STORIES FROM LIGHTHOUSE

These are stories that came out of a collaboration between BRICK Arts & Leyton Lighthouse. We ran a 6-month programme equipping Lighthouse guests in various mediums of creativity. Below are stories of some of our guests who took part in this programme.

I’m Junie from Montserrat. So I drew a picture of Montserrat. It doesn’t look too much the same. But I grew up– I was born in Plymouth, Glendon Hospital.

And I was raised in Gage’s village, Montserrat.

And right now, there’s an active volcano going on there. So a majority of the people were scattered all over. Some went to Canada, some went to America, some went to the neighbouring islands, St. Kitts, Nevis, and different islands. Then a majority came to England. If you have any relatives here, like in Bristol, Birmingham, Bradford, Milton Keys, Tottenham, anywhere in London or England, they actually see where your family located. And then they put you there in a hostel or a hotel, and then the council helped you to get a house or flat.

And a lot of my family came over. It was 30 years ago, 25, I’m not so sure. Yeah. And they settled here.

And then, some of them have to get accustomed to the cold because in Montserrat it’s warm all year round. And we imported our culture food like mangoes, green bananas, and all the vegetables. My mum was a gardener, so… I used to buy all the fruits and vegetables that my mum used to plant there. And it was difficult in the first time, but we did adjust. Yeah.

Yeah. We don’t have highways and byways, we don’t have trains. We don’t have any fast lane. We just have like one-way road coming down, and you go up on the other road. So it’s different. But the ocean is beautiful. And we have boats that travel back and forth to the different Caribbean islands.

And then for food, they ship the food in on the big ships, and then the small boats go out and load them onto the small boat that come in to the dock, because our dock is not built enough for a big ship to come in. They can’t come in because it’s not a deep water harbour, so it stays out far, and then the small boats go out and take the cargoes off and bring it in so we could get food from England and different places.

But the farmers grow their own vegetables and stuff like that. And we got our own fruits, because there’s a lot of fruits on the island. Yeah. Fresh fruits. And the place is very fertile. The soil, because the volcano had blown up before, not in our time, two thousand years ago, or something like that. It blew up. So all the land near to the volcano, it produced healthy foods and vegetables.

My dad used to sell chicken and eggs to the island people. And he was, he had livestock like sheep, goats, and things like that. So, we had our own meat, my dad…

Yeah, my mom had a – I’m the third from the tenth.

I have two brothers that were born after me.

I’m the youngest girl out of the girls. And then my mother had seven boys. When she passed away, she didn’t have any trouble to find the bearers. The boys just go on either side and carry her in the church, bring her back out.

Yes, ten children.

She was… I can’t find the words to describe her, but…

She was so unique and she was hardworking. My dad used to go out to work and she’d take care of us and plant her little… Well, they call it the allotment here, but everywhere… In the yard she have a little garden. Tomatoes, lettuce, onions, everything you could think of. Green peppers. So she’d feed us off of the land, our land. I miss her so much.

She passed a long time ago. It was… It was 1997.

That was the saddest time of my life.

But she was beautiful. She was remarkable.

He was a lovely person, he was, my dad.
My dad was born in Chelmsford.
My dad’s father lived in Chelmsford. And they had big fields there, they had insects,
they had bugs, they had crickets, everything, butterflies, and he was always interested
from the age of seven…
And I take after him, I collect all the caterpillars and the seeds and the plants and the
things and I’m trying to make a garden at the back of our house for his memory.
Yeah, because I’ve still got my mum’s memorial plaque to put in my garden, because
she’s been dead 14 years, my Mum.
And my dad was an entomologist. He was an entomologist, he always studied bugs
and insects. Beetles, cockroaches, mosquitoes, you name it, he studied it.
Yeah, they were in cases, all over the wall, they didn’t bother me. Yeah, some in the
drawer, you know. He used to really, he used to do a lot of work with the community, he
used to do insect things with the community.
He bred every butterfly, bred them all. We had a breeding cage, we had all the large
white, you name it, he had it.
But since he’s had that accident, he doesn’t remember anything now.
I remember it, but his memory is fading.
And there’s not much they can do.
That’s why anything he gets in his room, he treasures it. He keeps it in a box for, you
know, safekeeping and all that.
But me doing this artwork helps me relax, you know, because I’m under a lot of stress,
trauma.
You know, because watching Dad yesterday made me cry.
I wouldn’t say I’d win in an award for it, though. I will do my best but I wouldn’t say that
I’m a perfect artist…But this picture is for me and my dad, so I’m going to put his initial
on there like this. So you know, R, that’s J. R, and my initial, D. R…
I miss him. Every day I miss him. But they won’t release someone with dementia will
they?
He used to draw them and photograph them. This is a tribute to my dad and his love of
insects.

When I finished my nursing training, I went into psychiatry. And then I joined an agency. And there you can get a 3 or 6 months assignment to work in Canada. Because at that time, Canada was taking British grads…So I said, I would save up my money and when I finish, I’m going to do the tour right down to South America, the Bahamas, and come back…

So when I finished, I went straight to Vancouver. I did all this by greyhound.

Vancouver and from Vancouver, I went to Victoria Island. Victoria Island, you see buses marked Crystal Palace, Norwood. You cross on a ferry. And over the other side, when you’re there, you see all the old pensioners. It’s very much like England. Vancouver is very wet and a bit foggy… 

And then from Vancouver, I went down again to the West Coast. Los Angeles, then I went out to Beverly Hills. 

And then from there, I went out to the Grand Canyon. I went down the canyon, actually walked down the canyon. Then I came back up and then from there, I went out to Las Vegas…Las Vegas desert, very, very hot. I remember they have sprinklers on the road. So walking down, I wore these jellies. You know, jellies was in fashion. And I thought, well, okay, let me wear some. But they were melting on my feet. I mean, it’s so hot! …

It’s very vibrant in Las Vegas. Then from there, I went down to Tucson in Arizona. And then straight down to Texas.

Then out to the Alamos, San Antonio, Philadelphia. I saw Independence Hall, actually. Then I went to Alabama, where Martin Luther preached in the church. I actually stood on the pulpit. And he’s got a burning grave…

And then down to Mexico…Right down to, yeah, right down into Mexico City.

And then in the villages…I done a cruise to the Bahamas. And then I came back. And then up to, on the east coast now, up in, oh, I touch Atlanta.

Up to Montreal, Quebec. And my last stop was Toronto. And it was snowing. Very freezing cold, my hair was like starch.

I went to Kenya…in Kenya now, because I’m very tall, and I look like the Kikuyu people, they’re my size. . . And then they came and pulled me off the coach and said, I should stay. Because they braided my hair, I looked like them. Because I am tall and I look Kikuyu, my face. 

In one hotel opposite, in Nairobi, they have English tea. You know, like beef sandwich and stuff, you know… They have a high tea. And then this gentleman, I think he fancied me, and I was sitting with my friends. 

And he says – oh, I don’t know what’s the matter. He started blasting me. He said, who the hell you think you are? I don’t know. You go to England, you come back, you don’t want to talk to your men. 

He was whooping me down. 

And then in the end, when they spoke to him in that language, Swahili. He said, nah, you’re joking. They tell him, no, I’m not Kenyan. He said he could not believe. And he said, waiter, waiter, just give her anything she wants. 

Isn’t that funny? I didn’t marry him.

I grew up in the council estate in Hackney…You know, it was all violent and gangs. But my mum and dad were nice people. You know, decent working people. And they tried to bring me up the right way. 

And anyway, I went through a lot. I’ve been shot when I was… How old was I? I was playing on the derelict site… there was lots of bomb sites in Hackney after the war. And I was playing with some other boys. And all of a sudden, I felt a pain in my head. Somebody shot me. They used me for target practice with their air rifle. This was in the back of the flats in Frampton Park estate. About half an inch from my eye. Oh, I was about eight, I think. Seven or eight… 

When I was about 15, I left school…I used to go up the West End to a night club…And I met this really beautiful girl. And she had long red hair, lovely figure… Anyway, we cut a long story short, we went out on a date. And we fell in love. And that was when I was about 16. Yeah… Her mum died when she was very young. She got killed in a car crash. So she didn’t get on with her stepmother. So she got her bed sit when she was 16 years old. She left home. And she got her bedsit. It’s quite a long story.

Well, then I moved in with her. I left home. And I moved in with her. And of course my dad didn’t like it because I left home at 16. And he went crazy. You’re only a little, little, erm nobody, you’re moving out. And you won’t do anything til you’re 21, because he was very strict, my dad. Anyway, I fell out with my parents. And we just lived for each other, me and my ex-wife. We lived for each other. We lived together for four years. And we saved. And we made our own wedding. 

And we got married when we were 20…A nice wedding. In Dalston. It was like an Italian restaurant. I’ll show you a picture… Yeah, I’m very sentimental. I keep all my photographs. I shouldn’t imagine she’ll have kept pictures of me! That was me when I was 20…You can see why I liked her. Long red hair. 

And anyway, we were happy and then… She was very close to her sister. Because her mum died when she was seven…Sister sort of was the mother figure. She was an older sister, Sylvia. And well, Sylvia, we used to go and spend time with Sylvia in her house and she had two young children. So we used to spend time in Luton with Sylvia. And then Sylvia wanted to change her life with her husband, Charlie. So they sold up and they went to live in Portugal. So Marilyn was missing her sister because they were so close… 

So we went to Portugal. Yeah. We went over to Portugal. I used to cut a few people’s hair on the beach. Yeah. In Lagos. Yeah, in those days, I don’t know about now, but in those days it was sort of a fishing village. You know, it was by the river. And it was all fish… I used to go in the morning…And get sardines, barbecue sardines and red rolls and black coffee every morning. 

And her sister had a big – Duke, it was called – a great big dog… It was like a donkey. Yeah, a Great Dane. Yeah. And… my ex-wife, Marilyn, used to go out and walk the dog. She was gone for hours. And I used to say, “Well, where’s Marilyn gone?” And Sylvia said, “Oh, she’s walking Duke. She won’t be long.” 

And one day she was gone for the whole day. And I thought, “Well, this can’t be right.” …And I’m sort of just… just sort of sitting around. Because they opened the wine bar. The sister opened a wine bar. Yeah, with what they got for their house. In those days, the wine bars were very interesting. There was all the characters, like retired colonels, and aristocracy, all different types of people in the wine bar…

So anyway…I found out that she was seeing someone. Like, when she was going off, she was meeting a Portuguese man…And I was… This was… This happened when I was about 23. Anyway, so…She was sitting in the wine bar, in the sister’s wine bar, and talking to this guy, like we’re talking now. 

And I said, “You’re seeing my ex-wife – my wife.” And he said, “Well, she told me that she was lonely, because you were working all the time.” Because in hairdressing, you’re working late. I was working sometimes till 9 o’clock at night. And she was on her own. My ex-wife was on her own, and she got lonely. And that’s why she said she went off with this guy, because she was lonely, and didn’t realise that I was working for us, to make a living for us. 

And anyway, so there was a lot of tears, and eventually, because I had a Volkswagen Beetle, eventually I left. I jumped in the car. I said, “Well, if you want him, that’s it. We’re finished.” And I drove back to the UK. I left everything. 

And it’s a long story, you know, I have a story…

Yeah, I’ve often thought that I could write a book, you know, the things that I’ve done. 

Yeah. But the best is yet to come.