• Reference Number: DX-624/6/17
• Ref No: DX-624/6/17
• Date: Feb 2000
• Level: Item
• Extent: 1 item
• Format: Mini-dv (video)
• Description: Language: English
  Running time: 42 minutes 57 seconds
  Transcript (copyright BEME):
  Intr - Good Morning BB. Thank you for inviting us here into your home and, we'd just like to ask you a few questions about your experiences in the West Indies and also your experiences here in Britain. The first question I would like to ask you is where were you born in the West Indies, could you give me an insight into that?
  
  BB. - I was born in the parish of Hanover in a village called Claremont, 1000ft above sea level - very high. I was born in the year 1924, the month of February, this month is my birth month.
  
  Intr - That's wonderful, living in Jamaica could you tell me who had an influence over you as you were growing up? Who were some of your mentors?
  
  BB. - When I was a child my grandfather was one of them. He was a very religious man, a man of good morals. I lift my hat to my granddad for more than one thing. He use to take us at night around the old mahogany table for family prayer and bible reading and he sees to it we go to church every Sunday and we say our prayers at night before we go to bed.
  
  Intr - So you came from a very religious background?
  
  BB. - Yes, very much so.
  
  Intr - What about your grandmother?
  
  BB. - My grandmother was the same and my mother and my dad.
  
  Intr - And you're the same all the way through?
  
  BB. - Yes, because we're coming from a traditional Methodist background.
  
  Intr - Yeah, and when did you decide yourself you wanted to be a preacher?
  
  BB. - You know from when I was going to school, I said, two professions I would pursue, a teacher in a school or a minister of religion.
  
  Intr - And why did you take the second choice, of becoming a preacher, just because of your religious background?
  
  BB. - Yes, and somehow the Lord called me into this thing, and here I'm doing preaching and teaching now, both at the same time (Repeated by the interviewer).
  
  Intr - Were you brought up by your mother and father or was it an extended venture, were you brought up by your grandparents as well?
  
  BB. - No, I was brought up by my mother and father but in Jamaica we live near each other like so. There are times when I'm with my grandparents and times when I'm with my mother. I was the first grandchild so my grandparents loved my dearly.
  
  Intr - And the first son?
  
  BB. - First son.
  
  Intr - So what kind of discipline did you have from each of your parents?
  
  BB. - Oh, your talking about Victorian discipline in those days, not firm but strict, very strict.
  
  Intr - Elaborate?
  
  BB. - Strict in a way that you do as you are told, and you couldn't talk back to your parents because that's rude, no manners then not only would they rebuke you but the neighbours would as well. And they set good examples for you. I'm not saying it was 100% alright, 'cause nobody's perfect, but they did their very best, you can see the product today isn't it.
  
  Intr - What about influences in your boyhood? What sort of things did you like doing as a child, What can you recall?
  
  BB. - I was a lover of reading, I liked to read, that was my greatest hobby those days, to read, because I'm also on the quest I want to know more and I also ask a lot of questions to older people.
  
  Intr - Do you find that they are knowledgeable?
  
  BB. - Yes.
  
  Intr - To what extent?
  
  BB. - 'Cause they reveal things to us that I did not know, they spoke to me in the Jamaican dialect.
  
  Intr - Patwa?
  
  BB. - Yeah, but the older I get, the more educated, I translate so to speak into standard English, to get an understanding of what they are talking about?
  
  Intr - And how did you feel about the older generation in your day, how was their command of medicines and healing people and stuff like that?
  
  BB. - Well it's a tradition that comes from Africa, where my grandmother would go to the fields and pick different weeds and leaves off trees, they have leaves to boil that are good for your chest, your heart, your eyes and you name it they could find it out in the fields there, I've forgot some of them now (laugh)
  
  Intr - Can you remember any of them they use to use, I remember circacy?
  
  BB. - Circacy is one of the great ones and we have another one that we call, that is for cough, if you have a cough, susembe, leaves of the susembe, you juice it, mix it with a pinch of salt, alittle sugar mix it up and drink it, gets the cold off the chest.
  
  Intr - Where do you think all this medicine and so forth originated from was it just something they developed where??
  
  BB. - No, they brought it with them when they left Africa, you cannot give a true picture of the Carribean without going back to Africa, the roots.
  
  Intr - True, had you heard of Mary Seacole?
  
  BB. - Yes, she was the one who worked with Florence Nightingale. The sad thing about it is her name is now mentioned in literatures, we heard all about Nightingale because when I was a school boy, we had to study the life and history of this great Florence Nightingale not knowing that Mary Seacole played an excellent part in the nursing profession.
  
  Intr - Have you got any siblings, brothers or sisters?
  
  BB - No, I haven't I'm the only child.
  
  Intr - So were you spoilt?
  
  BB. - No, not with that mother. My mother no you don't spoil for her. She a one word woman. She spoke to you, look and that and off you get to do what your doing but she was a loving woman.
  
  Intr - What about your working experiences in Jamaica, what can you tell me about you know, before you became a minister, what were your other jobs, what did you use to do?
  
  BB. - Well you know, Jamaica is agricultural country especially in the villages so we do farming in the days, yam plantation, banana plantation, sugar plantation we work there and then at nights we go round the different villages and we preach.
  
  Intr - So you had two jobs?
  
  BB. - Two jobs, hard but it pays off anyhow.
  
  Intr - How about your, did you have a formal education in Jamaica?
  
  BB. - Yeah, at first we had our elementary training, and then we go up to an eight grade in what they call now an all age school. From that now your further education, what we call the second step up and from there out of that group who take more exams, you get boys and girls from here go to teacher training college and different places.
  
  Intr - Were you one of those?
  
  BB. - No, I went away to United States, 1944, and there I started to do my studies in the ministry.
  
  Intr - Okay, so you did have like, a higher education?
  
  BB. - Yes
  
  Intr - And what was that like?
  
  BB. - In Jamaica?
  
  Intr - No, in the United States.
  
  BB. - Well I took my ministerial training course from a college called, Lee college in Tennessee. I couldn't get to be a resident student there because those were the days of black out, you keep out the blacks, so I did it by correspondence, I did all my lessons, sent them back to the college, they graded them and sent them back to me here.
  
  Intr - Could you compare your education in the West Indies and your higher education that you received in the United States to what you have done here?
  
  BB. - Now, the education system in U.S. is higher than Jamaica and here as well. I like it here, once you are trained in this country, here you get a thorough training, there's no country to beat this one here, that's how I see it.
  
  Intr - So you find that, I know you had a formal education and higher education but what do you see other West Indian ordinary people who came to this country. What do you think this country had to offer in way of education for them?
  
  BB. - First to begin, back home to go higher up in the education system those days you had to pay your way, that set back a lot of Jamaicans. Its not that they didn't have the potential and the ability to climb the ladder but they didn't have the money. Here you don't have to do that, you get a good education, it's only when you going off to university that you have to find the money to help you along, so there's more opportunity here to climb the ladder of education than what you have back home. I don't know what it's like now.
  
  Intr - In the view of that time in the 60's how easy was it for black people to have formal education here?
  
  BB. - It wasn't so easy you know, no not at all. I remember some years ago there were some schools even in this town here, once your child go to that school it like a dump. They use to take our children around to different factories and show them - which is good but on the other hand they encouraged them to tale jobs there. Because my children come home to me and tell me the same thing and I said ' No, let me slave in the factory for you, I'm your father, you won't be going there, sky the limit for this family, If you climb the ladder go up there, I'll stand by you'. And so I did, see them there. (Points to Photographs)
  
  Intr - I can see by looking at your walls that there are a lot of graduates in your family, the next question I was going to ask is how important is education to you and your family but you have answered it already. Why did you think it was important for them to be educated in such a way?
  
  BB. - I'm going back home now, my mother was a very ambitious woman, she told me that she didn't get much out of education because she was the eldest in the family, she have to stop home and look after her younger brothers and sisters, while her parents go to the plantation. But she vow that if ever she have any children she going to see to it that they get good education. 1931, I was a schoolboy, my mother sat me down one October month on a bench in the house and she said to me, 'You see that school over there', it was on a hill, 'you have to go there'. She said 'I will see to it that you know more than me' and so she did and when I left Jamaica and came here, every letter my mother wrote me, remember what I've done for you, see to it that your children go to school and get educated, every letter. May her soul rest in peace.
  
  Intr - Wonderful, how easy was it for women in the West Indies to be educated, as you were saying about your mother, that it wasn't very easy but in some cases I've heard that it was easier for men, for women to be educated, than for men 'cause men have to go into the fields. Did you find that in your experience?
  
  BB. - There again, yes and no, because if the men go into the field, the woman at home looking after her children, scarcely have time to do anything more and in the villages you can't have night schools, you don't have correspondence courses either those days, so it wasn't so easy for the women.
  
  Intr - What about women in the towns?
  
  BB. - Well they have better chance those days, they have everything right at there doorstep so to speak.
  
  Intr - Yes, I was speaking and interviewing someone recently and he argued that women were far more likely to be educated as an asset to the farm, than men were. And even when they came to this country they were more likely to be accepted - nurses and social workers of the older generation. Did you find that it was more possible for women to get into education, for black women to get into education than black men?
  
  BB. - Women are quick thinkers, I think you would bear me out with that, they are great thinkers - and I lift my hat to the women of this country, the Jamaican women they were the first group to break through the barrier and out themselves forward into further education. The first step they made was into the nursing profession, sad to say the men didn't make any move those days, not till now, some of the men still lagging behind.
  
  Intr - I mean some of the women that came to this country we understand were from ordinary backgrounds and a lot of the women, even my mother did some sort of formal training in the West Indies they came here and were not accepted. How did you find that for both really for men and women.
  
  BB. - Well, let's talk about the woman first, you see there is a prejudice now we get our training and teaching and language from this country. We trained out there all the textbooks come from here and yet when we came here they would not accept it. They think that our education is inferior to what they have here, so some poor girls had to go back again and re-educate themselves in order to get where they want.
  
  Intr - So what of the women who couldn't afford to go back into education?
  
  BB. - Well they just land up as ordinary housewives.
  
  Intr - Or factory workers?
  
  BB. - Or factory workers.
  
  Intr - The next question is how do you see that reflecting on the black community today you know especially in Wolverhampton?
  
  BB. - Well, we need role models and mentors in our society and if we , the older ones don't set that example there's nothing the younger ones have to look to and because some of young ones come and find their fathers and mothers don't move from down there, to anywhere else they adopt the same custom and principal and it gets to bad. It's too bad, it does nothing good to our community, the black community do like any community need something or someone to lift them up.
  
  Intr - Like the Americans, I know that as a child I look at people like Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks, different black hero's in my estimation so I can have a mentor something to ascribe to, Mary Seacole for instance. Do you think that the black children in our schools know anything of their black culture or of the people who have aspired to great things? Do you think they're learning anything about it in their schools today? What do you think can be done about it so that our black children know more?
  
  BB. - You see, what you are doing today will help - let me use - this is a figure of speech. If the good person next door, and you pass that door everyday and don't know the good that are searching for is just next door to you. Not until you knock the doors and go inside and you find out that what your searching for is right there. What I want to promote is that there are people in the black community that are good examples but our children don't know. If what you are doing here get into the schools or the colleges then the people, youngsters of Wolverhampton will know that right in their very town there are people there that they can mould there lives off.
  
  Intr - And what in the black community could be done outside of school that could actually help to make this possible?
  
  BB. - Well we have centres, we could establish centres where people come in and we as black leaders should be in a position where we can pass on our experiences, our knowledge of things, our roots where we are coming from on to them, so that they can be proud.
  
  Intr - I heard earlier on you talk about your roots that you are from Ghana and also the name of your tribe and the name of your family. How assessible are these things to the black community now, how could they venture out in looking for these things because there is a saying , you have to know where your coming from, to know where your going, because you found yours, what advice could you give to anyone.
  
  BB. - I think you have to go and research for those things. The best ways to, like my roots you know, if we can tap the embassy of Ghana we will get a lot of advise from them. Once you mention where you coming from they will tell you whether your from , , ,those places.
  
  
  Intr - That would sort of help a lot of people to know their roots. How easy was it for you to find accommodation when you came from the West Indies in this country. How easy was it to find proper accommodation for you and your family?
  
  BB. - It was not easy, it was a battle on our hands. When I came here the first night I came up to Wolverhampton I had a few friends up at a place called Langley Road, in Merry Hill area, I went there I thought they could put me up but after they give me a light meal, the manager came around and said, well he can eat but he can't sleep here. Just imagine I'm a total stranger so the men took me to another place and I got put up the night. In Jamaica we leave our bed to give.
  
  Intr - How is the English treated in Jamaica in those days because my mother, Let me hear from you how they were treated, how did you see them?
  
  BB. - We saw them as god, we saw them as someone perfect, very, very superior, no evil in them. Nothing that would cause you to be sorry - perfect, for that reason a lot of people believe that, alright then I would like to have a white man's mind, for the white man wouldn't pinch anything from you, he wouldn't tell a lie on you and all those kind of things. When I grow up back home you know, learn that human beings and subject to failures like anybody, but I thought we would have been treated much better when we came here first. They told us that we are subjects of this country and this is the mother country, well I mean every child look to mother even if , if she can't give you food she'd give a good word, never mind son come and sit here. But when we came here it was a different thing, they called us you know to help them rebuild the country after the war, we sacrificed when we came here and that would have had a good reception but we didn't get it that way had to and beg and do everything to get a place to stop. There were places where you go and knock the door and they look at you , no room for you, they don't want no blacks and they don't want know Irish. Though I don't know why 'cause the Irish are white people so I don't know why. However, we , I didn't moan a lot, I stood my ground and said I'm going to stay put, and I'm going to work hard and send down my roots and let the indigenous population know I have stamina in me. I can excel if I want to, so I pick up courage and start to do my thing.
  
  Intr - As you talk about stamina did you feel that women were behind you in actually, you know, moving forward and actually sticking to what they believe in and going forward?
  
  BB - Yes, let me say this, in this whole wide world of humanity, no man can excel, reach up to any height unless you have a woman by you. I wouldn't even say behind you but by you, you do need your woman folk, do you know man is not complete without a woman (laugh), you need a woman.
  
  Intr - So you think that through the struggles they ??
  
  BB. - Stood by us
  
  Intr - And how difficult was it in those days, especially in the 60's to actually to feed your family really, to live a comfortable life with your family?
  
  BB. - Oh Grace, we work the clock round, twelve hours, for nine pounds, sixty hours a week to keep a family here and to sent back home 'cause you know our tradition that we look after our grandparents, our parents, auntie's and uncles, it's no burden to us, that's our custom we share with one another.
  
  Intr - But it was difficult?
  
  BB. - Very, very much so
  
  Intr - Did your wife have to work also?
  
  BB. - Yes, she worked too
  
  Intr - Comparing England and the West Indies did you think you had made a worthy sacrifice?
  
  BB. - To come here.
  
  Intr - Yes.
  
  BB. - Yes
  
  Intr - Elaborate
  
  BB. - Because first to begin with, the education for my children is much easier than when we were back home.
  
  Intr - For instance, do you think that things might have changed if you had stayed in the West Indies. Could you have helped develop the country so therefore it would have been easy for your children to be educated or did you think at the time that you had to go?
  
  BB. - You see money and ambition work together, with all the good intentions that you have you need money as the means to get you there, and that was very, very slow back home.
  
  Intr - And did you have a five year plan or so like everyone else?
  
  BB. - Oh I did , less three years, I said I would stop three years here then go back to Jamaica but I found out that in the second year, couldn't do it so I sent for my wife, my vow, my plead was to keep with my wife as long as I live and being a young man?
  
  Intr - You might be tempted?
  
  BB. - Of course , we live in the real world you know (laugh)
  
  Intr - So in your second year here you found that your three year plan wouldn't work?
  
  BB. - No.
  
  Intr - So when your wife came you started a family here?
  
  BB. - Yes.
  
  Intr - I can see that you're a very educated man, very well read, present what do your congregation? How do they use you at this time? How do you get to share the wealth of your knowledge?
  
  BB. - Oh they work me from morning till night, I'm all over the place.
  
  Intr - I mean what are you, are you a counsellor, do you counsel also?
  
  BB. - Grace I'm everything, I counsel, I teach, I preach, everything.
  
  Intr - Do you find that a lot of the problems that your generation had, do you find that this generation is having the same, some problems in the way of race relations?
  
  BB. - Yes, doesn't matter what you do you find it, because legislation does not change a man's heart. Legislation is an external thing, prejudice is in man's heart, only God can take it out. And sometimes these prejudices are wrapped up in parcels, figure of speech, wrapped up in parcels, you have to open it to find out that it's there.
  
  Intr - Yes, your saying that it still exists but it is hidden.
  
  BB. - Yes, hidden and you must always keep in mind, no matter what people say you black.
  
  Intr - Going back 'cause I'm taking you here and you Jamaica, your smells. What are the kind of smells you remember back home? What are the things that bring back happiness?
  
  BB. - There's a place where I use to live in the valley, it's a pleasure to walk down there in the morning, 'cause Jamaica has so many flowers, wild flowers and florin trees and they stiff fragrance from the?, and the next thing I use to like is fresh coffee, when it's grounded and other things too.
  
  Intr - that brings back memories?
  
  BB. - Memories
  
  Intr - anything that you smell here that gives you like a flash back?
  
  BB. - No, Yes , in summertime when the apple blossom at the back there, reminds me of home.
  
  Intr - What about images, you know, what sort of images can you, you know. What I mean image, in the 60's how would Jamaican, What were their dress sense, what were they like as a people , 'cause I know that sometimes they were a people who liked to look smart.
  
  BB. - Oh yes.
  
  Intr - Like yourself (laugh). Where did you emulate that sort of way of thinking and dressing and being?
  
  BB. - As you say, we were poor people but we like to dress well. It's a pleasure to see the children going off to schools in the mornings, a mom dress them. And Sunday school and those who go to church on Saturday, Sabbath school, well dressed with lovely brilliant colours. We're a people who like lots of colours. And in my day the old women, the mothers of the village, they never use to wear hats like you have, they tie their heads.
  
  Intr -
  
  BB. - That's right, and they dress down here (ankles) and the sleeves here (long). And those pictures come back in my mind, the old days. I remember my mother, my grandmother and all of them. And the love and the care they show to you. And Christmas time and Easter time, whenever we have a function, you know, everyone would rally around you.
  
  Intr - Next thing I was going to ask you is about dates. Special dates in Jamaica, celebrations
  
  BB. - Easter was a great one because Easter (laugh) we use to go round and granddad and grandma use to give us ?Easter?, it was a delight those days. Christmas time again, lots to eat, like the roasting pigs, the curried goat and so on. August again, first of August usually a holiday.
  
  Intr - Anything celebrated?
  
  BB. - Yes, that was the day in the year 1838, when Queen Victoria gave the slaves the freedom, yes, emancipation day we call that, 1838. So this was a big celebration, cooking, drinking, eating and dancing.
  
  Intr - What are the dances? What type of dance?
  
  BB. - they use to dance where you hold a ring.
  
  Intr -
  
  BB. - Yes and you loop in and out and they do the jig to something
  
  Intr - Talking about celebration and dates, and you've given me a very important date, the emancipation of slaves. Any earlier dates like in the 60's , any important dates then?
  
  BB. - Well, there was another date because I'm talking about a long time now, the 24th of May that was Queen Victoria's birthday, they call it empire day, but the Jamaicans change it now and call it labour day, where they go round and plant trees and different things
  
  Intr - What about the Independence day?
  
  BB. - Well it happened while I was here, that is the 6th of August 1962.
  
  Intr - And what did you see the future as being, did you think things got worse or did they get better?
  
  BB. - I think it was best for them because they have more room to breathe now, when your under someone else your in a claustrophobic situation. However, the country has lost its grip somehow, yeah, in some areas of the infrastructure of the country and its caused because of these loan repayment. As soon as they accumulate any money to plough back in their country they have to pay the big people then for the loans and they are living in an atmosphere of strangulation. They are strangling the. I do hope that things will be better.
  
  Intr - Apparently, recently the government did say that they were going to scrap all the debts.
  
  BB. - Yes.
  
  Intr - But Jamaica wasn't one of them.
  
  BB. - We can't manage on our own out there, when owe such enormous amount of money to them, we can't, so if they want to help us they will have to cancel these debts that we owe. And not only Jamaica but other places too. They should be ashamed of themselves and I tell you why. America is so rich, the West Indies is so tiny, so small, are you telling me they can't help them. Jamaican and other Caribbean people shouldn't be going to the United States to look for work, they could establish industries in these islands and keep the people there.
  
  Intr -
  
  BB. - Of course, when a man is hungry he can be very desperate. And when your desperate you don't know what you'll do, I've known even the people take the ordinary canoe to cross (laugh).
  
  Intr -
  
  BB. - Yes, if they have the means, money go a far in life, what the use of staying there and having brilliant sunshine everyday and have nothing to eat. So your better off travelling to a northern climate where its cold and frosty but at the same time you can eat good and work good and sleep good.
  
  Intr -
  
  BB. Yes it was.
  
  Intr - BB, Thank you very much for this interview and thank you for your wealth of experience that you have shown to us. And I'm sure that a lot of young people in our schools will benefit from it . Thank you very much indeed.
  
  BB. - Your welcome.
  
  Pictures of BB and pan round the room of family and graduation photographs.
• Terms:Identity
• Terms:Housing
• Terms:Childhood
• Terms:Leisure
• Terms:Health
• Terms:Religion
• Terms:Women
• Terms:Racial discrimination
• Terms:Employment
• Terms:Schools
• Terms:Migrants/women/Jamaican Childhood
• Access Status: Open
• Contact: Wolverhampton Archives, Wolverhampton Archives & Local Studies

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