First Impressions
We managed to get into a house, a
fairly big house, and he was quite willing to put us all up in one room,
and there were sixteen of us finished up in one room, with one double
bed.
(First Generation Irish Man, b.1935)
I was surprised to see the number of chimneys,
dark and greyish. People were very friendly. One of the passengers
on the bus told me 'Don't worry lad' and he showed me, 'that's
the street where you should be going to'. When I went to my cousin's
house I was shocked. The house was a back-to-back house, very
small, and they had a small living room. My cousin took me into
the bathroom and put a lid on the bath and said, 'This is your
bed.'
(First Generation Sikh Man, b.1932)
It was very cold when we came here. It was June
and the sun was shining and we were cold, freezing, you know.
We never got out much. Dad used to say 'Go outside and get some
fresh air' and we didn't want to move from the door.
(First Generation African-Caribbean Man, b.1957)
There were three or four hundred girls in the
hostel...Three or four of us in a room without wardrobes, only
three beds, we could not turn. To share the bathroom at least
forty each, it was a queue a mile long. We had to fight until
midnight for the bathroom. And for going to the WC we went in
the factory before we went into the hostel. Good job the factory
was across the road.
(First Generation Italian Woman, b.1925)