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My
father was born in 1897 in Toishan, Kwangtung, China. The story
that I remember of him was that as a teenager, he was recruited
by the French Government and brought to Europe to work on the front
during the First World War.
France
and England each brought over 100,000 Chinese to do general building
work, to fill in bomb craters on air fields, to dig trenches, to
store bombs and ammunition and to unload the ships.
According
to the story, when the war ended in 1918, my father got on a
ship to go to America. But when he got off, it turned out to
be Liverpool. That was how he came to stay in England.
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| Frank
Wing Yow Soo |
The
only qualifications required were that they be healthy, be able
to work a minimum 12 hour shift and to not be afraid of explosions
and bullets flying about!
My
father quickly learnt some French and was put in charge of a labour
squad. He said his most frightening job was when his squad was sent
out to fill in bomb craters on an airfield while bombs were still
being dropped around them. This was because the allied planes were
due to return at any moment and would not be able to land.
According
to the story, when the war ended in 1918, my father got on a ship
to go to America. But when he got off, it turned out to be Liverpool.
That was how he came to stay in England.
In
those days, there were very, very few Chinese in England. So whenever
he saw a Chinese person, my father immediately went to greet them.
They spoke, exchanged addresses and sooner or later visited each
other.
The
only trade that seemed to be open to the Chinese was hand laundry
work. So they all opened little laundries where they and their family
could work. In those days, the average English person washed daily,
but only had a bath and changed their underwear once a week.
Most
houses didn't have a bathroom and even inside toilets only started
appearing in houses built from about 1930. People didn't have the
facilities for washing clothes and sheets, so tended to take them
to the local laundry.
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Inside
a Chinese laundry
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Being
very poor, the laundries set up by the Chinese were in the cheapest
areas. These were usually also the roughest and toughest parts of
each town.
So
in Cardiff, the Chinese laundries were found in Bute Street, Tiger
Bay. In
Liverpool it was Scotland Road.
It
wasn't only the Chinese who ran small hand laundries. There were
still many small, English hand laundries satisfying this need.
In
Cheltenham, in the back streets of Leckhampton, there was a little
English hand laundry, in the back of a terraced house, which didn't
close until the early 1950s.
Immediately
after the war, my father travelled all over England and Wales -
possibly the equivalent of today's back-packer - working in Chinese
laundries.
After
a few years however, he settled down and started his own laundry
in Birkenhead. He married a local English girl and they had two
daughters. For
whatever reason, they divorced after about 15 years.
He
went back to China and married my mother in 1937, before returning
to his laundry in Birkenhead. Due to the speed of the marriage,
it may have been an arranged one. If so, it was certainly a successful
match.
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Frank
and his parents outside their laundry business
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I was
born in 1938 in 90 Oxton Road, Birkenhead. The house was destroyed
by a bomb in the early part of the Second World War. Luckily
we had heeded the air raid warning and were all inside the cellars
of the Birkenhead Brewery, just down the road.
My
father re-opened the laundry at 66 Oxton Road, almost opposite the
Brewery. This was quite convenient, as we didn't have to run very
far whenever the warning sirens went off.
I
remember the laundry had a great big cauldron, about five feet across
and heated by a coke fire underneath. All the dirty clothes were
piled in and boiled, before being transferred to a large wooden
tub for rinsing. The clothes were then spun dry in a "hydro" and
then transferred to the "drying room" with wires strung across the
ceiling.
The
room was heated by an iron coke stove which was also the heater
for the flat irons. The flat irons were more versatile than the
electric irons available then. In fact, stiff collars could only
be formed or shaped with a flat iron - electric irons were too bulky
and couldn't get hot enough.
Only
Chinese laundries were able to produce the very stiff collars as
preferred by the police and armed forces and for formal dress wear.
Electricity
was only just coming in. Many houses had no supply. Ours in Birkenhead
had electricity only on the ground floor until 1948. Upstairs,
candles had to be used.
In
addition the electricity supply had not yet been standardised, so
Birkenhead and a few other areas used DC current and did not change
to AC current until the National Electric Grid was set up. Consequently,
when we moved down from Birkenhead to Cheltenham in 1948, all the
electric items and radios we brought wouldn't work.
Only Chinese laundries were able to produce the very stiff collars
as preferred by the police and armed forces and for formal dress
wear. |
| Frank
Wing Yow Soo |
Our
laundry had a very quick turn-around of three days. The work was
hard and physically demanding, with my father having to work an
18-hour day for five days of the week and three to five hours on
the other two days. He always kept the afternoons free on market
day and Sunday.
To
be able to do an 18-hour stint he would sleep for an hour each afternoon.
In
1945, to wash and iron a shirt cost 6d (2.5p). An average working
women's weekly pay was £2-10s-0d (£2.50) for a 40/45 hour week.
Our
laundry was one of the bigger of the Chinese ones and we had quite
a few English girls working for us. They worked according to our
timetable, so some days were very long, ending quite late at 8pm
or 9pm at night.
Dried
vegetables and noodles
During
the 1940-45 war and for several years after, you couldn't buy rice
or any Chinese foods. The only way you could obtain these foods
was when a ship came into port with Chinese sailors in their crew.
They knew that wherever they went there would be Chinese wanting
rice, dried vegetables and noodles, who would be willing to pay
almost any price. A
bag of rice could cost a month's wages.
Every
Sunday, we would go from Birkenhead, across or under the River Mersey
to Chinatown in Nelson Street, Liverpool, which was one street away
from the Cathedral.
There
were a few little shops that sold Chinese food and goods and also
the Hoi Yin Community Association where people could play Mah Jong
or obtain help.
My
father was a founder member as he did a lot of community work. There
were very few cultural exchanges but once or twice a year the Association
would arrange for a group of entertainers to come and perform live
Chinese opera on a Sunday afternoon. As I didn't know the legends
or stories or understand what was happening, I used to run around
the aisles with the other children.
In
1948, my father bought the one and only Chinese laundry in, Winchcombe
Street, Cheltenham and we all moved south. This laundry was very
much bigger and was more mechanised, with industrial washing machines,
spin dryers, ironing callenders, presses and tumble dryers. We
still needed to create a drying room for the stiff collars and a
stove for the flat irons.
My family worked in the laundry until 1958 when my father converted
the laundry into the first Chinese restaurant in Cheltenham. |
| Frank
Wing Yow Soo |
The
whole family had to help in the business. When we came home from
school we would join in and help - fitting our homework in when
we could.
Because
the work was long and hard and there were 14 people involved, the
food was fantastic and always plenty of it.
My
mother did all the cooking. We had a big breakfast between 8-9am
that included; eggs, bacon, sausages, fried bread, fried cheese
as well as Chinese breakfast food like congee, a rice dish and dim
sum, similar to dumplings.
At
11am there would be tea, cakes and sandwiches. Lunch at 1pm would
be a Chinese meal with a variety of regional dishes not available
even in today's Chinese restaurants.
Tea
and cakes at 4pm, another full Chinese meal at 7pm and a final fry
up at about 10pm. I often had pork chops on a plate of rice at this
time of night. My father would carry on working until 1am.
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The
Mayflower Restaurant - the first Chinese restaurant in Cheltenham
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My
family worked in the laundry until 1958 when my father converted
the laundry into the first Chinese restaurant in Cheltenham.
At
that time, the only takeaway food was from fish and chip shops -
there was no Indian food or pizzas.
The
restaurant was called the Ah Chow (later to become The Mayflower)
and situated in Clarence Street, opposite the Cheltenham & Gloucester
Building Society. It was very popular from the beginning.
There
were queues every night until another Chinese restaurant opened
up about a year later and helped ease the pressure. However
these were the only two in Cheltenham for many years.
»See
Frank's story part 2
»See
Frank's story part 3
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