- 2 days ago
Interview with Gian Kanwar, Randhir Kanwar and Raghbir Kanwar of Chez Rama in Leamington Spa
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CreativityTranscript
00:00:00So, a question for all of you. What's your name and how old are you?
00:00:07Okay, I'll start. I'm the eldest, right? My name is Kian Kanwar. I'm 78.
00:00:22Got it?
00:00:23Yep, yep. No, I'm Rugby Singh Kanwar and I'm 29 but nobody believes in me. So, I'll have to tell my real age now.
00:00:44And where are you from originally?
00:00:53Where are you from, me or Gyan?
00:00:56Gyan.
00:00:57We are actually from Jalanda, Punjab.
00:01:02Yeah. And which village?
00:01:06We didn't live, I mean, my father was obviously born in,
00:01:13Basla, near Jalanda.
00:01:18But we, he actually was in the army.
00:01:21So, we actually stayed with him, you know, all the time.
00:01:28Myself, I'm the eldest.
00:01:31So, in those days what used to happen was, the girls used to go back to her maternal home for the first child to be born.
00:01:46So, I was actually born in Eastpur, in Husharpur, you know, in Husharpur, right?
00:01:54Yeah.
00:01:55And the other two brothers were born in Jalanda.
00:01:59Okay.
00:02:00And then we have a sister.
00:02:02She's called Satish.
00:02:05And she's the youngest.
00:02:07Are you okay?
00:02:09Hi, it's Mike, thanks.
00:02:11My sister is the youngest.
00:02:16She was born in 1950.
00:02:19And she was born in Merritt when our father was in the army.
00:02:28Okay.
00:02:29And what was, what was life like in India for you?
00:02:34Do you have any strong memories of that, of that time, of growing up together?
00:02:39Life in India, I mean, my father came before us.
00:02:48We came in 1957, right?
00:02:53And so, he came about two and a half years before us.
00:02:57And then, in those days, all the people who came earlier on, their aim was to earn the money, go back home eventually, right?
00:03:11So, we stayed there without you for about two and a half years in Jalanda.
00:03:19Yeah.
00:03:20And how was that, staying without your dad for quite a significant time period?
00:03:28No, it wasn't too bad, because what happened was, because we were in the army quarters, right?
00:03:35Yeah.
00:03:36And therefore, we didn't really notice it, because he used to come home anyway.
00:03:40Okay.
00:03:41So, he wasn't that, whether we were in Jalanda, whether we were in Merritt, you found that, you know, we were, he was always with us.
00:03:51Okay.
00:03:52But, when he came to England, yeah, definitely.
00:03:56Is that the army, is that the army campment when you're going to Jalanda, the BSF Chonk and near that?
00:04:03Yeah.
00:04:04In Kent.
00:04:05Yes.
00:04:06Okay.
00:04:07I don't remember this, but he said, well, we did live in Jalanda, Kent, but before that, we actually lived in Merritt, Kent.
00:04:20Merritt, all right.
00:04:21Right.
00:04:22Yeah.
00:04:23Kent is, I think that's what they call it, so they, they showed him for Kent.
00:04:28That's correct.
00:04:29Okay.
00:04:30Okay.
00:04:31And what do you remember from the journey from India to England?
00:04:39Did you all travel at the same time and together?
00:04:42I'll, I'll answer that question for you.
00:04:46Well, we actually left Jalanda and we actually, what happened was October 1956 and we went to Panipat to my uncle's house and in October 1956, the Suez Canal problem happened at that time.
00:05:14And the Suez Canal was bombed by the British, so we could not actually fly at that time.
00:05:22And we went back to Jalanda and we went back to Jalanda for four months before we decided to come to UK.
00:05:30Okay.
00:05:31Then we came at the end of February.
00:05:32Then we came at the end of February.
00:05:35We actually flew by 57, February 57.
00:05:42We flew from Delhi to Karachi and we stayed overnight by PIA.
00:05:51That's the Pakistan International Airways.
00:05:53And then having stayed the night over there, early morning we left and then we stopped in Cairo and then Geneva.
00:06:04And then we landed in Heathrow.
00:06:07That's quite a long journey with lots of stops in.
00:06:12Were you travelling?
00:06:14Yeah.
00:06:15The thing was, in those days, we didn't have those, you know, planes couldn't fly that far without me feeling.
00:06:26Yeah.
00:06:27And did you, did you travel with your mother or?
00:06:31We all travelled.
00:06:32Yeah, my mother and the four of us, we all travelled together.
00:06:37Yes.
00:06:38And when you were travelling, did you, you know, obviously you were still quite young, but did you think, oh, I'm leaving India and I won't be back for a while or I don't want to leave my friends and my family?
00:06:51How did, how did it make you feel leaving?
00:06:54I think we were looking forward to it.
00:06:57Really?
00:06:58Wow.
00:06:59Yeah.
00:07:00Because we were young.
00:07:01Yeah.
00:07:02Our father was already here.
00:07:04So we were looking forward to joining him here.
00:07:08Yeah.
00:07:09We were having a joyful time looking forward to come over to UK.
00:07:14And what about your mother?
00:07:17Because your mother leaving her, her parents.
00:07:20Who were still back in Asharpur and, and maybe your, you know, grandparents in Jalanda.
00:07:28Apparently our Naniji was still in Eastport.
00:07:33And our dadiji, she used to stay with us in Jalanda, with us.
00:07:42And then, but the thing was, the most important factor was, was to join the family here in UK.
00:07:50So that was the main reason.
00:07:53So we were looking forward to that.
00:07:55Yeah.
00:07:56So it was joyful for the whole family family.
00:07:59Okay.
00:08:00And is there anybody you missed when you came over here?
00:08:04What was there?
00:08:05Yeah.
00:08:06People talk about fond memories.
00:08:07You know.
00:08:08What fond memories did you, especially in the early days?
00:08:12Yeah.
00:08:13Yeah, definitely.
00:08:14We did miss quite a few of our relatives who were still there.
00:08:19Our chachas, and thayas, and foopers, and mamas, and all those people were there.
00:08:25And obviously our cousins as well.
00:08:29So the majority of them were still there.
00:08:32And so we were, we were from the first batch, really, to come over.
00:08:41What did you expect from England?
00:08:44You know, did you have a picture in your head that you thought it was going to be a certain way?
00:08:48Did it live up to what you thought it would be like?
00:08:51I would say we didn't have any picture in our minds.
00:08:56I remember my dad kept on saying, I'm going to come back.
00:09:01And, you know, give me another, you know, one year.
00:09:07And then eventually it got to about a couple of years.
00:09:11And then he still hadn't mind about coming back.
00:09:15And that eventually he said, okay, you can come over.
00:09:18And then I don't, I clearly remember my mother asked, being the eldest.
00:09:24She asked me, what shall we do?
00:09:26I said, we go.
00:09:27And what we obviously didn't have any picture of it.
00:09:32UK at that time, you know, my, no.
00:09:35No expectations, no streets paved with gold.
00:09:39You know, like if you talk to people now back in India.
00:09:42No, the only thing, Dian, if you remember correctly, Dian.
00:09:46You said the education system in England was excellent.
00:09:50Excellent.
00:09:51Yeah, obviously, I mean, that, I mean, we knew things were better here than over there.
00:09:56Yeah.
00:09:57So that would be one reason.
00:10:02Like John was saying earlier on, the whole idea was here to come over.
00:10:08And for all of us to get education, get educated and then go back to India and settle again.
00:10:15But things didn't work out like that.
00:10:18Yeah.
00:10:19So.
00:10:20Yeah.
00:10:21Sorry.
00:10:22There was a one thing that we did was that in, we used to hear about England was very, very,
00:10:32people are very trustworthy and things like that.
00:10:36So they said, you should, you get your milk delivered at the door and you leave the money outside.
00:10:41Yeah.
00:10:42And they just collect it and they collect the money and leave your milk and it doesn't get stolen.
00:10:48That was true.
00:10:49So you'd had quite good things then, really.
00:10:52It was, you know, an opportunity.
00:10:55So when you got to the UK then, all three of you went into the schooling system?
00:11:00Yes, all four of us.
00:11:02Oh yeah, your sister included.
00:11:05How was that?
00:11:06You know, could you speak any English?
00:11:08English?
00:11:09Did you learn any English at school?
00:11:11The only person actually, as far as I remember, was I think my eldest brother probably knew
00:11:17English a little bit.
00:11:20And I didn't know.
00:11:22My sister, youngest sister, she used to go to a school, English school in India.
00:11:27And she was the youngest.
00:11:29She learned a little bit.
00:11:30But we, it didn't take long for us, all of us, to pick up.
00:11:35It was hard, but we picked it up very well.
00:11:38I think Jan can say something on that as well.
00:11:42I think, being the eldest, I was 14 at that time.
00:11:46And obviously I found it difficult because you're in a class where everybody spoke English
00:11:55and you couldn't speak English and you didn't know enough English.
00:11:59So our teachers were helpful, I remember.
00:12:03And then the headmasters were very, very helpful.
00:12:07I got to the age of 16 and I was told, you're going to do an apprenticeship.
00:12:16And I turned around to my dad.
00:12:19I said, look, I don't want to do apprenticeship.
00:12:22I want to go to university.
00:12:24So the school actually didn't do what they called like a GCSE, O-levels in those days.
00:12:31The schools were, so they didn't even have a fifth form at that time.
00:12:37So I stayed on with the school.
00:12:40And we actually then formed a fifth form where there were only four of us in the class.
00:12:49And so that was...
00:12:52Can you hear?
00:12:54Can you hear?
00:12:55Yeah, yeah.
00:12:56Yeah.
00:12:57Okay.
00:12:58And then having...
00:13:00Then I started doing my O-levels.
00:13:02And having done the O-levels, they obviously didn't have the facility to do A-levels.
00:13:12So there was a Leamington College for Boys, which was a grammar school in Leamington.
00:13:18So I got transferred to that for my sixth form.
00:13:23And I actually was finding it difficult.
00:13:29Difficult in thinking in English.
00:13:34I was still thinking more in Punjabi or Hindi at that time.
00:13:40So I was still translating, you know, whenever we spoke.
00:13:44And it wasn't until I was in the sixth form in the first year, suddenly something clicked.
00:13:51And I was able to think bilingual.
00:13:54Yeah.
00:13:55Did you have any problems when you came to school with the other children?
00:14:01You know, you came quite early on.
00:14:03What did English kids think of you all at school?
00:14:08And how did they treat you?
00:14:12I think mostly we got on well with them, right?
00:14:17Obviously there was, I mean, there were minor issues with some of them, right?
00:14:24They definitely picked on us.
00:14:27Yeah.
00:14:28Well, that's what I want to know.
00:14:29You know, what was that like?
00:14:30Every day you go to school and people would call you names or, you know, what was that experience like?
00:14:36Basically what happened?
00:14:37Well, we tried to basically, you know, you award those particular people as much as possible.
00:14:42Yeah.
00:14:43Right.
00:14:44And in reality there was nothing you could do about it because we were physically smaller than the English kids, right?
00:14:55And therefore, you know, it wasn't too bad, but we tried to avoid, you know, wherever there was, we just avoid that area.
00:15:04Yeah.
00:15:05But even then you couldn't really avoid anything because they picked on us and therefore you did not react to it.
00:15:13Well, yeah, I think because we were very few people, Indian people in the whole of the school and there was only a few other Indians other than us.
00:15:25There was only a handful of families in Leamington Spa at that time.
00:15:30But there were some other people in Leamington, so we got on with them as well.
00:15:35Okay.
00:15:36At the same time, the English people, majority of them, we actually got on really well with them.
00:15:43But the surprising thing about it was I remember actually having an experience of racial abuse from some English people, very few people.
00:15:55But they had a bully who was from the West Indies and he was actually joined the, because he was a big bully, he actually was supporting the English people and he used to pick on us.
00:16:11And he used to call us wogs.
00:16:14And he was a West Indian himself.
00:16:16Yeah.
00:16:17And, but that was like a handful of people, but a majority of the people we actually got on really well with them.
00:16:24And they were always inquisitive and asking what's India like and things like that.
00:16:29And because we, I think because there were less Indians there at that time, it made us harder work to do work to learn the English so quickly.
00:16:43And if there had been a lot of Indians there, then we probably would have been just talking to the Indians all the time.
00:16:49Yeah.
00:16:50So that made us actually learn quicker.
00:16:52Yeah.
00:16:53And from a, from a teaching perspective, I ask this to everybody.
00:16:58You know, Randeer, Ragveer, Gyan doesn't flow off of the tongue, not of the English tongue.
00:17:06So what were your names in school then?
00:17:08What did they convert your names to?
00:17:10You're absolutely right.
00:17:12This happened to me every time I used to go to, they used to say, what's your name?
00:17:17And I used to say, Ragveer Conver.
00:17:20And they said, how do you say it again?
00:17:22So I said it again.
00:17:23So I said it again.
00:17:24So I said it about three times.
00:17:25And they said, can you spell it?
00:17:27I said, yes.
00:17:28So I say, R-A-G-H-B-I-R.
00:17:31And I say, oh, Ragveer.
00:17:33Ragveer.
00:17:34And my name got converted to Ragveer.
00:17:38But Gyan, Brother Paji, that's an easy name.
00:17:41So Gyan wasn't too difficult.
00:17:43It's an easier name to say.
00:17:44I don't know.
00:17:45Gyan was a little bit difficult because what they, what they did was they actually changed
00:17:50it to Gyan.
00:17:51They actually changed it to Gyan.
00:17:52Sometimes Gyan.
00:17:53Gyan.
00:17:54Sometimes Gyan.
00:17:55They actually changed it to Gyan.
00:17:58Or Gyan.
00:17:59I'm funny, Randeer.
00:18:00What was Randeer then?
00:18:01Was Randeer, Randeer?
00:18:02Or?
00:18:03No, no.
00:18:04My name was Randeer all the time.
00:18:05Randeer to Randeer.
00:18:06Even now.
00:18:07You go to Jaguar Land Rover, wherever you go.
00:18:08Me, I'm a Randeer.
00:18:09Not Randeer anymore.
00:18:10Randeer.
00:18:11Okay.
00:18:12Because then they won't get the pronunciation right.
00:18:13You know what I mean?
00:18:14Yeah.
00:18:15So there's no point in fighting the system.
00:18:16Yeah.
00:18:17Actually saying that, when I went to shop, somebody walked into my shop once and he said to me,
00:18:24Hello Rugbib.
00:18:25And I had a shock.
00:18:26I said, Not many people say that.
00:18:27And he said, You taught me that when you were at school together.
00:18:30And he came after many years and he actually said it right and I couldn't believe it.
00:18:34No.
00:18:35That's right.
00:18:36No, no.
00:18:37No, no, no, no, no.
00:18:38No, no, no, no, no.
00:18:39No, no, no, no.
00:18:40No, no.
00:18:41No.
00:18:42No, no, no, no.
00:18:43No, no, no, no, no.
00:18:44No.
00:18:45No, no, no.
00:18:46No, no.
00:18:47No, no, no.
00:18:48No.
00:18:49No, no, no.
00:18:51No, no.
00:18:52No, no, no, no, no.
00:18:53No, no.
00:18:54Just sort of touching on, you talked about racism and problems at school. And Davina,
00:19:02sorry if I'm suing your thunder here, but your mother came over, she probably didn't
00:19:06speak any English, didn't have the opportunity to speak English, not early days anyway. And
00:19:12your father from the military, what was their experiences of racism and general cultural
00:19:19awareness?
00:19:20My father obviously worked what they call Lockheed, which was a very large concern manufacturing
00:19:31place in Leamington. And I remember him relating to me sometimes, his manager sometimes used
00:19:41to say words to him. And then my father would turn around to him and he'd say, can you remember
00:19:50the black hole of Calcutta? Right. So there was obviously some racism at that time. Right.
00:19:59But generally, you know, obviously the earlier people came, I mean, they had to work in manufacturing
00:20:07anyway.
00:20:08And your mother, what was your mother doing at the time? Because again, I can't imagine
00:20:15a lot of Indian women.
00:20:17Right. What happened with my mother, she obviously knew a little bit of a Punjabi. She didn't know
00:20:26any English, nothing. She learned to sign her name in English later on. But because we came
00:20:38earlier on, and obviously, my father had bought a house before we came. And then they needed to
00:20:49go to the house before we came. So she was the first woman to work outside. In Leamington.
00:20:56In Leamington. And she worked in a laundry. And our people, our Indian people were not happy about
00:21:06and the Punjabi lady working outside. So she was the first one to work outside.
00:21:12In fact, there was an incident, I remember, there were people used to say, we're not going to send
00:21:19our ladies to work at all, ever. Right. Later on, their wives worked as well.
00:21:27Yeah, I think what really happened later on was when the Uganda nations came over and when they came over,
00:21:38most of those ladies actually started, they used to work. Their English was good and they
00:21:44used to get the job. So I think then the rest of the Punjabi ladies were looking at those other ladies
00:21:51working and they would progress more. And then they started applying for jobs as well.
00:21:56No, you didn't know people came much later.
00:21:58I've seen the Kenyan people came. People came from Kenya and that's in the early 60s. And that
00:22:06started changing it. Davina, one thing I'd like to relate to you. Going back a little bit,
00:22:18we missed one thing. When you asked me what was your journey like from India to UK, we came on a train
00:22:27from Heathrow and we were all sitting in the train compartment and I remember, we all remember this
00:22:40actually, there was a guy with a bowler hat and he must have seen an Indian family for the first time.
00:22:48The train stopped somewhere and he actually went outside and bought some chocolate, a box of chocolates
00:22:56and brought it to the kids. And it was so lovely. You'll never forget it. I was talking to my sister
00:23:04earlier on and she was relating that. That's so nice because we haven't heard many stories where as
00:23:12soon as people arrive, they're shown a really welcoming and kind atmosphere. So that's a really lovely
00:23:18sentiment. And there was another story she related to me earlier on. My sister called Satish. Yeah.
00:23:25She lives in London. She was saying, I went to Canterbury with mum and dad and there was an English lady and she saw
00:23:44she saw, she saw us and she came over and to my mother and she said, I wanted to shake your hands
00:23:54because she never shaken her hand with somebody from outside. Yeah. I mean, she was like a middle class
00:24:03or upper class lady and she came and did that because my mother actually didn't look like in Punjabi.
00:24:11I mean, she, everybody used to think she was Italian actually. Wow.
00:24:18Yes. That's another story, similar, right?
00:24:22Actually, that reminds me of another story earlier on because there weren't many Indians at that time and we had to
00:24:30learn as much English as we possibly could. And my younger sister, because she actually learned English
00:24:35a little bit before we came and she picked up a lot of the, what's called the carols singing at Christmas
00:24:44times. Yeah.
00:24:45We, the whole family of us, we were going to go to visit some people in Leicester and we were going
00:24:51to catch a train. And we were at the train station and it was icy, snow and there were English people
00:24:58there. I think we were the only Indian family there. And they said, why don't you sing carols?
00:25:04And my sister knew quite a few carols and I had picked up a few as well, but she knew more than I did.
00:25:11And we all started, the kids especially, we all got together and sang carols to the English people
00:25:19and they loved it. And they all brought us chocolates to us for all the kids. That was really, it was
00:25:28unbelievable. It was a really good experience.
00:25:31Yeah, that's, that's quite funny. In terms of living, living in England, especially for the first couple of
00:25:38years, what did you really struggle to adapt to? Obviously there's difference in the weather, there's
00:25:44difference in the people and the culture and music. What was specific to you that you thought, God,
00:25:50this is really hard to get to grips with? To be honest with you, I didn't understand English music.
00:25:58Yeah. And I always enjoy the Indian, Indian music even now. So that's nothing to do, but obviously I
00:26:07enjoy the English music now, you know, much later. But in reality, the, the house would be
00:26:14relatively very small. You're like a two bedroom house. Right. And obviously it was very cold indeed.
00:26:22Right. And I don't know what else you can say. Well, it was very, I mean, we, in those days,
00:26:28we didn't have central heating in the houses. We used to have a fire, a coal fire. And remember,
00:26:35we used to go to school. It doesn't matter how much snow, I mean, you might have, you know, 30 centimeters
00:26:41of snow outside, there's a snow outside, you still had to go to school. So we used to go to school,
00:26:46come back. And then in the evening, when having come back, we would light a fire and then we'd sit in
00:26:53the dining room, all of us around, you know, trying to warm ourselves up. And the bedrooms were cold.
00:27:04Yeah. And did that ever make you think, oh my God, look how lucky we were back in India.
00:27:11We didn't have the weather problems. We didn't have this problem. So, or did you think this was
00:27:16here? No, not here. It wasn't a single thing you missed? I don't think we related. I didn't miss anything
00:27:23as of them concerned. Okay. Actually, I quite enjoyed it when I was in my young age,
00:27:32when I was even 11 or 12. I think the snow was the first time I ever saw it. And I met a snowman
00:27:42right outside our house, in between the alleyway between the two, the rest of the houses. And I
00:27:49made it right in the middle. And the snowman was about the size of, probably bigger than me.
00:27:56And it started melting away slowly. I said, oh, it's going to go now. On that night, it froze.
00:28:04It became more colder. Yeah. I can't believe it. It lasted three months.
00:28:08Not nowadays, it wouldn't. The problem is now, the climate has changed totally. I mean,
00:28:17in those days, it actually used to snow and snow. When it was Christmas, you knew it was going to snow.
00:28:25What did you think the first time that you saw snow? Like, had you heard about it before? Or was it just
00:28:31like, what is this falling from the sky? You're right. No, we didn't, I didn't know snow before,
00:28:40but all I can say is it looked lovely. Yeah. Actually, nowadays, I would say God is sending us white
00:28:46flowers from heaven. Did you expect it to be cold and all that kind of stuff? Like, I can't imagine not,
00:29:01No, not this cold. I mean, it used to be colder at that time than today's weather. I mean,
00:29:08it's a bit like today, you know, so cold. That's how it used to be. Yeah. Yeah. But a lot more snow. Yeah.
00:29:15So, when you left school, obviously, all in different years, what did you go on to do?
00:29:27Can I say before you go to this subject? Yes. All right. What we found was that the headmasters of
00:29:37each school was excellent. Yeah. Which schools were they? Sorry? Which schools did, what were the names
00:29:44of the schools that you went to? We went, we went to Clapham Terry first. Yep. Ailsford School second.
00:29:53And Leamington College for Boys. Okay. Right. And the first, the very first one, what happened was,
00:30:05the headmaster at Clapham Terrace,
00:30:10he bought special books for us to educate the whole family. Oh, that's so nice. Excellent. Yeah. Right.
00:30:20Right. And he bought the books from my mother as well. Right. In order to, you know, to progress the
00:30:29whole family forward. We then moved to Ailsford School, one of our secondary school. And even there,
00:30:39the headmaster, I can't remember his name, Mr. Scott. Mr. Scott. And he was excellent as well. And
00:30:48and then I was the head boy over there. Wow. Right. So, and again, then went from Ailsford School
00:30:59to Leamington College for Boys. And I was left alone over there. And two years afterwards, I went to the
00:31:07Leamington College for Boys as well to do my A-levels as well. Then after that,
00:31:13Raghuheer went. And then Satesh, my sister, she was at a different school. She went to Campion.
00:31:21And then she transferred to Leamington College for Girls, which was the Garvin school later. And then
00:31:27she went on to university. And I went to university first to do mechanical engineering. And two years later,
00:31:35Raghuheer actually left. And he joined, left for university as well to do mechanical engineering.
00:31:46And Raghuheer went into business studies. So you've all been to university? Yeah, my sister went to
00:31:53Kale University. Yeah. Yeah. And where did you study? Where? Sorry? University. Both of you?
00:32:03You're talking about both of us. Yeah. Because we went to Loughborough University. Yeah. Yeah.
00:32:10Was that quite nice having your brother at university at the same time with you?
00:32:18It was fabulous. I was following his footsteps. Yeah. He was watching, he was looking out after you,
00:32:25looking out for you. Yeah. We never saw each other. Well, we were in different halls. Yeah. Yeah.
00:32:31So, as they left Loughborough University, Brother Gyan joined AP. And then, as the second brother,
00:32:45when he left Loughborough University, he also joined AP. And one of them went into specialising on the
00:32:54clutch division. And the other one started on the brakes division. So, they had all their time there.
00:33:03It's quite interesting, actually, just picking on that topic, where you now educated in the UK,
00:33:11go to AP. Now, a lot of the interviews we've been doing, you know, there was the thing about the
00:33:19Indian who comes in with education, MAs, BAs, whatever. They couldn't go beyond the shop floor.
00:33:27They couldn't get into the white collar work. I'll answer that question. In fact,
00:33:31I can assure you that what you're saying is quite effective, really, because I went from,
00:33:39because I'm working at AP, right? And I went down to the shop floor, right? And I saw one of the guys,
00:33:46basically cleaning the floor, and he was a graduate from India, right? And I was the only person,
00:33:56you must say, in the offices, Indian, you know, in particular, and the trouble is you can't do much
00:34:04about it, you know, because there were very discriminating people over there, very much.
00:34:13I mean, obviously, having left university, we joined AP, or Lockheed, or Breaks, or whatever,
00:34:21you know. And I joined as a graduate trainee. So I was the first one to join into the company at that
00:34:31time. And then Randeer followed the same. So we joined as graduate trainees. And then I moved into what we call
00:34:39Bogenbach, which is the Clutch Division. And Randeer eventually moved into Lockheed, which is the Breaks
00:34:48Division. So that's where we were. And then progressed from there within the company.
00:34:55And would you say, again, this is because people said Lockheed was more racist than Ford? Because
00:35:04there's many cases where people said, you know what, Ford was a nice place to work at.
00:35:08Lockheed was less accommodating, although quite a few of our people did work in Lockheed, right?
00:35:16Did you get that vibe? Or was that just a hearsay?
00:35:19To answer your question, the answer was yes. They were very anti-racist, right? And it was something
00:35:29you had to accept. You know, you reject it or accept it. What do you do? You know what I mean?
00:35:35And because a little later on, I used to work on special projects, right? And one time, every two weeks,
00:35:46I used to travel to Ford Dunton. This is Bazelgan, right? And one day, we were sitting in our car,
00:35:55and my manager was with me, right? And he said, Randeer, he said, we put you in design, you're
00:36:03excellent. We put you in production, you're excellent. We put you in quality, you're excellent.
00:36:08How come you have not, how come you have not gone up the tree?
00:36:12And I turned around to him in the car, and he said, can, can you see the color of my skin?
00:36:22Right? And, and that was, that gave you the impression why the, you know, we didn't go up?
00:36:30Well, we, we did manage to go up. I'm not saying we haven't. I mean, within AP, we, I mean,
00:36:39I didn't manage to go up. I was responsible for 12 engineers, right? Within the section.
00:36:46I mean, they were qualified engineers. So, I mean, it was difficult, actually, you know,
00:36:55trying to manage those English guys, and you have to be better than them to get there.
00:37:02And did you have to change your cultural perspective as well? Because culture was, I mean,
00:37:08I don't know whether you established, you know, drinking, eating, wining, dining, or were you so
00:37:13very much traditional Indian cultures where you don't drink, you don't eat meat, you don't do this?
00:37:18I mean, I, I happened to be a vegetarian when I came, and I had to change. But when I used to,
00:37:30because later on, after I was in charge of the section, but I then moved on to what we call forward
00:37:38projects where we were responsible for buying plant machinery, you know, and obviously you went out
00:37:50with other people, right? And okay, if I've gone to Germany, right, and we were buying quite a lot of
00:38:00heating plant and other things from there, then you had to join with them. But,
00:38:07but we never actually ate beef in that sense. Yeah. So, yeah, so we kept the control.
00:38:17And later on, probably we would all become pretty well vegetarians, you know, as a result of our
00:38:26kids are all vegetarians.
00:38:28When you were working, what was the culture like outside of work? You know, so we've come,
00:38:36come on quite a bit from when you first came, would, could you listen to Indian music on the radio, or
00:38:42was there anything that you could sort of incorporate Indian culture into your life when you weren't at work?
00:38:48Indian culture? Yeah, we did. I mean, we obviously, I mean, we will remember, I mean, we, we had, we used to
00:39:01hire a hall for the, on a Sunday, for the, for a Hindu ceremony, you know, whatever, right?
00:39:14So, it was quite interesting, actually.
00:39:16We did keep our culture alive. I don't know whether we want to put an input into that.
00:39:22The funny thing about it, on that one, is that we all, the funny thing that what happened was,
00:39:32the Sikh community first, used the Kingsway Community Centre for their Sunday meetings,
00:39:39for the Gurdwara type of meetings like that, for religious purposes. When they moved on,
00:39:45and there were some West Indies who took over that same place. And when they moved on, and then
00:39:51there came a time, then the Hindu community was built quite a few, there, there weren't that many
00:39:56here. There was only about a thousand people at that time. So, we said, let's get together, and we,
00:40:01let's have some Hindu community, and get together, and have some Hindu mandal type of meetings together.
00:40:06So, we did a once a month, uh, program at the Sikh community centre, the same place. I said,
00:40:13it must have been a very good place, because all of these different religions, uh, took part there.
00:40:18And, uh, now it's, uh, flats now. But, uh, now, the Hindu mandal's got their, we got our own mandal,
00:40:26and the Gurdwara's got their Gurdwara as well. So, that community has gone up really well.
00:40:32And, uh, but it was good, because we kept the culture, and then it grew, and then we used to do,
00:40:38uh, uh, every year we used to do Diwali programs, and things like that, make it into culture. And then,
00:40:46at one time, nowadays, we used to be, uh, the Sikh community, and the Hindu community, we all get
00:40:53together, and do the cultural program of Diwali, which is a wonderful thing to do. It works really well.
00:41:02So, so that was the, uh, the religious functions. What about the other social functions? You know,
00:41:08nowadays, you have, you know, Bhangra Rave here, Bhangra Rave there. What was your entertainment? Did you guys,
00:41:14sort of, band together, or friends of yours, and say, we're going to have a Punjabi sing-song?
00:41:19You know, something like that? Did that ever take place?
00:41:23No, we, we did not. No, I don't think that we had anything like that at all.
00:41:29And, uh, even up to the, you know, way up to the university level.
00:41:34But in, in the university, we did have Indian association, right? And we were quite involved at
00:41:40that time. But, I mean, Bhangra and things like that never happened in the university. It came after.
00:41:47But not, not even Bhangra. You know, like, I mean, uh, I know, okay, I'm not as, as old as yourself,
00:41:53but when we went to university, we've been here. We still got the old tolki out and, uh,
00:41:58tried to be singers. So, tried to be Muhammad Rafi or, or Kishore Kumar.
00:42:02I think our university days were very, very different. I mean, you know, the food was very
00:42:11different. It wasn't any, nothing like this. I mean, when we came to UK, you know, the food,
00:42:17I mean, the choice you get is now, there used to be one corner shop, uh, run by an Englishman. And we
00:42:24used to go and buy from there. There was no, nothing much available in those days. So, later on, obviously,
00:42:31as I said, even the university food was difficult. Horrible. You know, I was a vegetarian, you know,
00:42:39they didn't know what a vegetarian was. Wow. You know, and, uh, I think the culture, obviously things
00:42:47moved on, you know, a little later, you know, a lot more people came in. Uh, yes, things happened dramatically.
00:42:58As the, as the community, uh, got older and older, a lot of the Indian community, they started
00:43:04forming cultural things. And I remember when I was at college, we actually obviously joined our, uh,
00:43:12uh, association, the Indians. So, all the Indians used to get together from, say, Afton University,
00:43:18and we used to make our, uh, Asian programs. And the University of Birmingham would do their programs.
00:43:25And when they would do it, so sometimes they would invite the Afton University people over there.
00:43:30And when we do our program, uh, sorry, at the Birmingham University, when they do it,
00:43:35then they invite us and vice versa. So, we used to join like that. And we did have cultural programs
00:43:41like that, uh, developed into the whole of the, uh, community. And if I, where did you stay? I mean,
00:43:50we, I know you, when you first settled, which street did you, uh, did you move into?
00:43:55South. Your house was? Terrace. South Terrace. Which one, sorry? It's called South Terrace.
00:44:06South Terrace. It used to be called Cap Lane. And, I... Sorry, I didn't get that.
00:44:14Your street where you, you guys stayed, when you first came from India,
00:44:19your father bought the house. Where, what street was it? In Wynanesh. It's called South Terrace now.
00:44:24It's called South Terrace. It was called South Terrace. Yeah. Uh, I think if you,
00:44:34you know where the Heathrow, uh, the Heathcote, not the pub, not the, the, uh, Clown Arrow pubby. Yeah.
00:44:41If you turn left and immediately right up the hill, straightway off, facing the Heathcote road,
00:44:48that's where South Terrace is. There's only about 15 or 16 houses there.
00:44:53I'll have to check that one out. It's actually, it's actually changed its name.
00:44:58From Chapel Lane. It used to be, it used to be called Chapel Yard or something, right?
00:45:02Chapel Lane. Or Chapel Lane, right? And, uh, then it changed to South, South Terrace.
00:45:09Oh, okay. All right. We'll look out for it.
00:45:11In terms of the, the community and especially like the Hindu community, do you think that you've
00:45:21contributed a lot to its formation and the way that it's ran now? Were you very involved with,
00:45:28with that? Do you want to talk about that?
00:45:29I, I, I, I was involved in the community relations themselves, uh, as community relations. And, uh,
00:45:39at one point, uh, some of the Hindu, uh, community people, we got together and I was one of the
00:45:46members, founder members of the Hindu community. And we actually got the constitution, uh, also written by
00:45:54the community relations officer, Mr. Maipuri, who was, uh, uh, quite a four figure in the whole of our community.
00:46:02So we got the constitution done by him. And then we started forming the, uh, Hindu association in
00:46:10Leamington, which is, uh, built up to, which is quite a good, good place now. Yeah. So I was quite proud to be
00:46:18involved in that time. This answer takes you a little bit further. Um, the Hindu, and, uh, the, the,
00:46:28the Hindu one, the poly got formed around about 26 years ago, right? And then at one point,
00:46:36like he did become the chairman that associate that, uh, you know, for, for the Monday for one year.
00:46:45And, uh, for, uh, for later on, uh, I'm, I'm at one of the trustees of the Monday. So I do have,
00:46:55still have some active role. I still play. But you've been, you know, quite heavily involved
00:47:03with the setting up of that. How many people now would you say, um, are in the Hindu community in
00:47:09Leamington roughly Hindu community? Um, I'm not sure. I think somebody on the website,
00:47:19they're not that many, probably about 400. But the thing is, we have a lot of Hindu community people
00:47:26from, uh, people who, all these youngsters who coming from Tata, Django Lad, Jaguar Land Rover,
00:47:35they're all from some, there are a lot of youngsters living in Leamington and they come to the Mandir,
00:47:44especially, you know, when it was open, uh, uh, on Tuesday nights or when they wanted to do Ganesh,
00:47:53the surgeon and other, other functions. So it's expanded itself to cater for that community as well,
00:48:02for all those youngsters. Yeah. I, I think when we first started the Hindu community,
00:48:08uh, we counted about 1000 Hindus in the Leamington area at the time. That's including the family,
00:48:16children as well. Uh, but I would say if you get that figure now, uh, that's about 26 years ago,
00:48:24I would think it's about probably like more likely to be now these 5000, uh, altogether,
00:48:29including the children and the parents. How many? How many? I, I would think about four to five
00:48:34thousand. No, no, no, no, no. I'm not taking families. I'm talking about the children and parents
00:48:41counted together. All right. There, there will be. And, and then nowadays because like you just suggested
00:48:49that Land Rover Jaguar people coming over and they got their own, they, they remember the culture from
00:48:55there, they bring it here and they actually use it in the temple and the temple, uh, before the COVID,
00:49:01it used to be actually get packed really well. Yeah. You know, very, very, very popular now.
00:49:08Uh, but now because of the COVID, they can't join in at the moment like that. Yeah. But it has grown
00:49:15quite a bit. Yeah, definitely. Um, so we've got sort of five, five minutes left. So I want to finish by
00:49:22talking about how. Can I just ask for this one, sorry, because we've talked about the two elder brothers
00:49:31who have been very much in AP and engineering. The younger brother didn't go to AP, right? And, and, uh,
00:49:40I did, did you go straight into business? Yeah, in, in, in a way, uh, funny thing happened when I was doing
00:49:47A-level. Uh, I, I, I kept on thinking about applying for aeronautical engineering and I went to interviews
00:49:56as well at the University of Brunel and things like that. But I don't know, some, somehow in about
00:50:02March or April time, I just happened to change my mind. And I say, I don't fancy being in an office
00:50:08drawing, uh, pass off cars or something like that, or aeroplanes. I fancy, I like to join people.
00:50:17I like socialising more and, and I like to be outgoing. And so I, I said, I think maybe
00:50:25I'll go into business. Uh, so I wanted to be, do business studies in Birmingham. And what happened
00:50:32with that one, obviously, you, you joined the business studies and then you came and joined the
00:50:39business and the business got opened just before that in 1969. When we came back from university and
00:50:47we were at AP and then we saw a little shop in Clement Street and we opened our shop for mum.
00:50:54And mum was really worried about how she gonna run that shop. And, you know, we, anyway, we managed,
00:51:01we kept the English lady on and mother actually opened our shop at that time. That's all. And then
00:51:08later on, obviously we expanded the business and Raghir came in and then we expanded, uh, the shops.
00:51:17I, I actually was in Birmingham and a part of my course was to, uh, join a big store and have the
00:51:25experience of doing the actual business. So I stayed six months in, uh, a, what they call is a, called
00:51:33Lewis's and had six departmental stores in all over England. And that one of them was in Birmingham,
00:51:40very big store. And I, I worked there in two different departments, uh, for six months. And then they
00:51:48said to me, uh, we would like you to go into the managerial course. And at the same time, I was being
00:51:55called, uh, they said, why don't you come and join Leamington? We've got the big shop already open. You can
00:52:01start to do that. But I learned quite a lot over there, how the business was being done and the ideas
00:52:09and how to sell. And I used those ideas in my shop. And we, we expanded that shop from 1969.
00:52:17And two years later, we got the biggest shop, uh, which is went into called Shai Rama. And now that
00:52:25has been going over 50 years in Leamington. And luckily we were the first, uh, I think we were
00:52:33the first Indians to have a clothes shop in Leamington. And we were also the first ones to do the school
00:52:41uniform. And the Asian community, uh, to do the school uniform for most of the schools. So we did,
00:52:49we did have our good times there. But now obviously we're going to be wanting to close.
00:52:55Over to you now Davina. That was what I wanted to get.
00:52:57I wanted to add one more thing on that Davina. And that was, uh, when we first started actually,
00:53:13uh, was we, we bought a small van and some friend of ours said, why don't you start sort of business
00:53:21and then that will pay your petrol. So we used to go to a warehouse in Birmingham,
00:53:27who the person suggested to us. So we bought a few things at a time. And we then started around
00:53:34in Leamington, house to house, knocking only on Saturday and Sunday. We actually knocked on
00:53:41people's doors and said, would you like to buy something? And that, uh, within two years,
00:53:47the whole of our front room was actually full of clothes and shirts and materials and things like that.
00:53:53Then we needed a shop. And that's, we then progressed into Clemens Street. We bought a babyware shop.
00:54:00And that's how it started. And, uh, things progressed from that one onwards.
00:54:05Yeah.
00:54:06That was good.
00:54:08Davina.
00:54:09Yes.
00:54:09I'd like to say something. I mean, I know you probably very short of time, right?
00:54:14No, no, no, carry on.
00:54:16Um, yeah, I mean, yeah, it's quite interesting. I mean, I mean, I saw my parents,
00:54:24oh, they supported us, you know, where they were and where we went, you know, and okay, it was,
00:54:32it wasn't easy. It was hard, you know, and, uh, then obviously as parents, you try to do the best for
00:54:42your kids. You know, that's our Indian culture, right? Yeah.
00:54:47We, we actually do go out of our way to support our kids and, you know, uh, do the best for them as
00:54:56well. So in the same way, I remember what my parents did. I remember like what my grandparents
00:55:03probably did for my, my parents. Yeah. And what we, what we do for our own kids and what our,
00:55:10our kids do for their, their kids. Yeah. So this, this is a culture, I think, probably we stand by.
00:55:20Yeah, that's, that's really lovely. And I think that's sort of kind of linking to what I want to ask
00:55:29next is now that you've, I do tell my, my grandchildren, I say, we must not forget our,
00:55:38you know, past, you know, where we were, where we are, you know, and, you know, and you, you need,
00:55:45you know, you need to be there, you know, need to carry on. Yeah. And that's kind of what we're
00:55:53trying to do with the website as well is so that we've got, you know, these really important stories
00:55:59that you're telling us down forever, you know, and we're never going to lose them now because we've,
00:56:03we've made sure that we've, we've kept them. But I want to ask now, do you think when you go back
00:56:10to India, do you think, oh, I've come back home? Or do you think that England's home? Or do you like
00:56:16both as home? Like, how, how do you feel towards that? Because it's quite complicated.
00:56:21No, it's quite easy because we think England is home. Yeah. Right. And in, in fact, you know,
00:56:29we go there for a hundred to meet people, etc. and so on, and you come back.
00:56:33Do you miss things about England when you go to India? We only go there for three, four weeks.
00:56:46So do you go back and do you take your grandchildren and your children? Or is it just now
00:56:52because it's a maternal home? Well, we, I mean, I haven't taken my grand, well, I did go once with
00:57:01our grandchildren, you know, that's a long time ago, that's going back. But not really, I've been with
00:57:11my kids, you know, that's, that's quite a while ago, before they got married. Right? When they were
00:57:20at university, right? So I did go back with them. To be honest with you, we, we don't have a house over
00:57:28there, not even a brick. You've got the whole army barracks. The thing is, with our family, I mean,
00:57:37there was one of the questions, where's our family? Our family is spread around the world, basically,
00:57:43you name it almost, you know, we, I mean, within, we've got people in Paris, we've got people in
00:57:51Canada, America, UK, Australia, Singapore, you know, so spread. So our family, that's our immediate
00:58:01family, which is spread that far. Yeah, wow. And, and to close then, do you have, you know, what,
00:58:12what are you really proud of? What, what makes you happy? You know, how,
00:58:17what kind of remark do you want to finish with?
00:58:24What do you want to finish with? I don't know. I mean, we, we've obviously,
00:58:30this is a difficult one. I mean, we've done our bit, you know, and we've, obviously, the kids are in
00:58:39there, whatever they're doing, are in good position. And, you know, they look after the family. So,
00:58:47that's, I don't know, I'm not sure.
00:58:53Richard, hold on there.
00:58:55Richard, hold on there.
00:58:57Richard, hold on there.
00:58:58Richard, hold on there.
00:58:59Richard, hold on there.
00:59:00Richard, hold on there.
00:59:01No, I don't, I think, I think that's fine, Divina. I don't think we need to sort of finish on that one.
00:59:08Is there any other final statement, Divina, you want to make?
00:59:12I mean, where we're going with, sorry, rugby is about to say something.
00:59:16That our children do take our grandchildren to India and see them and visit there and go around
00:59:26as well. And they really enjoy it. So, that's the nice thing about it. I'm glad that even the
00:59:32grandchildren also do enjoy India. And they have lived there as well. And that, I think, is good.
00:59:40And that's good to keep, especially for the future, as India is coming up, going to be the
00:59:46problem number one.
00:59:51Okay, that's good. That's good. Okay, you know, that was good. I think, Divina, you can probably
00:59:58stop recording.
00:59:58Yeah.
00:59:59Did you stop recording, you know?
01:00:00Yeah.
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