Z1205/164

Female. Indian migrant, husband brickworker. Interviewed with the aid of an interpreter, in Punjab language. b. 07.11.1940 (00 mins)Brought up in Pakistan where she was born. Moved to India in the Punjab region after the political split of 1947. Married with one son. She was the youngest of three sisters and one brother. Her father was a farmer, who had his own land but occasionally worked for others. They grew grains, sugar beet & cattle feed and kept 10-11 buffalo for ploughing. Their house was in the centre of the village, amongst more than 1.000 other houses. (5 mins)Mother did not help in the fields, was solely a housewife. Mostly men worked on the land. Her dads' brothers lived with them. She left school when she was 10-11. Most children went to school, but there was a small fee to be paid, parents who were too poor to pay did not send their children to school. (10 mins)She enjoyed going to school, but did not have exercise books. They wrote on wood, then cleaned it and wrote again, just like slate. Some children from the village went to High school in the city, but not from her family. Children played in the streets, made toys by hand. She still makes dolls like then, but children nowadays do not like them. They made patterns of circle and squares on the floor and then jumped over them. Played with stones counting them, all taking turns. (15 mins)Pretend games, with dolls, getting married, dying and burning the dolls at the end, enacting real life. Boys and girls usually played separately. Boys would go further in the fields to play, the girls would stay near the house. They also played Hide and Seek. Seasons were different from here, winter was not as cold so they were still able to go out to play. In the summer they played under the shade of big trees. (20 mins)After she left school she stayed at home and learned to cook and embroider. She took the embroidery to her future in laws. Girls used to get bed sheets as presents for their dowry. She stopped going out to play when she was 20-21. Her parents chose her future husband for her when she was 20. She had known she was going to get married but she did not meet him until the day she got married. She liked him, he was good to her, she does not know what would have happened if she had not liked him. He was a good choice. (25 mins)After the marriage she went to live with her in laws, visiting her family occasionally. Her in laws were very nice to her. She had 6 sisters in law and all mixed well together. She knows that she is lucky to have found such a nice family also farmers. A nephew of her husband got him a permit to come to work in England. He had a son when he left and they did not see each other for the next 10-11 years. They wrote to each other, she missed him a lot. Her husband only planned to come for a few years, because they were struggling financially but then he settled here and called for them to come and join him. (30 mins)End of side A. Side B. (00mins)Her husband first lived with his sister in Birmingham for 5-6 year and worked in a foundry. Then they all moved to Bedford to work in the brick industry in Stewartby. When she came from India to Bedford she went to work for Meltis. She preferred going to work, to being at home on her own, their son was at school. She made friends with other Indian women at Meltis. She worked by putting jellies and chocolates into boxes. Worked there full time for 13 years, she liked to eat the jelly but not the chocolate. Then she had asthma caused by the dust from the sweets got too much for her. The doctor advised her to stop working there. (5 mins)Her husband still works at the brick works, her son too, they do different shifts. Her husband starts at 6am and finishes at 3pm, her son starts at 8am and finishes at 8pm. Her son is married has 4 children and they all live together. Life is good in Bedford, better that in India, here it is clean, there was very dusty. She thinks that every body is nice here to each other like brothers and sisters. so she does not miss her own brother and sister, she is happy here. (10 mins)If somebody could bring her to the Temple she would come every day, but Thursday & Sunday is a must. On Sunday they all get together to listen to the reading of the holy book. The women share the cooking, (every one eats at the Temple). She likes to cook, she is a good cook and every one asks her advice.End of side B End of Interview. Original Interview 45 mins

10 October 2002

From: 1940 To: 2002

item

London Brick Company,
Meltis Limited

immigration, brick worker, interpreter, farmer, cattle, employment of women, married woman, EDUCATION, toys, games, gender issues, climatology, cooking, MARRIAGE, asthma, pollution, Sikhism, Punjab (India), India, Pakistan, Birmingham, BEDFORD, STEWARTBY