Charles Hyatt, Contributor
LIVING AND working in Britain in the late 50s took a lot of getting used to for the early Jamaican immigrants.
First the weather. In Jamaica, when it rains we are inclined to stay indoors in Britain life goes on at a normal pace rain or shine.
Except for cricket!
The Jamaicans of those days thought they knew all about the country they were moving to because they were taught about its history, from their first day in school in Jamaica. To discover that the academic indoctrination bore little or no resemblance to the social way of life was very traumatic.
The food was bland and spice-less and the common language sounded alien. A 'pipe' you smoked but water came out of a 'tap'. A drink in the pub was never served with ice. Toilet paper was grease proof and came in single sheets packed in a small cardboard box not on a roll and when a shower was needed it had to be taken at the public baths as there were no baths in the old houses built by the Housing Council.
'PARDNER'
The British could never understand the benefits of joining a 'pardner'. After all the banks gave interest on your savings, whereas a 'pardner' didn't. But the banks didn't lend money to people without collateral. On the other hand when the 'pardner' was drawn there was no need for a loan. For the most part that was the main strategy used in acquiring homes to live in.
But it was not easy.
First of all the houses that were 'available' were listed among those slated for demolition. The Council could not pull them down while they were tenanted, so until the occupants decided to vacate, those houses would have to remain intact. Now invariably the occupants would be on housing lists to be relocated into new Council houses and had been for years.
With the small rent that they had been paying to the Council over the years, they were not prepared to move out in a hurry and go into privately owned houses for sometimes five times the amount and lose their place on the list.
The Council in the meantime, would decide to sell the partially occupied houses to leasehold owners for amounts well below the market price, to defray the expense of the upkeep.
So here comes a Jamaican with a grip full of money after three years of hard work and plenty overtime and his 'pardner' draw. He selects a Council house with one 'sitting tenant' an old couple who have been living in the basement apartment for over 40 years, paying the paltry sum of three shillings and sixpence a week, which will now be collected by the new owner. Their children have either grown up and moved out or were lost in the war.
BLACK LANDLORD
Having acquired the property, the new owner has to find a way to get rid of the tenants, that is if they didn't move out immediately not being prepared to live under a black landlord. If that happens then all is well. For one thing, the price of the house immediately appreciates to its real market value and as he had already sent for his wife and children in Jamaica and has plans for the Missus to open a little well-needed Jamaican eatery in the basement, Lord be praised.
If that does not happen and the tenants insist on staying on, he will raise the rent to a more realistic level, where upon the tenants will kick up a big fuss and threaten to report him to the rent board. So now he will have to resort to different measures to get rid of them. So what does he think of?
Repairs! He gets help from some of his friends, just like when he was back home on the farm. They work night and day sawing, hammering plastering and drilling. If the tenants are still there after three weeks of that pandemonium then the drastic measures will be called upon.
The house warming!
An all-night party with dancing on the ground floor to the music playing on the first new piece of furniture bought for the house, a 'Bluespot' radiogram. This was a German manufactured radiophone that was the 'sound system' of the time.
Ten 45-rpms at a time on the record changer blaring out the best home spun Blue Beat and Rhythm and Blues. The stamping feet from above accompanied by the sound of the broomstick jamming on the ceiling from below all through a sleepless night.
If that doesn't work and the tenants still don't move out then the culture of the homeland comes into play in a quiet way. One rainy morning after the Jamaican family has moved in, the old folks will awaken to find a white cross painted on their basement front door and on the mat below it a huge frog with a padlock attached to its mouth.
By the end of that day the basement will be vacated and not a word will be said.
