Oral History- Amy Quartey-Papfio
Object
Audio file
Object number
2026.11
Physical Description
Audio Recording of oral History interview of Amy Quartey-Papfio, born October 1943.
1 x .mp4 file recording of interview with Amy Quartey-Papfio. Total length of file: 1 hour 29 minutes, 42 seconds.
1 x .mp4 file recording of interview with Amy Quartey-Papfio. Total length of file: 1 hour 29 minutes, 42 seconds.
Description
[00:00:14] Amy’s personal background and childhood spent in Ghana and her move to England to become a nurse.
[00:03:24] Arrival to the UK and time spent in Harrogate
[00:07:08] Nursing training, experience with homesickness, the finishing of her nurse training and time spent in Gloucester.
[00:08:44] Working night duty in Hospitals and travelling with friends.
[00:11:51] Move to London and experience working in different hospitals in the city, and her return to Ghana after the death of her father.
[00:15:32] Housing struggles, leading to her move to Hackney.
[00:21:08] Gascoyne Estate and her work.
[00:24:17] Retirement and community work, her sewing and baking.
[00:26:38] Sewing face masks during the COVID Pandemic, setting up her sewing group with Derek and Alana in the Gascoyne Estate.
[00:28:48] Family in Ghana and the UK,, issues with the medical system in Ghana.
[00:33:51] Grandfather’s [William Benjamin Bograph] legacy and father’s life as a pharmacist in Ghana, schooling.
[00:43:29] Independence in Ghana, Ghanaian political coup and ongoing struggles over power in Ghana.
[00:50:03] Reasons for her return to the UK and talking about the GLC.
[00:53:42] Her father’s death and healthcare in Ghana.
[00:55:18] Stories of relatives being treated in hospital and hospital conditions in Ghana.
[00:59:19] Grandfather’s experience, racism in healthcare in Ghana, politics and unions.
[01:07:33] Photos and sewing history, talking about dresses she made and how she learned to sew from her mother.
[01:10:49] Photo consent, entry form signing and conversations with Derek.
[00:03:24] Arrival to the UK and time spent in Harrogate
[00:07:08] Nursing training, experience with homesickness, the finishing of her nurse training and time spent in Gloucester.
[00:08:44] Working night duty in Hospitals and travelling with friends.
[00:11:51] Move to London and experience working in different hospitals in the city, and her return to Ghana after the death of her father.
[00:15:32] Housing struggles, leading to her move to Hackney.
[00:21:08] Gascoyne Estate and her work.
[00:24:17] Retirement and community work, her sewing and baking.
[00:26:38] Sewing face masks during the COVID Pandemic, setting up her sewing group with Derek and Alana in the Gascoyne Estate.
[00:28:48] Family in Ghana and the UK,, issues with the medical system in Ghana.
[00:33:51] Grandfather’s [William Benjamin Bograph] legacy and father’s life as a pharmacist in Ghana, schooling.
[00:43:29] Independence in Ghana, Ghanaian political coup and ongoing struggles over power in Ghana.
[00:50:03] Reasons for her return to the UK and talking about the GLC.
[00:53:42] Her father’s death and healthcare in Ghana.
[00:55:18] Stories of relatives being treated in hospital and hospital conditions in Ghana.
[00:59:19] Grandfather’s experience, racism in healthcare in Ghana, politics and unions.
[01:07:33] Photos and sewing history, talking about dresses she made and how she learned to sew from her mother.
[01:10:49] Photo consent, entry form signing and conversations with Derek.
Associated Person
Amy Quartey-Papfio (Subject of)
On display?
No
Inscription
Q. So, just for the sake of the recording, I'm going to say my name is Rebecca and I'm doing an interview for Hackney Museum and it's the 2nd of November today, isn't it? [00:00:08]
Amy Quartey-Papafio [APQ] . Yeah.
Q. Um, and could you start by telling me your full name, uh, where you were born and when you were born? I don't have to share that if you don't want to, but it's just a record. [00:00:014]
AQP. Um, my name is Amy Quartey Papafio. By the way, everybody knows me as Amy. And I was born on 22nd October 1943 in Accra, Ghana. That used to be the Gold Coast, the colonial times. Yeah.
Q. Wonderful. And could you tell me a little bit about your childhood in Ghana? [00:00:47]
AQP. Mhm. Well, at that time children start school at six. Yeah. So, primary school and then you go to secondary school if your parents can afford to pay. I went to a boarding school and when I had my– those days they called it GCE. When I passed my GCE um I wanted to do nursing. So I applied to the um to do nursing but the reply I got was well, that was their system at that time. It will be advertised. So when you see the advert before you can, apply for it. I did that before and they said oh I have to wait till it's advertised.
So I was talking to my dad and he said well you can go to England because at that time my elder brother and sister were already here brother doing medicine and my other sister doing nursing in Hamisham General Hospital, but she came here um when they had the Commonwealth games cuz she was doing um, oh you see high jumping something like that.
[00:02:37] So while she was here my father arranged for her to stay to do her nursing cuz she wanted to do nursing as well. And so I went to the appropriate place where you have to if you're going abroad to study, and the whole thing took about a year. So within that time I applied to work because I couldn't stay and um I was put to work at the post office accounts branch. So I worked there nearly a year and a half while I was waiting for everything to go through.
[00:03:24] It's all going through the Ghana government and the British government. Um when I apply they call me for a written test. You pass the text and then you go for an interview and from then on it's between your embassy and the British embassy. So when everything was done, I got the letter, I had my passport and I arrived here on the 26th of October 1968, 3 days after my 25th birthday, in Harrogate. But before I left, I know my brother was here, but you have no knowledge of the geographical here. So I wasn't sure whether I would see them, but it happened that my sister was living in Amisham, my brother was in Bristol, and I ended up in Harrogate. Even though I chose Harrogate Hospital, I have no idea where I was going. But the British Council was very good at that time, cuz I remember when I reached Heathrow airport, there was somebody there waiting for me with my name on. Then he took me in the car, drive me all the way.
[00:05:06] And I was looking cuz all the buildings look the same. So we end up at Charing Cross station and he asked me if I got money. I said, "Well, I got a traveler's check." So I gave him the traveler's check. How much was it? Said £28 it was. So he changed it, bought a train ticket for me and put me on the train. said, "Oh, when you get to the other end, somebody else will be waiting for you." And as I got there, sure enough, there was a man waiting for me. Put me in the car straight to the hospital, to the nurse's home and then it uh sister came out, welcomed me in, show me to my room, which, your first year you share a room with another and he called my then roommate, introduced me and it was good. The next day she called the home sister call one of the nurses who I think she already getting there to finish her course took me shopping like winter time, it's getting to winter then bought all the things I need for winter and that was it. Since I enjoyed the um but funny enough in the beginning I was a bit homesick especially against my mom cuz she said how long are you going to be there?
[00:07:08] I said mom don't worry I only take 4 years after the 3 years I work for experience and come back I'm still here but it was a good experience even though um because most of the patient there were from the north so maybe they're not used to black people so you get a few people that don't want you touch them, you go to wash them, said, "Oh, you more dirtier than me. Go and wash yourself." But I had a lot of this when you go there, you are going to make this and you go, my dad said, why you're there, just concentrate on it. Finish your course and come back. Don't take any notice of whatever people say to you and all that. So it didn't really bother me because I already know this is what I'm going to experience then. So but I enjoyed it and after that, finished my nursing course because while you're studying you go through different things and I was much more interested in orthopedic so I went to Gloucester and do one year orthopedic training diploma.
[00:08:44] And I applied to do night duty because I like to go around and when you're doing day duty you don't have much time, you only I think those days we do you have one day off, one half day and a day off. So when you do night you have more time to go around it. And I had a Chinese friend where we share room from the beginning and we became very close. So when we have our because we are on the same set we get our holidays at the same time. So we go around. We went to Scarborough. We went to Cambridge, Ely. Yeah. Because to pick fruits, apples, strawberries and…but the only thing I didn't like was living in the tent with so many people and then you get up in the morning, go in the shower, but it was an experience And you work all day and they give you four shillings. But at least you don't pay for the tent. And they give us food as well. But I enjoyed it, I can say.
[00:10:15] And then when I finish the orthopedic uh maybe if I stay in Gloucester
I would have no um Harrogate cuz I enjoy Hargate more than Gloucester. Mhm. Gloucester was more or less farming. Even not far from the hospital, there's a ground where you see the cows grazing and all that. And during night duty, you can't sleep. You can hear them go. For one thing, you can go to the farm and buy a whole chicken, buy your vegetables and, so fresh. you can just I want that chicken and they do it for you and atmosphere was good because most of the nurses in both places were all foreigners from some from the West Indies some from different parts of Africa but we all got on well you got some because some of them nurses live in the nurse's home. So, it looked like the nurse's homes were all for the foreign, but we got on well, but sometimes you get it, because everybody is not the same. But what can you do?
[00:11:51] So I have to s- and I think my sister moved to London. So when I have my holiday I come to spend with her and she takes me places. So I got to know London, said I like to live here instead of the countryside. So I applied to an orthopedic hospital in Hampstead but then, they- when I arrived they didn't put me on the orthopedic ward, they put me on the gyny- ward and I didn't like it. So I went to the matron and I said look I applied to work on the orthopedic ward I've just done the course said oh don't worry we moved to uh that time it was in um New End hospital I don't know whether you heard about it.
Q. New End? [00:13:06]
AQP. New End in Hampstead way, I think it's a it's a home now but then it used to be uh so when uh the hospital that time they were building the hospital itself she said so don't worry when we move to the new place we put you on the your proper ward but I still wasn't so I was looking through a magazine and I saw um, uh Stanmore Orthopedic Hospital. I said, "Oh yeah." No. First I applied to some hospital in the city somewhere. It's very – one of these big hospitals. And oh, they build a new place for nurses, like a nurses home and all that. Then I apply for it. The one references obviously will be from my that matron and when she got the letter she just push it away because she didn't want me to leave but she said no when you go to the new the new hospital it will be different so she didn't give me the reference. So I didn't hear from them for a long time. So, all right. I wrote to them again to find out why they didn't reply. Then they told me, well, we didn't get any reference from your previous employer. So, I went to her. I said, well, why did you do that? Because I want to get on with things. So, I apply again to Stanmore. But this time, I didn't put the previous in the hospital for reference. And I got a job. So when I went to her with my resignation, look, I'm leaving and I'm going to Stanmore Hospital cuz that's a proper orthopedic. And I was in um Stanmore for I think 2 and 1/2 years. Mhm. And my mom died. I didn't go.
[00:15:32] So exactly the following year my dad too died. So I said I'm not going two weeks and come back. So I resigned and I stayed nearly a year and I came back and that was tough cuz then I have no um accommodation proper accommodation. I was living with relatives, sister, friends, here and there. And all that time my name was on Brent Council because around Kilburn, Neasden, even Barnet all, the boroughs my name was there for, but because you're single, they don't want to know. And I got somebody said, "Oh, why don't you try the GLC then?" So I went to an office somewhere in Wilsden, fill the form in and all that. And it took a year and a half when I almost given up. I said, "Oh, I'm fed up with this. My dad is gone. My mom is gone. I've done my training. I can go home and find a job." And just then I had a letter to come and view a flat now near Hackney. Fair enough. I used to see Bus six going to Kensal Rise, from Hackney Wick to Kensal Rise, but I have no idea where Hackney was. So I got on the bus all the way down here and I went around here.
[00:17:24] I asked somebody where Harrowgate road was because the caretaker flat is addressing Harrowgate and nobody knows right on this road at the top there. I remember oh no. So I went round run. Oh. So I have to all this time I walk around the the building. So I went in that day was so cold snow was on the ground. I knock at the door. This man opened it. So I gave him the letter said oh hang on a minute. He went inside came back and took me to the flat. We climb up. Oh third floor. By that time I was young. So yeah, he went then he couldn't open the door because he got the wrong key. I was so disappointed. So now you have to come back. Okay. So I went home and I think 2 weeks after I got another letter and this time I know where I'm going. So I came there, he took me upstairs and when he opened the door, the whole world I said, "How long are anybody living here?" It look like the flats been empty for a long time. Part of the window glass is broken. There's no heating. There's a bunker on the corridor. They're full of coal and the coal fire in the sitting room. But in the bedroom, no heating. There's no heating in the bedroom.
[00:18:59] The little money I had, I went around looking for a heater. Then I went to the office said well there's– no I mean the caretaker when he opened the door he didn't he just went in and he went out so I'm sure he he wasn't even aware that there's a window that was no glass in there and it took from December 17th to middle of May before they fix the window and then they put electric heater in the bedroom in the corner where you can't put a bed there you so it was very awkward but I was determined to make it a home and I'm still here I'm still dead you when I was ready I rip all the when you put your hand there so because they burn the coal so the soot.
[00:20:18] It was so dark because the wallpaper was something brownish and over the years it's got a bit with the soot from the coal and all that. I settled in there and I'm here.
Q. When was that? [00:20:38]
AQP. I think the exhibition was 1981. Does that sound right? Well, when I move him here, Derek wasn't around. Mhm, but when he moved in on I think it's on the fourth floor probably he was interested to know. So, he started asking questions and all that that how he, it came about. So, gradually he built up all the information he got, to do that exhibition.
Q. So, do you– so, do you know what year you moved to the Gascoyne? [00:21:08]
AQP. Yeah. Yeah. 81.
Interviewer. 81. Yeah. I just wanted to check.
AQP. December 17th. December ‘81.
Q. Wow. You've got a very good memory for the exact date, which is really impressive. Um Oh, that's amazing. And what was your first sort of impressions of Hackney then? Apart from when you got- you couldn't find where you were going, it's cold. What about the area? [00:21:34]
AQP. Well, at that time because I was so excited now I got my own place, I can go have my own key. I can go and come, but the people that were living there. Most of them were welcoming. They see you say, "Oh, hello." because they know who's new, maybe they know they recognize the new faces. So, and then I think I apply I said now I can have a permanent job and then get on with life and I went to the job center and they said this thing that I was looking because it's only nursing I know and that time is oh Hackney hospital so I apply for a night duty cuz I need time to, sort out the flat and all that. And I went for an interview and I got a job, and from December up to that May, cuz I remember the very week I start working, that's when I had a letter from the GLC that they were coming to fix the window. But before that, I put cardboard with cello tape around it. And I've already had my curtains and everything. So, Woolworth’s was down in Mare Street where Iceland is now, and I went in there and bought the oil electric um heater and I sit, the heat. My back is cold, but at least you're– because I have no idea how to set the fire for the coal thing and because the walls were all as all this stuff was going to I was going to breathe in. So I wasn't going to use the coal and then I put carpet down there. The heat will sp the carpet as well. So I didn't use the but after a time I got rid of it.
[00:24:17] And now I build a cupboard around that and to make the place cozy for
myself and I don't think well if I want to move I would have moved but I'm staying there too. Mm- cuz even if I want to move now, I don't know where I will go to start all over again. I got involved with whatever is going on here. So I don't think it would be nice to move to go and start all over again. Maybe I didn't realize it much because I start working. So you would do night duty in and out in and out. You meet people. But I got more involved after I retired. At 60 when I retired. Oh what you going to do is just I said don't worry I'll find things to do. Now I bake, I sew even those two things I was doing at home before I came here to do nursing. So it's just like a continuous thing. Now every summer I bake a whole lot of cake for the Well Street Common festival. Come know, um festival, the church, church, Christmas bazaar, summer fair. I bake all the cakes and I enjoy doing it and I sew most of my clothes and all but funny I said when I retire I'll have more time, to well I have time to do other things but sewing it's gone down even when the co was set up in here. So you know me, I don't know whether you met Alana. No I don't think I have.
[00:26:38] Yeah he she works with um Derek to manage this place, she set up a few sewing machines. So anybody who can sew, we had about three, four people. So we sew the masks for the community 5 days a week. Wow. be coming. Yeah. Until you know everything. I'm sure there's a whole lot of some, of you know. Oh, yeah. Wow. It's lovely to keep it up as well on the wall. Yeah. Remember what you did. It's lovely. Yeah. I like to keep at it, get involved in things going on cuz, when you get old, you sitting makes you more, right?
Interviewer. Keep on going.
AQP. Yeah. And the 22nd of October, I celebrated my 80th. Yeah.
Interviewer. That's amazing.
AQP. Yeah.
Q. So did you celebrate with people on the the Gascoyne or- [00:27:59]
AQP. No, you know St. John of Jerusalem?
Interviewer. Yeah
AQP. That's my church. So I decided, well, I will have lunch with my church family and it was great.
Interviewer. Yeah it's wonderful.
AQP. Yeah it was good. Everybody was making a fuss of me.Yeah. No…
Q. I think sorry I think when you first did I think I wrote it down as Haringay Hospital. Was it Harrogate? [00:28:32]
AQP. Harrogate - Harrogate Hospital.
Q. And when so what year was it 1968, wasn't it that you first moved? And you said to did your your brother and sister did they stay in Britain or did– [00:28:48]
AQP. Uh my sister got married, had two kids and she went back home not two years ago she passed away yeah or 3 years. My brother married a lady she met in Edinburgh University. So they also got married, had four children. And after my dad died, he decided to go home. So they all went home. But things were hard at that time because children were growing up, school and-and so the wife decided to come back with the kids to finish their school and that destroyed their marriage. She stayed there in Belfast but she's an Irish.
[00:30:00] So the children now they all grow up. I think the first boy he settled in Ghana where he was here for a while then he went back and settled in Ghana. He's the only one settled in Ghana. And the last one and the second born is living in Opinti. See, he did some engineering or something like that. Him and the last one. The last one lives in um Northampton. They have only one girl, Alison. And she became a doctor too. She's still working. Yeah. And because the mom too is old, so they need somebody to live near to keep an eye on her. Yeah. And he also, funny enough, he had dementia. The last time I saw him was 2018 when one of my nieces was getting married. And as soon as I when I was talking to him, he was talking about things that gone old, some things evil is even telling me I have no idea and I realized, cuz he wasn't that old I think he 88 yeah and it looked like he just went downhill because the people there uh they didn't really understand what was and to be honest the medical system over there is next to nothing.
[00:32:00] So he eventually died. He was ill for a while and then he died. So, but the ex-wife is still July – the second son celebrated his 60th.
Interviewer. Wow.
AQP. And we all went and the mother and the rest of his siblings, they all came. So, we all met together and cuz to because you speak on the phone but you don't see them.
Interviewer. Yeah.
AQP. Yeah. So it was nice for everybody, all the family and his friends because he started when he started university in Ghana and then he came back to finish up here but now they only go on holidays because the elder brother is there. So well I can say I'm lucky to belong to a good family that is really serious about education and I think it's all spring up from my granddad because he was the first Ghanaian doctor. He trained in Edinburgh and somewhere else. But he gave the British government a hard time when he went back home. Yeah. Reading his history a bit.
Q. Do you want to talk a little bit about that if you're happy to or..? [00:33:51]
AQP. Yeah
Q. So, what was your grandfather's name? [00:33:55]
AQP. Um, William Benjamin Bograph here he be he came from a big family too who eventually became doctors and lawyers and teachers and my grand my father's sisters three of them became teachers in the one that was named I was named after she was the only one that went, like clerical work, but all of them had teaching and all sorts. But uh cuz my dad always says that your brain is your future. So if you and they don't believe in, like clerical work, you have to be a professional. So they push us all to and I'm really grateful or glad to see the people that the siblings before after us they also taking over going through the same road cuz my youngest brother he's also got a daughter who is a doctor. So maybe, maybe we got the caring genes.
[00:35:42] Everybody wants to care for something somebody orI got a brother in Germany. He did engineering. So he married a German lady. So he's still there. Had four four kids. They all grown up now. So come summer, they all go and visit, but they don't want to live there. The country is no good now. It's no good. So we can only go on holidays and then come back where we settled.And we had a a good family union when we able we get together and talk about things and to me that's how it should be really you But uh sometimes it doesn't go that way. And I've got another sister too. She's um 2 years older than me. She also married well, her husband, they married at home. The husband came here to study. So she joined him. They had two children and the marriage didn't work. So well the husband is dead now but and then she got sick. I think something to do with her spine. So now she living in one of these um residential homes. one of these residential homes in uh Wembley. So I visit every now and then if I mostly she rather phones me all the time but I visit when I can in summer time go when we from here going there it takes about 2 hours.
Interviewer.[00:38:22] Mhm.
AQP. You got a train somewhere and then you have to join the bus to get there. Maybe I spend an hour and a half or two to come home. But she phones all the time and the children do visit. So she lived in Kilburn just by the Kilburn station. And then when she couldn't manage on her own, her husband died. She couldn't manage on her own. Yeah. So that's my life.
Q. And you sort of mentioned earlier that um so obviously is given a long time back to sort of when, when you were a child, but it–was it was the Gold Coast. It was pre-independence. Do you sort of have any memories of um independence or life before that when it was okay? [00:39:33]
AQP. Well, mish mash really because my-my dad was a pharmacist and is a government controls everything. So they push you around like he will be transferred to certain part, maybe 2, 3, 4, years and then I could go another place again everything packed up so like we were changing schools here and there until he decided well this is not good enough so we all have to stay one place then on holidays we have So we end up in boarding schools, especially when we reach secondary level, we all end up in boarding schools cuz otherwise you'll be changing all the time. So we all come home when the holiday. But not everybody can afford to do that. So I said, "Well, he had to really work hard, to make sure all of us, cuz in all we he had 13 of us."
Interviewer. Oh, wow. It's a lot to look after!
AQP. 13 of us. So mostly spent all his life, working for the children. It's a shame and then you have to if you are like a senior pharmacist you have to visit other places to check whatever was going on.
[00:41:14] So one day he was coming home and the truck just cuz the roads are not like here you can see where you going sometime you can drive and I used to be so scared like when we go home and in like in the night in maybe 5:00 6:00 we all packed up in the car and all you see is trees here and there the road, no lights, only your car lights showing you where you're going. I used to get so scared and he was driving somewhere and a big truck just collided with him. Apparently, he was going the wrong way. I think that time it was um left hand drive. So he had some injuries that really didn't leave him and well but it took a while then those days they don't tell you like here you can ask what's wrong with me they tell you this that that and then when you die; the postmortem. They can tell you exactly even now you pay money for small things but there's no guarantee they'll give you the right they just put something on paper because who's going to question it so he died early I think, 66 yeah.
Q. And that's when you went home for a year? [00:43:04]
AQP. Yeah. All his siblings living longer than him.
Q. Yeah? [00:43:14]
AQP. Yeah. Look at me. 80 years old. I can't believe it.
Q. Do you remember? Do you remember independence at all when that happened? Was there–[00:43:29]
AQP. Yes, I did. I did. I remember. We have to go to a park somewhere um on a march, for the um but before that, uh what they call it, empire day, we go on a march and I remember they gave us when the queen, was made queen, we had to go on a march, and give everybody a cup with the the queen you say but what happened to that I know we had a cupboard that we all put in there we don't use it so as you grow up you forgot about this so the other day when the queen- that celebration we had I said when the king was put up now I said I was I wonder what happened to those cups we got, when the queen came on all those years,, maybe it's broken or you people don't value these things like they do here, you keep them as a memento and all that.
Q. Like a ceramic cup? [00:44:54]
AQP. No, proper, proper like a um ch– China with the Queen. Yeah, we always go on a march for even, we celebrate May Day, with the pole thing, we dance around it and all that. Yeah, I remember all that. But then the independence came which wasn't you know something going on but you're not really into it. Now from the beginning I think Yes. Just before I finished secondary school. Yeah. I think in 1957 we had independence.
Interviewer. [00:45:39] Yeah.
AQP. But things didn't change much. Then everything went pear shaped cuz some didn't like the president or the prime minister or what they conspired and um I remember there was a war in, is it Vietnam? Yeah, there was around that time. Yeah. And he went to Hanoi and that was the end of it. They stage a coup, and he ends up in Guinea, the prime minister in Guinea then took him in, give him asylum there and he died, and Ghana has never been the same again. People come and go and the more they come and go the more the country goes down. It's nothing there now. Selfishness and corruption. Greed. They always borrow money from foreign. The other day someone said one day, now they’re more into Chinese. I said one day we hear the Chinese people will take over and we go back to colonial time again. Yeah. I hope not. People are really struggling. Yeah.
[00:47:27] No jobs. All the I remember when the first PM came, you make sure even school, primary school was free education and all that. Only when you get to secondary school if you're lucky uh you get like a scholarship. So, you maybe you pay half the fees and you get books and all that but not anymore. And there was a time I heard that you only go to school half day. You got the same building and more people. So they have to have day people and afternoon people. You don't have full day like you go from here like from 8:00 to 3. You have to divide it into. And if your parents can't afford to pay the fees or buy books, pencil and all that, then you don't have, you don't get to go to school. It's really sad.
[00:48:51] And you got all these private people setting up their own school. They only taking the money from people, and you finish and you haven't learned anything to know about the university. You used to be you had a good university. Yeah. So if you have money and you want to go to university, you have to get out of the country cuz you won't get much education there even though you pay the money as everybody want to get get out of there and every year they celebrating independence. I said I don't want to know in March the March 6 the embassy here. Oh my goodness.
It's really sad.
Q. It sounds like you you feel very positively about the education you had. Did you study nursing in Ghana before coming here? [00:50:03]
AQP. No – all though I wanted to but I couldn't cuz I have to wait and my dad said why don't you go to England and do it if this is what you want to do was the same for your siblings that the opportunity was in Britain and not back in Ghana to study yeah well at that time it wasn't bad but it deteriorated all the time so if you want to study you have to get out and then when you finish there's nothing there to go for you've got the knowledge but you can't implement it so like you me I never really think oh I'm not coming back cuz I knew if my dad was still alive because he never stopped nagging my elder brother when he finish his medicine he oh you finished your PhD you have to come back and work and help the country and all that but then because he's I'm sure if he had married then he would have gone so I said well if when I finish everything and I was if my dad was still alive he'll be nagging me to come back so in a sense even me I didn't make up my mind I'm going and I'm not but at that time the country was okay but then over the years it went down, down, down oh I was really lucky when I decided oh I can't get nowhere to settle down I'll just go back and just at that time GLC saved me.
AQP. [00:52:04] So every time I hear um that man's name is his name Livingston?
Interviewer. Ken Livingston–
AQP. Livingston! So that was the time he was, running the GLC. So I was lucky to escape. So even if you work there and you retire, that's another thing to get your pension. So people are struggling my sister when she went and she worked there until she retired but I don't think she got much pension. Then she something was wrong with her eyes. I can’t think what it is uh, cataracts, she had operation and she end up going blind.
Q. So, do you think it's fair to say– and what you told me that you, you came and you thought I'll be here for 4 years, but you trained, you had all that knowledge and there just was no opportunity for you if you went back? That's why you decided to stay longer? [00:53:42]
AQP. No. No. Oh, you okay. Funny enough that when my dad died and I went that was a time my eyes open that because that time the country just gone what I knew it wasn't the same I said no cuz I got when I was training there was another girl there as soon as she finish. She got married. I think the husband did the law and if the government sponsors you and you finish your course, you have to go back. So she went back with the husband. And she applied to work in the general hospital cuz the system here is different from there. So she couldn't fit in but they doing what she wouldn't do like here system, and they were making fun of her but when she got fed up she resigned and went to private sector, they have private sector there, and she still didn't so she stopped working all together. I don't know what she did then after cuz I met her said oh she couldn't work there because what they do over there is
different from what she's been trained to do.
[00:55:19] And I'm sure the doctors feel the same because even my brother after a while he set his own, private business cuz he couldn't work with the government. See, because if a doctor makes a mistake, who's going to question it? They give you the wrong diagnosis, who's going to question it? So, even the people living there, it's a risk. It's a risk. So, one of my aunties, she fell in the bathroom, but she was a big woman. So she just stay in bed and I'm sure it's pneumonia she got, and she was rushed to private hospital. They put her on the bed straight away. They put a drip on. So I said, "What kind of drip?", and you have to pay money before they you don't know what they putting in you. The woman have high temperature and all that. They didn't to me they didn't pick up what was wrong with her and she died. Who's going to question? So if you are ill and you go in your hospital and you come out, it's your luck. Cuz when his son was telling me, I said, "Oh, I'm sure she got pneumonia." Very sure she had pneumonia but who you going to ask even postmortem you can't guarantee that you pay money for it they just write something on the paper for you to say, oh what this is what the bosses. Even not long ago, another relative
I got to know he had diabetes.
[00:57:45] He has some sore on his leg that wasn't healing, and there they decide, oh, they need to cut the leg off, and then somebody else who came said, "Oh, no, he's healing." So, they left it. So every two weeks he has to go to the hospital for them to dress this saw and up and out of the blue he just went so bad and he died. So I'm sure it's septicemia. So I was asking when they did their postmortem, the death certificate. This is what they put on a stomach ulcer or something so it's dangerous now if you're ill and they believe oh the general hospital because they haven't got the equipment and things, even extra. You have to wait so long. You go and they tell you, "Oh, the X-ray machine is not working. You have to come back." Meanwhile, you’re ill, it’s sad.
[00:59:19] And I said, "Oh, during my granddad's time when they were fighting, because apparently the white people that were there doing the same job, they getting more pay than the local people. They can't hold any positions. They have to be yes men all the time." and he was fighting to get it sorted. A group of people they form like a committee or something came all the way to London here to fight it out in the end you end up getting OB or something one of these uh yeah so all that fight they did the old people fight to get the country back. It's a lot in battle. Their efforts now doesn't mean anything. Even he left the civil service and set up his own practice. Meanwhile, he went on doing politics, thinking to me, thinking to make the country better. If you see what's going on now, it was just a waste of time then. Yeah. But then nothing stays the same changes.
Q. Is there anything I haven't asked you about that you want to tell me about that you think is important to say on record or share? [01:01:23]
AQP. Not really. But we my dad my granddad I had I've got bits and pieces of his life when he left here finish his um medicine she mar he married here and apparently the the wedding took place in St. B's hospital the little chapel they got there?
Interviewer. Yeah.
AQP. Yeah. And I didn't even when I was working with um Hackney we used to go there for study days and all that and I never knew, way after I was so excited. Oh one day I'll go down there and go in the chapel and see where he's still to sign the register and all that. Yeah. And then he did so much and I think he also died young. He was in his 60s something 60 something he died and those after keeping up
Interviewer. Sounds like you spent a lot of time then living in the nursing homes.
AQP. Yeah.
Q. For for quite up until like throughout the ' 70s, would you say? [1:03:08]
AQP. Yeah. Uh cuz when I came back to London, Hamstead, New End, New End Hospital was part of it. There was a- you had a nurse's home there. So I think I spent either a year or two there and a friend of mine had a flat but she did dress making and all that. So when she decided to go back home, she's here now. Yeah. You have to run by.
Interviewer 2. [01:04:00] Amy. Amy. Look, there's your bag. Yeah. I don't know what you got in it, but you got your valuables. Sorry.
AQP. All right.
Interviewer. No problem. No, no, no.
Interviewer 2. And there's more things outside. Yeah.
AQP. Right. Thank you. Yeah.
Q. So, your friend had a flat? [1:04:12]
AQP. Yeah. So, when she was going back home
Interviewer. Mhm.
AQP. She told me. So, me and another uh friend took over the flat. So, I stayed there, and we didn't really get on. We didn't really get on. So, I was going around looking, those days, when you walk in, you see people putting in windows and all that. So I had another but it was just a room. There are other people living there but you have your own room. You only share the kitchen, the toilet and the bathroom. That was when uh my dad died and I had to go home so I lost that flat then the room I lost it. So that's why when I came back the second time was moving from a friend living with a friend for a while even my sister, who is in the residential home, I think when I moved here I was staying with her.
[01:05:34] Yeah. Cuz I was with another friend that had a room, um cuz she had two kids and a husband and they had a spare room. So, I was living in that spare room. And then she decided to go home because things weren't good. So, she-she was also a nurse. She she did um she work in um this hospital down in uh
the Park Royale Hospital.
Interviewer. Mhm.
AQP. [01:06:47] Yeah. So she decided to go back home. I couldn't leave her alone with her husband. That's when I said well if I didn't get any reply from GSC or whatever I pack and go home so I move to stay with my sister that was in November and then December I got to move here. Yeah. So that was just that time I was thinking, "Oh, I better go home, cuz I was fed up staying here, there, and everywhere cuz I don't have no money to go and buy a house or whatever flat or GLC saved me." Yeah.
Interviewer. That's wonderful. I think I tried to print out some of the photos that Derek had got from you a few years back, but- hold on- I thought they were lovely. That was new.
Q. Was that in uh so sort of the late '60s when you were studying? [01:07:33]
AQP. Yeah. yeah…
Q. Harrogate? [01:07:36]
AQP. Yeah. Yeah, that was a student nurse's uniform.
Q. Do you remember getting the photo taken? [01:07:48]
AQP. Yeah, I went to the studio. Yeah.
Q. Did you- was was it one to send back, back to the family back home or-?[01:07:55]
AQP. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I remember sending one of those to my dad.
Q. That's a really lovely picture. And this is you at secondary school? [01:08:07]
AQP. Yeah.
Q. So, was there- was there a uniform at the boarding school or..?[01:08:12]
AQP. Yes. Yes. Like a check check blue check material.
Interviewer. It's a lovely–
AQP. I never took a picture in my uniform then.
Q. Well, if you're, if you're young, you don't want pictures of you in your uniform, do you? Is this a dress you made or? [1:08:31]
AQP. Yes. Oh, I think this is when I was finishing secondary school.
Q.Yeah? [01:08:37]
AQP. Yeah.
Interviewer. Oh, that's a lovely, really lovely picture. I love the bag as well. It's very-
AQP. Yeah,
Interviewer. -very smart.
Q. You mentioned you make your own clothes. Is that because you really, you love the end result or is it that you don't struggle to find what you're looking for when other people have made it? [01:08:57]
AQP. That was because my mom used to sew all our clothes, like when they have the departmental stores, um come Christmas now, she will go around,and see the ready made dresses and then buy the material and sew for us, and you'll be doing the tacking and I mean, and that's how I got into it. And I started sewing underwear from the beginning. That's how I started it. Sometimes I even use a needle and then when I finish, run the machine on it. So when I came to live in London, when I had that flat in Cricklewood, the first thing I bought was a sewing machine.
Q. Yeah? [01:09:50]
AQP. And I still got it.
Interviewer. Oh wow.
AQP. But it doesn't work. But I can't throw it away. [Laughter] I can't throw it away. It's all packed up to go to, the bin, but I keep walking around it all the time. I can't remember when Derek took this. [01:10:11]
Interviewer. It might even just be a still from his film. I think they're quite clever. They can get really good photographs from it.
AQP. Cuz you’re always working with his camera. This is right in front of my door.
Interviewer. Yeah, I get the impression with Derek, for a few years filming all the time. But yeah-
AQP. You're always working with this camera!
Q. Would you be willing if the museum was to share your story for us to be able to use this photo because I think it's really lovely? [01:10:49]
AQP. [Overlapped] Yes, yes.
Interviewer. Um I mean we've got copies that Derek shared with us. Hello– So we're just talking about photos from the exhibition.
Interviewer 3 [DEREK]. We had, we uh, we– we had it out on Sunday. I also rejected courtesy of the Wick award. So not only did we have three films on Sunday night about Gascoyne, we had a montage of a hundred photographs. Residents past and present.
Interviewer. [01:11:13] Oh, lovely.
Interviewer 3. So, that, that was- it was interesting. Yeah. People were watching and it was quite moving, wasn't it? People who came from who'd moved from Gascoyne years ago came for the party.
AQP. Yeah.
Interviewer. Oh, lovely.
Interviewer 3. And then they met friends here and neighbors here from like 40-50 years ago. Yeah. It's still, it's got it's quite a common bond, the Gascoyne.
AQP. [01:11:40] It used to be more together than now. I remember if somebody died, one person would go around, collect money to buy flowers and all that. But then it all stopped.
Interviewer 3. Yeah. People are are struggling just to keep their head above water, most of the time. So the younger people are desperate to pay the mortgage. Um, the rents are going up all the time and nothing gets any cheaper. People are str- I think that's what it is. There's just-
AQP. Yeah, but they don't get involved, like how many people from the estate?
Interviewer 3. Well, that was a disappointing thing. We did all that leafleting. Yeah. Put leaflets in people's doors. I bumped into a few people and they said, "Oh, we were just too busy." I think also people are depressed watching television. There's just so much going on.
Interviewer. I think everyone must be feeling overwhelmed.
Interviewer 3. -That this week has been, we've had months, months of Ukraine. Now we've got Gaza and it's just so depressing. People aren't bothering to go out. What do you reckon to this thing? What do you reckon to this photograph? I've just got into a terrible argument. About this picture, Amy. If that was I mean if that was your- if that was your relative some of the comments that come attached to this picture on Facebook are just appalling. People saying that the is a gruelling competition and just disrespectful comments about these people. So I've now got a spat with a photographer saying you shouldn't really have posted it because it's actually not a very complimentary picture of somebody.
Q. So it's a contemporary photo? [01:13:29]
Interviewer 3. Yeah. taken recently by John Gil.
Interviewer. I mean, I think if it's one of these things where if it was sort of press where they knew they been photographed, it's one of those things where if it's they're just sitting and somebody's taken a photo and shared it and stuff, it's it's how much involvement they had in it, but–
Interviewer 3. They, they uh they were just they probably didn't know they were being photoed, and it's uh-
Interviewer. I mean the fact- it's one of the things where it's like it's a moment of a slice of life and I think it's just, people are horrible. But you can't, you need to recognize that before you share things.
Interviewer. [01:14:01] Uh it it's uh some of these comments are just appalling. And actually the um the photographers saying, "Well, look, this is the end of street photography. We can't go out and take pictures on the street." Well, you can, but you've got to be careful at how you represent people.
AQP. Yeah.
Interviewer 3. In the spirit of like,, you look at people like Count Your Breast on. It's like humanist photography. You, you, you show people usually at their best.
AQP. Yes.
Interviewer 3. Rather than their worst. It's just not fair on them. But some of the comments really show that Facebook brings out the worst in people cuz they just comment and think they can get away with it. Well, I said to them, look, if you make comments like this, you could be, you could be sued actually by these people if they find out what's going on. Um anyway, it's interesting to get your views on that.
Interviewer. Yeah, it is. It's tough. I mean, we've had things where we've switched comments off on our YouTube channel because we couldn't, we didn't have the ability to moderate. And most people are fine, but all you need is you don't want to miss it.
Interviewer 3. Some nutcase who who it's a voice for them, but uh and uh how's um did the people on the desk who were servicing my hosting my exhibition, have they retired now?
Interviewer. No, Linda's still there.
Interviewer 3. She's still–She's still there. Amazing!
Interviewer. Still there.
Interviewer 3. I had seen her last time when I went to see the photography. Uh I think it was, she was off for the weekend to Saturday. I thought, "Oh, I wonder if she's…”
Interviewer. No, she's still there. Linda, who is the longest serving-
Interviewer 3. She's been there for 40 years. You probably get to meet her that uh lives in East five, lives in Chatsworth Road. I think.
Interviewer. [01:15:50] Everybody knows Linda. She's kind of like the heart of it. So um so yeah so I was thinking so with using photos we like to have a record that people are happy for us to use them. Um so if you are comfortable you could sign something and you can say exactly how you are and not happy for us to use it but if you if you want I could leave this with you and you can read it or we can do it together now but I don't want to feel that anybody's getting surprised with anything. Um, but I mean I've got your- so we don't know who's to take I don't suppose the name of the studio as a random that's a going-
AQP. That took the picture.
Interviewer. Yeah.
AQP. No.
Interviewer. So it would be a studio in Harrogate.
AQP. Yes.
Interviewer. Say unknown studio in Harrogate. Um, and yeah, if you'd just be happy to put your name and contact details and then just say yes or no to how you're happy for us to use it. Am I right to ask that question for both these lovely photos?
Interviewer 3. Um, oh, that's my favorite. Um, uh, there is a better version of that which I can send you.
Interviewer. That would be I mean I have So this is just a quick print out.
Interviewer 3. All right. Oh, you probably if Yeah, if it's from one that I did, it's probably it–
Interviewer. Would have been the one we would so that would probably have been the highest.
Interviewer 3. I'll send you another one, both of them cuz they-they are good pictures. And do you want this one?
Interviewer. Um yeah, if you're happy to get you to sign over copyright um I can send you an email over. Um but it's lovely just having images so we can share people's stories with something to show.
Interviewer 3. [01:17:30] In fact, I've got a load of stuff uh in the in the cupboard which I try I must take down to the archives, photographs and all that all those estate um minutes and newsletters and things from the ‘70s from the the '90s and the drawings which I just haven't had time to do. I've also got a box of photographs uh taken by somebody in Chatsworth, uh E5. Um he was just an amateur but he used to dig trenches for the waterboard.
Interviewer. Yeah.
Interviewer 3. But he, he took pictures around Chatsworth Road and uh that part of they're actually very good. Um and somebody gave me them at one of the shelter housing talks I gave and they said we were going to throw them out. I said well don't throw them out. I'll look. So who's the person at the archives now who'd be interested in this?
Interviewer. Oh, I mean the easiest one is to send it to the archive of now address. You've got Lydia, Lisa, Elizabeth, they all
Interviewer 3. They're the same team?
Interviewer. Same team. So, one of them-
Interviewer 3. I'll go down with a sample and when I get time, just getting time.
Interviewer. Yeah. I think the best thing to do is just ping them email first and they can say let's meet at this time or send some stuff over.
Interviewer 3. I'll send some examples. Yeah.
AQP. Um I haven't got no email.
Interviewer. That's fine. It's just if you have it, just put a little line through it. Um, I was admiring the masks because I was aware that the community–
Interviewer 3. Yeah, we've got we've got some money from IKEA actually and Alana bought some decent uh sewing machines and Monday there's a- a sewing, sewing group which is building up and they've got a stall out actually on Sunday. Um, but you never know. I mean, if it comes back, we're all prepared. But this I mean this is uh when when when it was being run by the other, you can you can take that back if you like, um there was just nothing going on once a week there was something and and then
weekends just sporadic kind of lettings but it's um I mean it's hard work there's four of us doing it but uh
Interviewer. If you [AQP] have any questions about any of those just asking away I've got a whole bunch of stuff over so, one is so I've I've laminated so I don't know if you got any outdoor areas. I can't I couldn't remember what
Interviewer 3. what we can do is–
Interviewer. As many as you can but got so I've got one two unlaminated ones of the event next week and then I've got some in the lobby, the surveys running to the first say 1st of January. So I thought if we could stick that up and then people can fill it in. Um that's the other QR code of one.
Interviewer 3. [1:20:12] Um what I could do actually I'll put one of these up here.
Interviewer. That' be amazing. Yeah. Thank you so much. We really appreciate it.
AQP. What do I put here?
Interviewer. Um Oh, just put your own name. Sorry.
AQP.Yeah.
Interviewer. So sometimes you get um uh you can have like a photo of yourself that was taken by Derek and it's your photo but Derek has the copyright cuz he pressed the button on the camera and it's just us navigating that. Um-
AQP. And here?
Interviewer. Just yes or yeah just circle circle the ones you're happy with whatever you're comfortable…
AQP. I don't want to see it.
Interviewer. That's not really. Well, it is sort of a project. Um, it's the lottery fund, but you can put yes or no.
AQP. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know.
Interviewer. Yeah, don't worry. But just put NA. It's fine. is some people would want to go, photo taken by me. So, if you're just happy to sign there and I'll sign it and what I'll do is I'll make a copy and I can post it to you. Um, here I'll sign that and do that on my end. Um, so if you're happy, I'll take that back with me, create a copy, and I can pop that in cuz I got your address here. Um, we've obviously talked a lot about your life and at some point it’d be really nice to just have a signed thing to go, "Yeah, I'm happy for you to talk about me again." That's something we could do now, but if you'd rather, I could go away, have a think about how we use a story and later come back to going, "This is what I'd like to tell people. Are you happy?"
AQP. Oh, fine.
Interviewer. Yeah. Okay. But it's always good to get on that side. And um yeah, as I just so I'm going to stop recording now if that's-
END OF INTERVIEW [01:23:04]
Amy Quartey-Papafio [APQ] . Yeah.
Q. Um, and could you start by telling me your full name, uh, where you were born and when you were born? I don't have to share that if you don't want to, but it's just a record. [00:00:014]
AQP. Um, my name is Amy Quartey Papafio. By the way, everybody knows me as Amy. And I was born on 22nd October 1943 in Accra, Ghana. That used to be the Gold Coast, the colonial times. Yeah.
Q. Wonderful. And could you tell me a little bit about your childhood in Ghana? [00:00:47]
AQP. Mhm. Well, at that time children start school at six. Yeah. So, primary school and then you go to secondary school if your parents can afford to pay. I went to a boarding school and when I had my– those days they called it GCE. When I passed my GCE um I wanted to do nursing. So I applied to the um to do nursing but the reply I got was well, that was their system at that time. It will be advertised. So when you see the advert before you can, apply for it. I did that before and they said oh I have to wait till it's advertised.
So I was talking to my dad and he said well you can go to England because at that time my elder brother and sister were already here brother doing medicine and my other sister doing nursing in Hamisham General Hospital, but she came here um when they had the Commonwealth games cuz she was doing um, oh you see high jumping something like that.
[00:02:37] So while she was here my father arranged for her to stay to do her nursing cuz she wanted to do nursing as well. And so I went to the appropriate place where you have to if you're going abroad to study, and the whole thing took about a year. So within that time I applied to work because I couldn't stay and um I was put to work at the post office accounts branch. So I worked there nearly a year and a half while I was waiting for everything to go through.
[00:03:24] It's all going through the Ghana government and the British government. Um when I apply they call me for a written test. You pass the text and then you go for an interview and from then on it's between your embassy and the British embassy. So when everything was done, I got the letter, I had my passport and I arrived here on the 26th of October 1968, 3 days after my 25th birthday, in Harrogate. But before I left, I know my brother was here, but you have no knowledge of the geographical here. So I wasn't sure whether I would see them, but it happened that my sister was living in Amisham, my brother was in Bristol, and I ended up in Harrogate. Even though I chose Harrogate Hospital, I have no idea where I was going. But the British Council was very good at that time, cuz I remember when I reached Heathrow airport, there was somebody there waiting for me with my name on. Then he took me in the car, drive me all the way.
[00:05:06] And I was looking cuz all the buildings look the same. So we end up at Charing Cross station and he asked me if I got money. I said, "Well, I got a traveler's check." So I gave him the traveler's check. How much was it? Said £28 it was. So he changed it, bought a train ticket for me and put me on the train. said, "Oh, when you get to the other end, somebody else will be waiting for you." And as I got there, sure enough, there was a man waiting for me. Put me in the car straight to the hospital, to the nurse's home and then it uh sister came out, welcomed me in, show me to my room, which, your first year you share a room with another and he called my then roommate, introduced me and it was good. The next day she called the home sister call one of the nurses who I think she already getting there to finish her course took me shopping like winter time, it's getting to winter then bought all the things I need for winter and that was it. Since I enjoyed the um but funny enough in the beginning I was a bit homesick especially against my mom cuz she said how long are you going to be there?
[00:07:08] I said mom don't worry I only take 4 years after the 3 years I work for experience and come back I'm still here but it was a good experience even though um because most of the patient there were from the north so maybe they're not used to black people so you get a few people that don't want you touch them, you go to wash them, said, "Oh, you more dirtier than me. Go and wash yourself." But I had a lot of this when you go there, you are going to make this and you go, my dad said, why you're there, just concentrate on it. Finish your course and come back. Don't take any notice of whatever people say to you and all that. So it didn't really bother me because I already know this is what I'm going to experience then. So but I enjoyed it and after that, finished my nursing course because while you're studying you go through different things and I was much more interested in orthopedic so I went to Gloucester and do one year orthopedic training diploma.
[00:08:44] And I applied to do night duty because I like to go around and when you're doing day duty you don't have much time, you only I think those days we do you have one day off, one half day and a day off. So when you do night you have more time to go around it. And I had a Chinese friend where we share room from the beginning and we became very close. So when we have our because we are on the same set we get our holidays at the same time. So we go around. We went to Scarborough. We went to Cambridge, Ely. Yeah. Because to pick fruits, apples, strawberries and…but the only thing I didn't like was living in the tent with so many people and then you get up in the morning, go in the shower, but it was an experience And you work all day and they give you four shillings. But at least you don't pay for the tent. And they give us food as well. But I enjoyed it, I can say.
[00:10:15] And then when I finish the orthopedic uh maybe if I stay in Gloucester
I would have no um Harrogate cuz I enjoy Hargate more than Gloucester. Mhm. Gloucester was more or less farming. Even not far from the hospital, there's a ground where you see the cows grazing and all that. And during night duty, you can't sleep. You can hear them go. For one thing, you can go to the farm and buy a whole chicken, buy your vegetables and, so fresh. you can just I want that chicken and they do it for you and atmosphere was good because most of the nurses in both places were all foreigners from some from the West Indies some from different parts of Africa but we all got on well you got some because some of them nurses live in the nurse's home. So, it looked like the nurse's homes were all for the foreign, but we got on well, but sometimes you get it, because everybody is not the same. But what can you do?
[00:11:51] So I have to s- and I think my sister moved to London. So when I have my holiday I come to spend with her and she takes me places. So I got to know London, said I like to live here instead of the countryside. So I applied to an orthopedic hospital in Hampstead but then, they- when I arrived they didn't put me on the orthopedic ward, they put me on the gyny- ward and I didn't like it. So I went to the matron and I said look I applied to work on the orthopedic ward I've just done the course said oh don't worry we moved to uh that time it was in um New End hospital I don't know whether you heard about it.
Q. New End? [00:13:06]
AQP. New End in Hampstead way, I think it's a it's a home now but then it used to be uh so when uh the hospital that time they were building the hospital itself she said so don't worry when we move to the new place we put you on the your proper ward but I still wasn't so I was looking through a magazine and I saw um, uh Stanmore Orthopedic Hospital. I said, "Oh yeah." No. First I applied to some hospital in the city somewhere. It's very – one of these big hospitals. And oh, they build a new place for nurses, like a nurses home and all that. Then I apply for it. The one references obviously will be from my that matron and when she got the letter she just push it away because she didn't want me to leave but she said no when you go to the new the new hospital it will be different so she didn't give me the reference. So I didn't hear from them for a long time. So, all right. I wrote to them again to find out why they didn't reply. Then they told me, well, we didn't get any reference from your previous employer. So, I went to her. I said, well, why did you do that? Because I want to get on with things. So, I apply again to Stanmore. But this time, I didn't put the previous in the hospital for reference. And I got a job. So when I went to her with my resignation, look, I'm leaving and I'm going to Stanmore Hospital cuz that's a proper orthopedic. And I was in um Stanmore for I think 2 and 1/2 years. Mhm. And my mom died. I didn't go.
[00:15:32] So exactly the following year my dad too died. So I said I'm not going two weeks and come back. So I resigned and I stayed nearly a year and I came back and that was tough cuz then I have no um accommodation proper accommodation. I was living with relatives, sister, friends, here and there. And all that time my name was on Brent Council because around Kilburn, Neasden, even Barnet all, the boroughs my name was there for, but because you're single, they don't want to know. And I got somebody said, "Oh, why don't you try the GLC then?" So I went to an office somewhere in Wilsden, fill the form in and all that. And it took a year and a half when I almost given up. I said, "Oh, I'm fed up with this. My dad is gone. My mom is gone. I've done my training. I can go home and find a job." And just then I had a letter to come and view a flat now near Hackney. Fair enough. I used to see Bus six going to Kensal Rise, from Hackney Wick to Kensal Rise, but I have no idea where Hackney was. So I got on the bus all the way down here and I went around here.
[00:17:24] I asked somebody where Harrowgate road was because the caretaker flat is addressing Harrowgate and nobody knows right on this road at the top there. I remember oh no. So I went round run. Oh. So I have to all this time I walk around the the building. So I went in that day was so cold snow was on the ground. I knock at the door. This man opened it. So I gave him the letter said oh hang on a minute. He went inside came back and took me to the flat. We climb up. Oh third floor. By that time I was young. So yeah, he went then he couldn't open the door because he got the wrong key. I was so disappointed. So now you have to come back. Okay. So I went home and I think 2 weeks after I got another letter and this time I know where I'm going. So I came there, he took me upstairs and when he opened the door, the whole world I said, "How long are anybody living here?" It look like the flats been empty for a long time. Part of the window glass is broken. There's no heating. There's a bunker on the corridor. They're full of coal and the coal fire in the sitting room. But in the bedroom, no heating. There's no heating in the bedroom.
[00:18:59] The little money I had, I went around looking for a heater. Then I went to the office said well there's– no I mean the caretaker when he opened the door he didn't he just went in and he went out so I'm sure he he wasn't even aware that there's a window that was no glass in there and it took from December 17th to middle of May before they fix the window and then they put electric heater in the bedroom in the corner where you can't put a bed there you so it was very awkward but I was determined to make it a home and I'm still here I'm still dead you when I was ready I rip all the when you put your hand there so because they burn the coal so the soot.
[00:20:18] It was so dark because the wallpaper was something brownish and over the years it's got a bit with the soot from the coal and all that. I settled in there and I'm here.
Q. When was that? [00:20:38]
AQP. I think the exhibition was 1981. Does that sound right? Well, when I move him here, Derek wasn't around. Mhm, but when he moved in on I think it's on the fourth floor probably he was interested to know. So, he started asking questions and all that that how he, it came about. So, gradually he built up all the information he got, to do that exhibition.
Q. So, do you– so, do you know what year you moved to the Gascoyne? [00:21:08]
AQP. Yeah. Yeah. 81.
Interviewer. 81. Yeah. I just wanted to check.
AQP. December 17th. December ‘81.
Q. Wow. You've got a very good memory for the exact date, which is really impressive. Um Oh, that's amazing. And what was your first sort of impressions of Hackney then? Apart from when you got- you couldn't find where you were going, it's cold. What about the area? [00:21:34]
AQP. Well, at that time because I was so excited now I got my own place, I can go have my own key. I can go and come, but the people that were living there. Most of them were welcoming. They see you say, "Oh, hello." because they know who's new, maybe they know they recognize the new faces. So, and then I think I apply I said now I can have a permanent job and then get on with life and I went to the job center and they said this thing that I was looking because it's only nursing I know and that time is oh Hackney hospital so I apply for a night duty cuz I need time to, sort out the flat and all that. And I went for an interview and I got a job, and from December up to that May, cuz I remember the very week I start working, that's when I had a letter from the GLC that they were coming to fix the window. But before that, I put cardboard with cello tape around it. And I've already had my curtains and everything. So, Woolworth’s was down in Mare Street where Iceland is now, and I went in there and bought the oil electric um heater and I sit, the heat. My back is cold, but at least you're– because I have no idea how to set the fire for the coal thing and because the walls were all as all this stuff was going to I was going to breathe in. So I wasn't going to use the coal and then I put carpet down there. The heat will sp the carpet as well. So I didn't use the but after a time I got rid of it.
[00:24:17] And now I build a cupboard around that and to make the place cozy for
myself and I don't think well if I want to move I would have moved but I'm staying there too. Mm- cuz even if I want to move now, I don't know where I will go to start all over again. I got involved with whatever is going on here. So I don't think it would be nice to move to go and start all over again. Maybe I didn't realize it much because I start working. So you would do night duty in and out in and out. You meet people. But I got more involved after I retired. At 60 when I retired. Oh what you going to do is just I said don't worry I'll find things to do. Now I bake, I sew even those two things I was doing at home before I came here to do nursing. So it's just like a continuous thing. Now every summer I bake a whole lot of cake for the Well Street Common festival. Come know, um festival, the church, church, Christmas bazaar, summer fair. I bake all the cakes and I enjoy doing it and I sew most of my clothes and all but funny I said when I retire I'll have more time, to well I have time to do other things but sewing it's gone down even when the co was set up in here. So you know me, I don't know whether you met Alana. No I don't think I have.
[00:26:38] Yeah he she works with um Derek to manage this place, she set up a few sewing machines. So anybody who can sew, we had about three, four people. So we sew the masks for the community 5 days a week. Wow. be coming. Yeah. Until you know everything. I'm sure there's a whole lot of some, of you know. Oh, yeah. Wow. It's lovely to keep it up as well on the wall. Yeah. Remember what you did. It's lovely. Yeah. I like to keep at it, get involved in things going on cuz, when you get old, you sitting makes you more, right?
Interviewer. Keep on going.
AQP. Yeah. And the 22nd of October, I celebrated my 80th. Yeah.
Interviewer. That's amazing.
AQP. Yeah.
Q. So did you celebrate with people on the the Gascoyne or- [00:27:59]
AQP. No, you know St. John of Jerusalem?
Interviewer. Yeah
AQP. That's my church. So I decided, well, I will have lunch with my church family and it was great.
Interviewer. Yeah it's wonderful.
AQP. Yeah it was good. Everybody was making a fuss of me.Yeah. No…
Q. I think sorry I think when you first did I think I wrote it down as Haringay Hospital. Was it Harrogate? [00:28:32]
AQP. Harrogate - Harrogate Hospital.
Q. And when so what year was it 1968, wasn't it that you first moved? And you said to did your your brother and sister did they stay in Britain or did– [00:28:48]
AQP. Uh my sister got married, had two kids and she went back home not two years ago she passed away yeah or 3 years. My brother married a lady she met in Edinburgh University. So they also got married, had four children. And after my dad died, he decided to go home. So they all went home. But things were hard at that time because children were growing up, school and-and so the wife decided to come back with the kids to finish their school and that destroyed their marriage. She stayed there in Belfast but she's an Irish.
[00:30:00] So the children now they all grow up. I think the first boy he settled in Ghana where he was here for a while then he went back and settled in Ghana. He's the only one settled in Ghana. And the last one and the second born is living in Opinti. See, he did some engineering or something like that. Him and the last one. The last one lives in um Northampton. They have only one girl, Alison. And she became a doctor too. She's still working. Yeah. And because the mom too is old, so they need somebody to live near to keep an eye on her. Yeah. And he also, funny enough, he had dementia. The last time I saw him was 2018 when one of my nieces was getting married. And as soon as I when I was talking to him, he was talking about things that gone old, some things evil is even telling me I have no idea and I realized, cuz he wasn't that old I think he 88 yeah and it looked like he just went downhill because the people there uh they didn't really understand what was and to be honest the medical system over there is next to nothing.
[00:32:00] So he eventually died. He was ill for a while and then he died. So, but the ex-wife is still July – the second son celebrated his 60th.
Interviewer. Wow.
AQP. And we all went and the mother and the rest of his siblings, they all came. So, we all met together and cuz to because you speak on the phone but you don't see them.
Interviewer. Yeah.
AQP. Yeah. So it was nice for everybody, all the family and his friends because he started when he started university in Ghana and then he came back to finish up here but now they only go on holidays because the elder brother is there. So well I can say I'm lucky to belong to a good family that is really serious about education and I think it's all spring up from my granddad because he was the first Ghanaian doctor. He trained in Edinburgh and somewhere else. But he gave the British government a hard time when he went back home. Yeah. Reading his history a bit.
Q. Do you want to talk a little bit about that if you're happy to or..? [00:33:51]
AQP. Yeah
Q. So, what was your grandfather's name? [00:33:55]
AQP. Um, William Benjamin Bograph here he be he came from a big family too who eventually became doctors and lawyers and teachers and my grand my father's sisters three of them became teachers in the one that was named I was named after she was the only one that went, like clerical work, but all of them had teaching and all sorts. But uh cuz my dad always says that your brain is your future. So if you and they don't believe in, like clerical work, you have to be a professional. So they push us all to and I'm really grateful or glad to see the people that the siblings before after us they also taking over going through the same road cuz my youngest brother he's also got a daughter who is a doctor. So maybe, maybe we got the caring genes.
[00:35:42] Everybody wants to care for something somebody orI got a brother in Germany. He did engineering. So he married a German lady. So he's still there. Had four four kids. They all grown up now. So come summer, they all go and visit, but they don't want to live there. The country is no good now. It's no good. So we can only go on holidays and then come back where we settled.And we had a a good family union when we able we get together and talk about things and to me that's how it should be really you But uh sometimes it doesn't go that way. And I've got another sister too. She's um 2 years older than me. She also married well, her husband, they married at home. The husband came here to study. So she joined him. They had two children and the marriage didn't work. So well the husband is dead now but and then she got sick. I think something to do with her spine. So now she living in one of these um residential homes. one of these residential homes in uh Wembley. So I visit every now and then if I mostly she rather phones me all the time but I visit when I can in summer time go when we from here going there it takes about 2 hours.
Interviewer.[00:38:22] Mhm.
AQP. You got a train somewhere and then you have to join the bus to get there. Maybe I spend an hour and a half or two to come home. But she phones all the time and the children do visit. So she lived in Kilburn just by the Kilburn station. And then when she couldn't manage on her own, her husband died. She couldn't manage on her own. Yeah. So that's my life.
Q. And you sort of mentioned earlier that um so obviously is given a long time back to sort of when, when you were a child, but it–was it was the Gold Coast. It was pre-independence. Do you sort of have any memories of um independence or life before that when it was okay? [00:39:33]
AQP. Well, mish mash really because my-my dad was a pharmacist and is a government controls everything. So they push you around like he will be transferred to certain part, maybe 2, 3, 4, years and then I could go another place again everything packed up so like we were changing schools here and there until he decided well this is not good enough so we all have to stay one place then on holidays we have So we end up in boarding schools, especially when we reach secondary level, we all end up in boarding schools cuz otherwise you'll be changing all the time. So we all come home when the holiday. But not everybody can afford to do that. So I said, "Well, he had to really work hard, to make sure all of us, cuz in all we he had 13 of us."
Interviewer. Oh, wow. It's a lot to look after!
AQP. 13 of us. So mostly spent all his life, working for the children. It's a shame and then you have to if you are like a senior pharmacist you have to visit other places to check whatever was going on.
[00:41:14] So one day he was coming home and the truck just cuz the roads are not like here you can see where you going sometime you can drive and I used to be so scared like when we go home and in like in the night in maybe 5:00 6:00 we all packed up in the car and all you see is trees here and there the road, no lights, only your car lights showing you where you're going. I used to get so scared and he was driving somewhere and a big truck just collided with him. Apparently, he was going the wrong way. I think that time it was um left hand drive. So he had some injuries that really didn't leave him and well but it took a while then those days they don't tell you like here you can ask what's wrong with me they tell you this that that and then when you die; the postmortem. They can tell you exactly even now you pay money for small things but there's no guarantee they'll give you the right they just put something on paper because who's going to question it so he died early I think, 66 yeah.
Q. And that's when you went home for a year? [00:43:04]
AQP. Yeah. All his siblings living longer than him.
Q. Yeah? [00:43:14]
AQP. Yeah. Look at me. 80 years old. I can't believe it.
Q. Do you remember? Do you remember independence at all when that happened? Was there–[00:43:29]
AQP. Yes, I did. I did. I remember. We have to go to a park somewhere um on a march, for the um but before that, uh what they call it, empire day, we go on a march and I remember they gave us when the queen, was made queen, we had to go on a march, and give everybody a cup with the the queen you say but what happened to that I know we had a cupboard that we all put in there we don't use it so as you grow up you forgot about this so the other day when the queen- that celebration we had I said when the king was put up now I said I was I wonder what happened to those cups we got, when the queen came on all those years,, maybe it's broken or you people don't value these things like they do here, you keep them as a memento and all that.
Q. Like a ceramic cup? [00:44:54]
AQP. No, proper, proper like a um ch– China with the Queen. Yeah, we always go on a march for even, we celebrate May Day, with the pole thing, we dance around it and all that. Yeah, I remember all that. But then the independence came which wasn't you know something going on but you're not really into it. Now from the beginning I think Yes. Just before I finished secondary school. Yeah. I think in 1957 we had independence.
Interviewer. [00:45:39] Yeah.
AQP. But things didn't change much. Then everything went pear shaped cuz some didn't like the president or the prime minister or what they conspired and um I remember there was a war in, is it Vietnam? Yeah, there was around that time. Yeah. And he went to Hanoi and that was the end of it. They stage a coup, and he ends up in Guinea, the prime minister in Guinea then took him in, give him asylum there and he died, and Ghana has never been the same again. People come and go and the more they come and go the more the country goes down. It's nothing there now. Selfishness and corruption. Greed. They always borrow money from foreign. The other day someone said one day, now they’re more into Chinese. I said one day we hear the Chinese people will take over and we go back to colonial time again. Yeah. I hope not. People are really struggling. Yeah.
[00:47:27] No jobs. All the I remember when the first PM came, you make sure even school, primary school was free education and all that. Only when you get to secondary school if you're lucky uh you get like a scholarship. So, you maybe you pay half the fees and you get books and all that but not anymore. And there was a time I heard that you only go to school half day. You got the same building and more people. So they have to have day people and afternoon people. You don't have full day like you go from here like from 8:00 to 3. You have to divide it into. And if your parents can't afford to pay the fees or buy books, pencil and all that, then you don't have, you don't get to go to school. It's really sad.
[00:48:51] And you got all these private people setting up their own school. They only taking the money from people, and you finish and you haven't learned anything to know about the university. You used to be you had a good university. Yeah. So if you have money and you want to go to university, you have to get out of the country cuz you won't get much education there even though you pay the money as everybody want to get get out of there and every year they celebrating independence. I said I don't want to know in March the March 6 the embassy here. Oh my goodness.
It's really sad.
Q. It sounds like you you feel very positively about the education you had. Did you study nursing in Ghana before coming here? [00:50:03]
AQP. No – all though I wanted to but I couldn't cuz I have to wait and my dad said why don't you go to England and do it if this is what you want to do was the same for your siblings that the opportunity was in Britain and not back in Ghana to study yeah well at that time it wasn't bad but it deteriorated all the time so if you want to study you have to get out and then when you finish there's nothing there to go for you've got the knowledge but you can't implement it so like you me I never really think oh I'm not coming back cuz I knew if my dad was still alive because he never stopped nagging my elder brother when he finish his medicine he oh you finished your PhD you have to come back and work and help the country and all that but then because he's I'm sure if he had married then he would have gone so I said well if when I finish everything and I was if my dad was still alive he'll be nagging me to come back so in a sense even me I didn't make up my mind I'm going and I'm not but at that time the country was okay but then over the years it went down, down, down oh I was really lucky when I decided oh I can't get nowhere to settle down I'll just go back and just at that time GLC saved me.
AQP. [00:52:04] So every time I hear um that man's name is his name Livingston?
Interviewer. Ken Livingston–
AQP. Livingston! So that was the time he was, running the GLC. So I was lucky to escape. So even if you work there and you retire, that's another thing to get your pension. So people are struggling my sister when she went and she worked there until she retired but I don't think she got much pension. Then she something was wrong with her eyes. I can’t think what it is uh, cataracts, she had operation and she end up going blind.
Q. So, do you think it's fair to say– and what you told me that you, you came and you thought I'll be here for 4 years, but you trained, you had all that knowledge and there just was no opportunity for you if you went back? That's why you decided to stay longer? [00:53:42]
AQP. No. No. Oh, you okay. Funny enough that when my dad died and I went that was a time my eyes open that because that time the country just gone what I knew it wasn't the same I said no cuz I got when I was training there was another girl there as soon as she finish. She got married. I think the husband did the law and if the government sponsors you and you finish your course, you have to go back. So she went back with the husband. And she applied to work in the general hospital cuz the system here is different from there. So she couldn't fit in but they doing what she wouldn't do like here system, and they were making fun of her but when she got fed up she resigned and went to private sector, they have private sector there, and she still didn't so she stopped working all together. I don't know what she did then after cuz I met her said oh she couldn't work there because what they do over there is
different from what she's been trained to do.
[00:55:19] And I'm sure the doctors feel the same because even my brother after a while he set his own, private business cuz he couldn't work with the government. See, because if a doctor makes a mistake, who's going to question it? They give you the wrong diagnosis, who's going to question it? So, even the people living there, it's a risk. It's a risk. So, one of my aunties, she fell in the bathroom, but she was a big woman. So she just stay in bed and I'm sure it's pneumonia she got, and she was rushed to private hospital. They put her on the bed straight away. They put a drip on. So I said, "What kind of drip?", and you have to pay money before they you don't know what they putting in you. The woman have high temperature and all that. They didn't to me they didn't pick up what was wrong with her and she died. Who's going to question? So if you are ill and you go in your hospital and you come out, it's your luck. Cuz when his son was telling me, I said, "Oh, I'm sure she got pneumonia." Very sure she had pneumonia but who you going to ask even postmortem you can't guarantee that you pay money for it they just write something on the paper for you to say, oh what this is what the bosses. Even not long ago, another relative
I got to know he had diabetes.
[00:57:45] He has some sore on his leg that wasn't healing, and there they decide, oh, they need to cut the leg off, and then somebody else who came said, "Oh, no, he's healing." So, they left it. So every two weeks he has to go to the hospital for them to dress this saw and up and out of the blue he just went so bad and he died. So I'm sure it's septicemia. So I was asking when they did their postmortem, the death certificate. This is what they put on a stomach ulcer or something so it's dangerous now if you're ill and they believe oh the general hospital because they haven't got the equipment and things, even extra. You have to wait so long. You go and they tell you, "Oh, the X-ray machine is not working. You have to come back." Meanwhile, you’re ill, it’s sad.
[00:59:19] And I said, "Oh, during my granddad's time when they were fighting, because apparently the white people that were there doing the same job, they getting more pay than the local people. They can't hold any positions. They have to be yes men all the time." and he was fighting to get it sorted. A group of people they form like a committee or something came all the way to London here to fight it out in the end you end up getting OB or something one of these uh yeah so all that fight they did the old people fight to get the country back. It's a lot in battle. Their efforts now doesn't mean anything. Even he left the civil service and set up his own practice. Meanwhile, he went on doing politics, thinking to me, thinking to make the country better. If you see what's going on now, it was just a waste of time then. Yeah. But then nothing stays the same changes.
Q. Is there anything I haven't asked you about that you want to tell me about that you think is important to say on record or share? [01:01:23]
AQP. Not really. But we my dad my granddad I had I've got bits and pieces of his life when he left here finish his um medicine she mar he married here and apparently the the wedding took place in St. B's hospital the little chapel they got there?
Interviewer. Yeah.
AQP. Yeah. And I didn't even when I was working with um Hackney we used to go there for study days and all that and I never knew, way after I was so excited. Oh one day I'll go down there and go in the chapel and see where he's still to sign the register and all that. Yeah. And then he did so much and I think he also died young. He was in his 60s something 60 something he died and those after keeping up
Interviewer. Sounds like you spent a lot of time then living in the nursing homes.
AQP. Yeah.
Q. For for quite up until like throughout the ' 70s, would you say? [1:03:08]
AQP. Yeah. Uh cuz when I came back to London, Hamstead, New End, New End Hospital was part of it. There was a- you had a nurse's home there. So I think I spent either a year or two there and a friend of mine had a flat but she did dress making and all that. So when she decided to go back home, she's here now. Yeah. You have to run by.
Interviewer 2. [01:04:00] Amy. Amy. Look, there's your bag. Yeah. I don't know what you got in it, but you got your valuables. Sorry.
AQP. All right.
Interviewer. No problem. No, no, no.
Interviewer 2. And there's more things outside. Yeah.
AQP. Right. Thank you. Yeah.
Q. So, your friend had a flat? [1:04:12]
AQP. Yeah. So, when she was going back home
Interviewer. Mhm.
AQP. She told me. So, me and another uh friend took over the flat. So, I stayed there, and we didn't really get on. We didn't really get on. So, I was going around looking, those days, when you walk in, you see people putting in windows and all that. So I had another but it was just a room. There are other people living there but you have your own room. You only share the kitchen, the toilet and the bathroom. That was when uh my dad died and I had to go home so I lost that flat then the room I lost it. So that's why when I came back the second time was moving from a friend living with a friend for a while even my sister, who is in the residential home, I think when I moved here I was staying with her.
[01:05:34] Yeah. Cuz I was with another friend that had a room, um cuz she had two kids and a husband and they had a spare room. So, I was living in that spare room. And then she decided to go home because things weren't good. So, she-she was also a nurse. She she did um she work in um this hospital down in uh
the Park Royale Hospital.
Interviewer. Mhm.
AQP. [01:06:47] Yeah. So she decided to go back home. I couldn't leave her alone with her husband. That's when I said well if I didn't get any reply from GSC or whatever I pack and go home so I move to stay with my sister that was in November and then December I got to move here. Yeah. So that was just that time I was thinking, "Oh, I better go home, cuz I was fed up staying here, there, and everywhere cuz I don't have no money to go and buy a house or whatever flat or GLC saved me." Yeah.
Interviewer. That's wonderful. I think I tried to print out some of the photos that Derek had got from you a few years back, but- hold on- I thought they were lovely. That was new.
Q. Was that in uh so sort of the late '60s when you were studying? [01:07:33]
AQP. Yeah. yeah…
Q. Harrogate? [01:07:36]
AQP. Yeah. Yeah, that was a student nurse's uniform.
Q. Do you remember getting the photo taken? [01:07:48]
AQP. Yeah, I went to the studio. Yeah.
Q. Did you- was was it one to send back, back to the family back home or-?[01:07:55]
AQP. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I remember sending one of those to my dad.
Q. That's a really lovely picture. And this is you at secondary school? [01:08:07]
AQP. Yeah.
Q. So, was there- was there a uniform at the boarding school or..?[01:08:12]
AQP. Yes. Yes. Like a check check blue check material.
Interviewer. It's a lovely–
AQP. I never took a picture in my uniform then.
Q. Well, if you're, if you're young, you don't want pictures of you in your uniform, do you? Is this a dress you made or? [1:08:31]
AQP. Yes. Oh, I think this is when I was finishing secondary school.
Q.Yeah? [01:08:37]
AQP. Yeah.
Interviewer. Oh, that's a lovely, really lovely picture. I love the bag as well. It's very-
AQP. Yeah,
Interviewer. -very smart.
Q. You mentioned you make your own clothes. Is that because you really, you love the end result or is it that you don't struggle to find what you're looking for when other people have made it? [01:08:57]
AQP. That was because my mom used to sew all our clothes, like when they have the departmental stores, um come Christmas now, she will go around,and see the ready made dresses and then buy the material and sew for us, and you'll be doing the tacking and I mean, and that's how I got into it. And I started sewing underwear from the beginning. That's how I started it. Sometimes I even use a needle and then when I finish, run the machine on it. So when I came to live in London, when I had that flat in Cricklewood, the first thing I bought was a sewing machine.
Q. Yeah? [01:09:50]
AQP. And I still got it.
Interviewer. Oh wow.
AQP. But it doesn't work. But I can't throw it away. [Laughter] I can't throw it away. It's all packed up to go to, the bin, but I keep walking around it all the time. I can't remember when Derek took this. [01:10:11]
Interviewer. It might even just be a still from his film. I think they're quite clever. They can get really good photographs from it.
AQP. Cuz you’re always working with his camera. This is right in front of my door.
Interviewer. Yeah, I get the impression with Derek, for a few years filming all the time. But yeah-
AQP. You're always working with this camera!
Q. Would you be willing if the museum was to share your story for us to be able to use this photo because I think it's really lovely? [01:10:49]
AQP. [Overlapped] Yes, yes.
Interviewer. Um I mean we've got copies that Derek shared with us. Hello– So we're just talking about photos from the exhibition.
Interviewer 3 [DEREK]. We had, we uh, we– we had it out on Sunday. I also rejected courtesy of the Wick award. So not only did we have three films on Sunday night about Gascoyne, we had a montage of a hundred photographs. Residents past and present.
Interviewer. [01:11:13] Oh, lovely.
Interviewer 3. So, that, that was- it was interesting. Yeah. People were watching and it was quite moving, wasn't it? People who came from who'd moved from Gascoyne years ago came for the party.
AQP. Yeah.
Interviewer. Oh, lovely.
Interviewer 3. And then they met friends here and neighbors here from like 40-50 years ago. Yeah. It's still, it's got it's quite a common bond, the Gascoyne.
AQP. [01:11:40] It used to be more together than now. I remember if somebody died, one person would go around, collect money to buy flowers and all that. But then it all stopped.
Interviewer 3. Yeah. People are are struggling just to keep their head above water, most of the time. So the younger people are desperate to pay the mortgage. Um, the rents are going up all the time and nothing gets any cheaper. People are str- I think that's what it is. There's just-
AQP. Yeah, but they don't get involved, like how many people from the estate?
Interviewer 3. Well, that was a disappointing thing. We did all that leafleting. Yeah. Put leaflets in people's doors. I bumped into a few people and they said, "Oh, we were just too busy." I think also people are depressed watching television. There's just so much going on.
Interviewer. I think everyone must be feeling overwhelmed.
Interviewer 3. -That this week has been, we've had months, months of Ukraine. Now we've got Gaza and it's just so depressing. People aren't bothering to go out. What do you reckon to this thing? What do you reckon to this photograph? I've just got into a terrible argument. About this picture, Amy. If that was I mean if that was your- if that was your relative some of the comments that come attached to this picture on Facebook are just appalling. People saying that the is a gruelling competition and just disrespectful comments about these people. So I've now got a spat with a photographer saying you shouldn't really have posted it because it's actually not a very complimentary picture of somebody.
Q. So it's a contemporary photo? [01:13:29]
Interviewer 3. Yeah. taken recently by John Gil.
Interviewer. I mean, I think if it's one of these things where if it was sort of press where they knew they been photographed, it's one of those things where if it's they're just sitting and somebody's taken a photo and shared it and stuff, it's it's how much involvement they had in it, but–
Interviewer 3. They, they uh they were just they probably didn't know they were being photoed, and it's uh-
Interviewer. I mean the fact- it's one of the things where it's like it's a moment of a slice of life and I think it's just, people are horrible. But you can't, you need to recognize that before you share things.
Interviewer. [01:14:01] Uh it it's uh some of these comments are just appalling. And actually the um the photographers saying, "Well, look, this is the end of street photography. We can't go out and take pictures on the street." Well, you can, but you've got to be careful at how you represent people.
AQP. Yeah.
Interviewer 3. In the spirit of like,, you look at people like Count Your Breast on. It's like humanist photography. You, you, you show people usually at their best.
AQP. Yes.
Interviewer 3. Rather than their worst. It's just not fair on them. But some of the comments really show that Facebook brings out the worst in people cuz they just comment and think they can get away with it. Well, I said to them, look, if you make comments like this, you could be, you could be sued actually by these people if they find out what's going on. Um anyway, it's interesting to get your views on that.
Interviewer. Yeah, it is. It's tough. I mean, we've had things where we've switched comments off on our YouTube channel because we couldn't, we didn't have the ability to moderate. And most people are fine, but all you need is you don't want to miss it.
Interviewer 3. Some nutcase who who it's a voice for them, but uh and uh how's um did the people on the desk who were servicing my hosting my exhibition, have they retired now?
Interviewer. No, Linda's still there.
Interviewer 3. She's still–She's still there. Amazing!
Interviewer. Still there.
Interviewer 3. I had seen her last time when I went to see the photography. Uh I think it was, she was off for the weekend to Saturday. I thought, "Oh, I wonder if she's…”
Interviewer. No, she's still there. Linda, who is the longest serving-
Interviewer 3. She's been there for 40 years. You probably get to meet her that uh lives in East five, lives in Chatsworth Road. I think.
Interviewer. [01:15:50] Everybody knows Linda. She's kind of like the heart of it. So um so yeah so I was thinking so with using photos we like to have a record that people are happy for us to use them. Um so if you are comfortable you could sign something and you can say exactly how you are and not happy for us to use it but if you if you want I could leave this with you and you can read it or we can do it together now but I don't want to feel that anybody's getting surprised with anything. Um, but I mean I've got your- so we don't know who's to take I don't suppose the name of the studio as a random that's a going-
AQP. That took the picture.
Interviewer. Yeah.
AQP. No.
Interviewer. So it would be a studio in Harrogate.
AQP. Yes.
Interviewer. Say unknown studio in Harrogate. Um, and yeah, if you'd just be happy to put your name and contact details and then just say yes or no to how you're happy for us to use it. Am I right to ask that question for both these lovely photos?
Interviewer 3. Um, oh, that's my favorite. Um, uh, there is a better version of that which I can send you.
Interviewer. That would be I mean I have So this is just a quick print out.
Interviewer 3. All right. Oh, you probably if Yeah, if it's from one that I did, it's probably it–
Interviewer. Would have been the one we would so that would probably have been the highest.
Interviewer 3. I'll send you another one, both of them cuz they-they are good pictures. And do you want this one?
Interviewer. Um yeah, if you're happy to get you to sign over copyright um I can send you an email over. Um but it's lovely just having images so we can share people's stories with something to show.
Interviewer 3. [01:17:30] In fact, I've got a load of stuff uh in the in the cupboard which I try I must take down to the archives, photographs and all that all those estate um minutes and newsletters and things from the ‘70s from the the '90s and the drawings which I just haven't had time to do. I've also got a box of photographs uh taken by somebody in Chatsworth, uh E5. Um he was just an amateur but he used to dig trenches for the waterboard.
Interviewer. Yeah.
Interviewer 3. But he, he took pictures around Chatsworth Road and uh that part of they're actually very good. Um and somebody gave me them at one of the shelter housing talks I gave and they said we were going to throw them out. I said well don't throw them out. I'll look. So who's the person at the archives now who'd be interested in this?
Interviewer. Oh, I mean the easiest one is to send it to the archive of now address. You've got Lydia, Lisa, Elizabeth, they all
Interviewer 3. They're the same team?
Interviewer. Same team. So, one of them-
Interviewer 3. I'll go down with a sample and when I get time, just getting time.
Interviewer. Yeah. I think the best thing to do is just ping them email first and they can say let's meet at this time or send some stuff over.
Interviewer 3. I'll send some examples. Yeah.
AQP. Um I haven't got no email.
Interviewer. That's fine. It's just if you have it, just put a little line through it. Um, I was admiring the masks because I was aware that the community–
Interviewer 3. Yeah, we've got we've got some money from IKEA actually and Alana bought some decent uh sewing machines and Monday there's a- a sewing, sewing group which is building up and they've got a stall out actually on Sunday. Um, but you never know. I mean, if it comes back, we're all prepared. But this I mean this is uh when when when it was being run by the other, you can you can take that back if you like, um there was just nothing going on once a week there was something and and then
weekends just sporadic kind of lettings but it's um I mean it's hard work there's four of us doing it but uh
Interviewer. If you [AQP] have any questions about any of those just asking away I've got a whole bunch of stuff over so, one is so I've I've laminated so I don't know if you got any outdoor areas. I can't I couldn't remember what
Interviewer 3. what we can do is–
Interviewer. As many as you can but got so I've got one two unlaminated ones of the event next week and then I've got some in the lobby, the surveys running to the first say 1st of January. So I thought if we could stick that up and then people can fill it in. Um that's the other QR code of one.
Interviewer 3. [1:20:12] Um what I could do actually I'll put one of these up here.
Interviewer. That' be amazing. Yeah. Thank you so much. We really appreciate it.
AQP. What do I put here?
Interviewer. Um Oh, just put your own name. Sorry.
AQP.Yeah.
Interviewer. So sometimes you get um uh you can have like a photo of yourself that was taken by Derek and it's your photo but Derek has the copyright cuz he pressed the button on the camera and it's just us navigating that. Um-
AQP. And here?
Interviewer. Just yes or yeah just circle circle the ones you're happy with whatever you're comfortable…
AQP. I don't want to see it.
Interviewer. That's not really. Well, it is sort of a project. Um, it's the lottery fund, but you can put yes or no.
AQP. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know.
Interviewer. Yeah, don't worry. But just put NA. It's fine. is some people would want to go, photo taken by me. So, if you're just happy to sign there and I'll sign it and what I'll do is I'll make a copy and I can post it to you. Um, here I'll sign that and do that on my end. Um, so if you're happy, I'll take that back with me, create a copy, and I can pop that in cuz I got your address here. Um, we've obviously talked a lot about your life and at some point it’d be really nice to just have a signed thing to go, "Yeah, I'm happy for you to talk about me again." That's something we could do now, but if you'd rather, I could go away, have a think about how we use a story and later come back to going, "This is what I'd like to tell people. Are you happy?"
AQP. Oh, fine.
Interviewer. Yeah. Okay. But it's always good to get on that side. And um yeah, as I just so I'm going to stop recording now if that's-
END OF INTERVIEW [01:23:04]