Christian Workers and sports. I liked going to dances, fetes, picnics, spending weekends by the river and by the sea – most things that someone growing up in the Caribbean would do. I had enjoyed my teenage life very well. That’s why I had no thoughts of leaving.

My fiancé had been away for three years – he was studying optics – and we had corresponded very regularly by mail. He had already written to my father asking for my hand in marriage. And I had said “yes”, not knowing what I was letting myself in for. I had heard a lot of England but had no knowledge of what it was going to be like.

We had a teacher at the Convent High – I was educated there and attained my Cambridge advanced level examination – whom we called a walking encyclopaedia. She was a nun from Belgium, but she knew a lot about English history, and was interested in the arts. We read Shakespeare – and the English poets. So I knew about England from that point of view. We grew up with patriotism for England – we celebrated Empire Day and the Queen’s birthday. We considered England the mother country…so going to England was like going home to the motherland.

My father gave me his blessing but he and my mother were a bit concerned – I was the first one in the family going to England. I had never travelled away from my parents and I knew no Dominicans in the area where I was going – Bradford, in the north of England, where my fiancé was. I was also apprehensive about my fiancé. Will we have the same love for each other? Will he have changed? He didn’t tell me much about his life in England – but he seemed comfortable there and figured I would be as well. I guess I was a bit naïve: I’d just go up to get married and soon I would be back in Dominica. I had no thoughts about how long I would be up there.

At that time, a lot of people were going to England. We used to go down to the Bay Front to see everyone leaving, everyone crying – husbands, wives, boyfriends, parents. It was such a scene when the boat came. Some didn’t know what they were going to – some just with one suitcase, and very little cash. There were always lots of tears every time people left.

Two of my friends were going up at the same time, one to go on holiday, one like me to get married. We went on the French boat, the Colombie. We shared a cabin and had a very enjoyable experience. I wasn’t one to get seasick. It was like a holiday at sea. I didn’t think of what I was going to face in England.

The boat docked in Southampton. It was the first of April 1957, and I never lived that down because when I started working all my English friends said, “Oh my goodness, you must have been an April fool to leave all that sun and come to this country.” When we stepped out on deck the air was cold, and when we spoke we saw this vapour thing came out from our mouths and that was strange to us; and then we looked up to the sky and what seemed to be the sun was just a little thing in the sky. In fact, one of the guys on the boat shouted “Mon Dieu, their sun’s smaller than ours”, and we all started to laugh. Our first glimpse of misty, grey, dull, wet, cold England and we thought oh my goodness is that what we have come to.

My fiancé and I had to have a special licence to get married because I hadn’t been in the country long enough. So I had to rush up north to Bradford and I must say that when I got off the train and looked out, I saw this…grey…I can’t describe the buildings…I thought oh my goodness. And I think I would have stayed on that train and gone right back, but I saw my husband-to-be at the barrier and that changed my mind.

In Bradford, I had my first experience of living in lodgings, in what they called a bed-sitter, sharing the kitchen and bathroom. That was a very, very new and strange concept to me. The landlady and landlord were my first introduction to English people – well we had people from Britain in Dominica, the governor and civil servants and so on, so I knew white people but I didn’t really mingle with them, and the nuns in the convent were Belgian. But coming to England where almost every face was white that was different.

When my fiancé, who was fair skinned, first went to look for lodgings he had gone with a friend, who was very very dark. Almost every house they knocked on, when the door opened, they said sorry no vacancies. So he said to him, I think I will try on my own and see what happens. That was the first time that it really hit him that it did matter what colour your skin was because when he went on his own the people were more receptive and he did get accommodation. So that was a bit of a shock.

In Dominica there was a lot of class prejudice but race and colour was not so much that we thought of. But in England, when I went to the employment agency, the young lady who interviewed me said that there were vacancies for office work and did I mind if she told them I was coloured. I didn’t think much of that, it didn’t matter to me, not realising that it did matter to the people who were going to employ me. But fortunately I got a job in the office in Listers, a large mill in Bradford. I was the only black person working in the office. I enjoyed my job very much – and I was respected for what I did. Again I don’t know if it is because I take people as I find them… I didn’t have a chip on my shoulder, but I must say they were very, very nice to me. When I was expecting my first baby, I got very sick and we had to move into a new flat, and it was the white girls who cleaned it, scrubbed it and put up my curtains for me because I had no coloured friends or family there.

Well I never felt racism at work – even if they thought it, I never felt it. But I remember once going to a pub with my husband and an English couple and the landlord was not very polite to me – I must have been the darkest in the group. So we just walked out. I never encountered harsh racism though I know it existed. I heard a lot of stories about racism – even that people were told to find another church, and when I heard that I was appalled.

Soon after getting married I was expecting our first child and because of that we were able to get a council flat, which was much better, in a very nice area but it was far from the city so I didn’t do much socialising at that time. Much of my time was occupied with the family. We always explained to the children about the lovely things about home – the trees and the fruit – so they grew up knowing about Dominica. Mostly we cooked English dishes – you could get some Dominican provisions but they were always more expensive; it was easier to get potatoes and rice. We told them it was our intention to go back.

Early life in Bradford in the north of England. Her marriage to Martin Sorhaindo, then a student, was noted in the local newspaper.