Schooldays and Growing Up  

Mr Bagwant Singh

As a child I went to school in Moshi in Tanzania. This was only for a short period because my dad moved with his job to different stations. My school in Moshi was mixed, but we mostly grew up with Sikh and Gujarati communities, so I learned to speak and write Gujarati. I think when we were in fifth or sixth form we learned English. I could also speak Swahili, but now I have forgotten most of it. My favourite subject at school was art. I was really good at it and I used to enjoy singing as well.

Every five years, my father used to go back to India for six months at a time and visit his parents. He used to work for five years without having any holiday, so then he could save it up for these longer visits. When I was 16, my father decided to take me to India, because we couldn't get a proper education in Africa as we were travelling around all the time. The whole family went to India for a holiday.

We travelled to India by ship, which was really big. I remember how we played on the deck. We were travelling in economy class with other Asians who were working people. It took fifteen days to travel from East Africa to India, depending on the weather. My mum used to get up in the morning and cook on the stove. We docked at Bombay and then we caught the train to Punjab. We stayed in Amritsar and then from Amritsar we moved to Julundur. My parents returned back to Africa with my younger siblings and I remained behind in India with two brothers and two sisters. I was very sad about leaving Africa because it was such a good place. Even now, I have seen so many countries, but there is nowhere like Africa, it is so beautiful.

I stayed in Julundur for fifteen to sixteen years. At first we didn't stay with family; we stayed in a girls' hostel and my brothers and I were the only boys! My father's family lived close by, so we didn't feel alone. We knew we were there to study and we had a guardian who took good care of us. I think after a year and half my mum came back with the rest of the family and bought a house. We all moved from the hostel and stayed with my mum, but my father still had to go back to Africa and finish his service. He worked from 1926 to1963, and he retired in 1964.

In India I studied a BA in music. After I finished my studies I started working. I set up my own little business. I employed a few people, but I still continued my studies in the evenings. I used to work very hard, I got up at five o'clock. My job was in engineering. We had a lathe and machines and we manufactured parts. I wanted to learn more, so I thought I would come to England.
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Mrs Gladys Smith

I attended an Anglican school. I am a Methodist but I never went to a Methodist school. I went to school until I was sixteen. I then did one year's training to become a teacher. We learned the basics at school, such as addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. As you grew older, you changed from one class to the next, but we didn't have a teacher for every subject. We did a bit of history, a bit of geography, a bit of English. English was in two sections: grammar and literature.

My favourite subject was English. I always wanted to speak correct English because I did English grammar and I loved to say the right thing at the right time. I am happy that I can hold my own with anybody when it comes to speaking properly. I haven't had any special training; I just did it on my own! My father spoke very well and was very strict. At home we were not bound to hard and fast rules, but if you didn't say something correctly, he might say, "Oh, that doesn't sound right!" I loved reading Shakespeare, and English composition. I didn't enjoy history because of remembering dates. We did British Empire history. We were taught about kings and queens and the dates of their reigns. We learned about different governments, prime ministers' names and the most outstanding events of that time.

Empire day was just the greatest day for a school child. We all looked forward to Empire Day, when we wore new uniforms or a new dress. We all dressed in white, or the uniform of the school. Not all schools had a uniform. It was a children's celebration and we looked forward to the treat which was a drink and a bun! But that meant so much to us, you know, we had ginger beer - homemade ginger beer of course - and a bun, but that ginger beer was wonderful.

Extracts from the 'Mapping Memories' publication. Many more stories are included in the book. Find out how to obtain a copy here