Settling in Britain  

Mrs Ah Poh Luong

I was about 59 when I arrived in Britain. The Government sent people to collect refugees from the airport and take us to a camp. I don't remember where it was. Then my husband and son came to pick me up. My husband had found a nice house where we could all live together: my husband, son and my daughter-in-law. Early on, I found it a little bit hard because I didn't know the language. I enjoyed going to the markets, although they were not like the markets back home. When my son first moved out from the family home to be a student, he didn't live too far away, but people were worried about us, thinking we were lonely. We even got a visit from an English priest to see if we were all right. By then, my husband I were retired and where we lived, there wasn't a large Chinese community, but we did have a few friends and we passed the time going out with them. We then made a request to move to London, and after two years we were able to come to London to settle.

We all preferred living in London. I didn't really get to know people from other communities, but London was a really mixed society and we felt more at home here. And there was a much larger Chinese community here. We were living in a flat in Greenwich, near the Cutty Sark ship. I stayed there for many years until I moved to a sheltered housing unit for older Chinese people called Kenneth Lee House.
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Mr Michael Roper

I came over by ship in 1951 when I was twenty years old. For me it was an adventure. I was very sea sick until I arrived in Dover. I got on the train to London, Charing Cross. Then my aunt came down to meet me to take me to her house in Kentish Town. I asked her, "Where is the ocean?" She replied, "What do you mean? There is no ocean in London." Back home, there was a big yard round every house and beyond that, the bluest of oceans. My aunt told me I would get used to it. She took me to the shops. They were so little, I went in and asked for something and the shopkeeper said "What?" I said "You heard what I said. I don't like repeating myself." I had to get used to so many things.

I lived in my aunt's house. She had an illness and had to go into hospital. She wanted me to take care of the house and collect the rent from her African tenants while she was in hospital. I worked from the day my aunt went into hospital until I retired. I never stopped working. I was making hearing aids. We made every type of hearing aid and fixed them as well. I managed to make £6 a week, which I thought was not bad money. There were two of us doing this job. Then one day, there was a new manager put in and he gave me the sack. He was unpopular and almost everybody walked out. I started to look for other jobs I ended up making electronic devices and time switches. My company had a contract with the government, and the BBC used them. You set them up to switch on automatically in the morning. Then I did television repairs.

I never had any trouble through being black. Everyone was really friendly to me. There was one bloke who said to me, "Why do they keep troubling me?" I said, "Who is troubling you?" He told me that when he walked down the street, and he saw a white person he felt like there was going to be trouble. I replied "What are you saying? No white man ever do me any thing in England. As long as you don't trouble them, they don't trouble you. I go any place I want, and I talk to them, just the same as anyone else." I've never been back to the Caribbean in all the years I've been here, though I did always write to my mother while she was alive.

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