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I arrived
with my family in England on Boxing Day, 1961. Partition had taken
place in India in 1947 and people in many villages were able to
acquire passports to leave India to go to a better life.
At
the age of 30, my father had emigrated from India to Barbados in
1949. A lot of migrants were comfortable with the Empire and wanted
to move with the British.
Many
people from my father's generation went to Africa - either to South
Africa or Zambia.
My
father wanted to be completely different. So he and my uncle set
off from India in 1948 by cargo boat to go to America.
It
is interesting that today we are again having to deal with refugees.
I can imagine that my father, when he left India and was travelling
towards America, would very much have been a refugee and would have
had the same kind of psychology.
My
father set off from India looking for the land of milk and honey.
By coming to Gloucester and working at Wall's, he'd at least
found the milk, if not the honey.  |
| Mahmood
Patel |
People
are coming here with dreams of being in the West because it has
always been seen as being the Promised Land. Certainly
America, which is seen as the land of the free and home of the brave.
However
my father never made it that far because he got to Barbados and
the island completely won him over. It was green, it was fertile
and the people didn't speak Creole or pidgin - they spoke English.
He
could speak a little English, so my father was enamoured by the
island and it captivated him. He stayed there and a year later called
my mother over and started the 'West' part of our family. He
had left behind four sons and two daughters when he first emigrated.
In
1951 my brother was born and I was born in 1953, followed by . my
younger brothers and sisters.
Towards
the end of the 1950s, many colonies were looking for independence
and my father became worried because he had seen the trouble in
India that independence had brought in 1947.
He
thought if we were stuck in Barbados when independence came, there
would be problems and he didn't want to be a part of that.
In
the meantime, my brothers had themselves left India and by 1960,
they were established in England, with their own houses and their
wives living in Bradford, Yorkshire.
There
was a great temptation for my father to come to England and join
the family.
Labour
shortage
In
addition, after the SS Windrush became the first passenger ship
from the West Indies to ferry migrant workers to the British Isles,
the British government was now encouraging more people from its
colonies to migrate to fill its labour shortage.
My
father took the opportunity and arrived in London in 1960. His experiences,
I remember, we talked about, were fascinating.
He
left an island that was temperate, 70-80 degrees and he arrived
here in the winter. It was a complete eye-opening experience for
him and he couldn't settle with my brothers.
He
found the North very restrictive, very stuffy. He found the hills
too much to climb and didn't like the smell of soot and coal. So
he travelled down to London because there was an Asian community
there.
Wrong
train
Legend
has it that one day on a train journey from London back to Bradford,
he got as far as Birmingham and changed trains. He got on the wrong
train, going to Bristol, and he stopped off at Gloucester where
he was amazed by the city.
He'd
left Bradford which was grimy, sooty and smelly and London, very
big, very metropolitan, and he came to Gloucester. The sun was shining,
the fields were green and it recaptured for him parts of India.
Because
he was lost, he naturally got off the train and went off to look
for local Indians. There was a Pakistani restaurant in London Road
(I say Pakistani, because Bangladesh didn't come into being until
1972) and he gathered from them that the Wall's factory was opening.
Therefore he decided to stay.
We knew it was cold but not how cold. So in preparation, we
had all our blankets made into mohair coats. Leaving Barbados,
in 70-80 degrees, I was wearing my pyjamas, then a pair of trousers,
then another pair of trousers, then a suit, then on top of that
this thick, mohair blanket coat. It was all itchy and very uncomfortable.
|
| Mahmood
Patel |
There
were some migrant families already in Gloucester by this time. The
Kholwadia family came from the same area in India, so it was easy
for my father to form a relationship with them.
He
first tried to persuade my brothers to come down, but they were
too settled. They'd already bought their houses in Bradford and
they were used to the system.
So
he sent for us and my mother, me, my older brother, younger brother
and two sisters came from Barbados. One of the ironies for him,
was that being an international traveller and a snob he would look
at my brothers coming home in the dark days in Bradford with soot
and grime and so on, smelling of diesel.
When
he went to Wall's for his interview he could actually smell vanilla.
This became his way of selling Gloucester to the community that
was going to join him - "Why
not come to a place that smells of vanilla and milk?"
Jokes
would be made about the people up north washing their hands in oil
and people in Gloucester washing their hands in milk.
My
father set off from India looking for the land of milk and honey.
By coming to Gloucester and working at Wall's, he'd at least found
the milk, if not the honey.
I
came to Gloucester in 1961. We left Barbados on Christmas Eve 1961
with no idea of what England was like. We had no vision, no concept
of what was ahead of us.
Uncomfortable
I remember
thinking how they used to tell stories of snow falling from the
sky. We'd never seen snow. The nearest thing was ice-blocks, so
I had a vision that blocks of ice were falling from the sky when
it snowed.
We
didn't know how cold it was, we knew it was cold but not how cold.
So in preparation, we had all our blankets made into mohair coats.
If you can imagine, in 1961 I would have been eight years old.
Leaving
Barbados, in 70-80 degrees, I was wearing my pyjamas, then a pair
of trousers, then another pair of trousers, then a suit, then on
top of that this thick, mohair blanket coat. It was all itchy and
very uncomfortable.
We
first flew from Barbados to New York. When we landed in the early
morning, my memory is of seeing sleet and snow and wind for the
first time. I was dying to use the toilet. I can remember being
very, very afraid that I might wet myself.
When
we finally arrived in England, we didn't know if my dad would be
there to pick us up because we'd never been in an airport before.
We didn't know what was expected. Immigration then was different
to what it is now because there was no immigration policy.
No
running water
You
basically had to have some proof that you were who you were. We
didn't have passports - we had the doctor's vaccination cards to
prove that we were who we said we were.
We
came out of the airport and were very excited at meeting Dad again.
He turned up eventually in an old Bedford van and instead of Gloucester,
he took us to Coventry. We spent our first night in England in a
house where there was no running water, so any hot water you wanted
had to be boiled.
I'd
never heard a kettle whistle before. And going to the toilet we
had to go outside, to the outhouse. It was all very strange. It
was all very exciting.
We
soon met the brothers I'd never met before. They wanted to take
us to Bradford but Dad had to come back to work at Walls. So we
met, said 'hello' and then said 'goodbye'.
Being born in Barbados, we never spoke Gujarati. English was
the first language and it was the Queen's English. It was strange
that suddenly Gujerati was the language my parents communicated
in, but we couldn't speak it. |
| Mahmood
Patel |
Being
born in Barbados, we never spoke Gujerati. English was the first
language and it was the Queen's English. It was strange that suddenly
Gujerati was the language my parents communicated in, but we couldn't
speak it.
There
was no way that we could communicate with my brothers and no way
they could communicate with us. I remember thinking because we didn't
speak Gujerati, they thought less of us because we couldn't speak
to them and they didn't want to speak to us in plain English.
I
never learned Gujerati properly until my older brother got married
in 1971. So from 1963 to 1971, I didn't see myself as Indian or
Asian. I saw myself as being completely different. Probably I had
more of an affinity with the West Indies than India because that
was the background that I understood.
If
you can imagine five of us, plus my parents, in one bedroom above
a restaurant in London Road. Things were tough for my Mum and Dad
because my Mum had expectations of my father, great expectations.
She
perhaps saw him as being a family man, and having to be conscious
of the family's needs, that perhaps he would get a house. He would
get for her in England what she had left behind in Barbados.
My
father, on the other hand, because he had become a migrant worker
again, didn't see the importance or priority of getting a house.
His main priority was to try and earn as much money as he could.
Odyssey
When
he left India, he was on some sort of odyssey. He probably made
a promise to his mother that if they let him go as an immigrant
abroad, he would earn riches and come back to them. They would never
have to want for anything for the rest of their lives.
So
far, he hadn't achieved that. So in 1961 he was back here again
- back at square one, having to start all over again. But he had
his faithful Bedford van and Father would look forward to the weekends
when was free. Then
he would load us in the van, and take us up to Bradford or Batley
to help my mum escape.
He
had this habit of being friendly to everybody. If
he saw an Indian that he didn't know, he would stop the car
and would ask where they were going. They would say: 'Oh, you
wouldn't know' and he would say: 'Yes, I'll know. Tell me and
I'll take you.' He'd take them wherever they'd wanted to go.
They would say: 'What do I call you?'
He would reply: 'Cha-cha'. Of course, everybody then knew him
as 'Cha-cha', which is Uncle. His gravestone is inscribed 'Gloucester
Cha-cha'.
|
| Mahmood
Patel on his father |
The
restaurant was busy on weekends anyway, so the last thing the owner
wanted was this great family of children running around. Also
by going up to Batley, my mum was meeting her nieces who she hadn't
seen for a long time.
They
were young girls when she left India and now married and had come
to England. Their husbands were in steady employment and had houses.
I hated Batley then, because in Batley is the Soot Hill, a tremendous
hill that you have to climb. My cousin's toilet was a hundred yards
down the road from their typical miner's cottage.
So
if you wanted to go the toilet, you had to take the key and walk
down the road to whatever number toilet was allocated to your house.
The doors on the toilet were flush, so if you went to the toilet
at night, you had to either take a candle or a torch.
These
memories of the hardship are vivid. You had to be careful, you had
to learn this new way of living. But for us as children it was exciting
because it was all pioneer stuff. We had nobody to tell us what
their experiences were like, so everything became a challenge.
If
we wanted toast, we toasted bread on the one bar heater. If you
wanted to make tea, you would turn the heater at a 45 degree angle
and put the kettle on. You had to be creative.
If
there was a draught coming from under the door, then you just put
a coat where the draught was coming from. Everything was cold! There
was no routine.
Fear
within
You
were afraid of going out too far, just in case you got lost and
you couldn't remember how to come back to where you were staying.
It was exciting but there was that fear within.
When
we moved in to our new house in Salisbury Road, we didn't have any
furniture. We had lino on the floor, we didn't have any carpet.
We didn't have any bed to sleep on. We didn't have any chairs to
sit on. We also had no heating. So my brothers and myself and my
sister, we lifted the lino and took the newspapers from underneath
and we burnt them in the grate for warmth.
People
that came from abroad had a habit of looking for my Dad. From South
Africa, Zambia, or Kenya would come looking for this man. He had
this habit of being friendly to everybody.
If
he saw an Indian that he didn't know, he would stop the car and
would ask where they were going. They would say: 'Oh, you wouldn't
know' and he would say: 'Yes, I'll know. Tell me and I'll take you.'
He'd
take them wherever they'd wanted to go. They'd offer money and he'd
say: 'No, I'm not a taxi'. They would say: 'What do I call you?'
He would reply: 'Cha-cha'. Of course, everybody then knew him as
'Cha-cha', which is Uncle.
Formal
education
Anybody
that had a problem and couldn't resolve it themselves would come
to him. He developed this status. The family developed a status.
His gravestone is inscribed 'Gloucester Cha-cha'.
Families
started to grow and he became more and more involved in the community.
He tried to organise things but at the same time, we were growing
up. The expectation was that we would go through formal education
and then find a job.
When
it came to the eleven plus, my older brother didn't bother. He'd
only been in junior school one year and went to Hatherley Road Boys,
which was the closest school.
At
school, all my classmates were white. In my experience at junior
school, only one guy ever called me a 'black bastard' and only
one chap ever called me a 'nigger'. Anyway my white friend hit
him - I didn't have to because my friend felt for me when those
words were used. He broke his knuckles!
|
| Mahmood
Patel |
I believe
that I may have passed the eleven plus but because my brother filled
the form in (my father would delegate form-filling) for the school
selection, and because he was already attending Hatherley Road Boys,
he put that school down for me.
When
I came to Hatherley Road Boys School, in 1965-66, they put me in
the 'A' stream. There was another exam, right at the beginning of
the school year. I think I came second or third. The deputy headmaster
called me in and said: 'Mr Patel, you've done well in this exam,
I don't think you should be at this school. You should go on to
Central Technical.'
In
Gloucester, there was the Grammar, the Technical and the Secondary
Modern. I went home very excited because I'd won over something.
It was an achievement. However my father said to my mum that I couldn't
go to Central unless my brother went as well.
My
father met the headmaster who was very good and said that if my
bother improved academically, we could both transfer the following
year. My brother did and we both got a transfer to Central.
Education
was owned by us; the school was owned by us; our school life was
owned by us. Our parents had no idea of what we were doing.
There
was a school trip to spend a week in London, and you had to pay
five pounds. My English teacher paid the five pounds for me so I
could go off to London for a week. It was amazing, because here
I was with all these big kids in this hotel.
The
difficulty I had in explaining to people that I couldn't eat the
breakfast that the English kids could have. My mother told me I
need to find out how the eggs are fried.
It
opened up this dual personality that you develop, where outwardly,
you can be part of the environment you are in, but somehow inwardly,
there was something that you didn't lose - you didn't compromise
your beliefs.
With
my first pay packet, I went into John Collier and ordered myself
an Italian suit. That was my style. My mother hated it because
I had wasted money. |
| Mahmood
Patel |
At
school, all my classmates were white. In my experience at junior
school, only one guy ever called me a 'black bastard' and only one
chap ever called me a 'nigger'. Anyway
my white friend hit him - I didn't have to because my friend felt
for me when those words were used. He broke his knuckles! He broke
the other chap's nose in the playground.
At
school I became a prefect, and I enjoyed that. It raised my self-esteem
and image. I wanted to go to college but my older brother had left
school when he was sixteen and went straight into work.
My
parents said: 'Go and find a job'. I went up to Fishers of Gloucester
as they had a vacancy for a sales assistant. I walked in, they looked
at me and they offered me a job. It paid me six pounds a week and
I worked nine to five.
With
my first pay packet, I went into John Collier and ordered myself
an Italian suit. That was my style. My mother hated it because I
had wasted money.
After
about ten months, my father told me to go to Wall's because that
was where my brother was working. His salary had increased to eighteen
pounds a week. I went up to the factory in my Italian suit and I
filled in a job application in 1969.
They
asked me what job I wanted, so asked the girl at personnel what
job she thought I was suitable for. She said: 'Dressed like that,
you're not going in the factory', and I got a job in administration
at Birds Eye Wall's.
Fascination
I never
had a problem; people would ask who I was, ask about my faith and
I became a fascination for people. People were intrigued by me and
I use that even today.
I'm
an enigma to people and I enjoy that. I refuse, like Muhammad Ali
the boxer, to be put in a particular compartment. People can say:
'He is Indian, these are his traits', or 'He is Afro-Caribbean,
these are his traits', or 'He is English, these are his traits'.
I
don't like that; we are all individuals. We
all have our strengths and our needs. It's good to have a good feeling
about yourself because at the end of the day, it's that internal
person you go back to, not the external person.
Adolescence,
youth and puberty I didn't have. I tell my children that there was
no concept in those days of being young and youthful and then being
adult and mature. You were either mature, that you could handle
yourself in a situation or you were not mature and couldn't handle
yourself.
My mother would tell me not to let people see me walking out
of pubs, not to let people see me associating with white kids
or white girls. I
would say: 'What happens if you needed matches and the only
place you could buy matches was in the pub?' It's all about
intention.
|
| Mahmood
Patel |
My
mother would tell me not to let people see me walking out of pubs,
not to let people see me associating with white kids or white girls.
I
would say: "What happens if you needed matches and the only
place you could buy matches was in the pub?"
It's
all about intention. If
our intentions are right, what does it matter what people see? We
know what our intentions are. Everything was a means to an end and
the end could be whatever you wanted it to be.
My
parents, my father and mother, never said you will have this prescribed
way of living, the atomic family concept, there will be two point
four children, you will have a washing machine.
There
was no order to things: things came as they arrived and things went
as they were lost. In this chaos, there was this equilibrium between
yourself and the outside world.
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See 'The Gujarati Muslim Community'
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