| Description | An interview with Jossett LYNCH, a married woman with two sons, one daughter, who is a Retired teacher, born in Jamaica and now living in Birmingham. Jossett LYNCH’s father was a Carpenter, born in Jamaica and her mother a Housewife born in Jamaica. In the interview, she talks about …
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My name is Jossett Lynch…I was born in 1936 in the parish of St Andrew Jamaica. I came to this country at the age of 29 in 1966… husband came two years before she did…he had everything prepared for the wedding when she arrived. Arrived at Heathrow airport…came by train to Snowhill Station.
1.43 When I came first everything was so strange, so I left the airport …and I asked my sister and Owen (husband-to-be) ‘Where are all the houses?’ because to me the houses looked like factories. In Jamaica we are not used to chimneys and smoke…and the houses are nicely washed or painted…and they didn’t look like real houses…when I reached Birmingham it was quite cold…
Wedding was 11 days after she arrived, she had to find her way around herself, elaborates on her wedding and the guests.
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Wedding information. There was no Seventh Day Adventist Church at the time, but her husband gathered them together.
52” …so the first Seventh Day Baptist group in Birmingham was started by my husband in 1964…
1.15 Describes the different places they had church meetings.
1.55 By this time my husband was working in Wales now…and he was transferred all over the country and so for most of the time I was on my own with the children …so I was almost like a single mum sometimes, bringing up the children.
2.19 Describes her work in the church and being elected treasurer, secretary, sabbath school teacher, etc.
2.34 Not wanting to dwell too much on that as it seemed to me as though it’s my husband’s territory and it’s not his interview…I was attracted to him in Jamaica because of his seriousness as a young man and I thought if we’re going to share our lives together, then we share properly and so I became involved in a lot of things…
Describes how fostering links with other church groups they got together a conference.
3.15 …and so in 1966, a Seventh Day Baptist conference was formed…
3.56 I accompanied my husband in 1986 to a conference in the USA where there were people from 17 countries…
4.15 Describes different parts of the world where there are Seventh Day Adventists.
4.34 And as recently as 1997, we both went again to the World Federation of Seventh Day Baptists…
Mentions two other conferences they went to.
4.53 Describes meeting up with other Seventh Day Baptists
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18 Describes other people they met who’ve stayed at their home.
1.04 Talks about family reunion, grand nephews and nieces.
1.34 Explains some of the beliefs of the Baptists.
2.30 In the 1600s the Seventh Day Baptist church was formed.
3.19 Describes the spread of the Baptists in history.
4.20 Describes growing up with the Seventh Day Baptists.
4.30 We realised that we had to have respect…we used to call it ‘behave ourselves.’ They’d just give you one look ‘Child behave yourself!’ in Jamaica and we understood that and even if we’d make a little face or whisper or say a little thing we’d dare not let an adult hear us. However, we realised that they were looking after us, and those were great days.
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Describes young peoples meetings and routines of the church.
1.14 I loved poetry, and I used to recite away…I don’t make them myself but I like to study other peoples poetry and I like to recite them with emphasis.
1.30 Talks about a study booklet ‘The Helping Hand.’
1.45 The children were made to recite 12 or 13 verses at the end of each quarter and that was great, that was a competition and so we had to stand properly the posture was very important and of course the speech we had to emphasise the emphasis on certain words and then we had to say such long verses from memory and a number of them I still do remember.
2.15 Recites Ruth’s Chapter One, Verse 16.
2.37 Describes how she won prizes because she loved reciting poetry.
2.56 The High School was A Seventh Day Baptist School and America used to put in a great deal of support, teachers used to come from the States to teach and in later years we had some of our own black Jamaican teachers. The teachers were very nice and I didn’t have much problem in dealing with white people because our American missionaries were white and they were really nice.
3.34 Anecdote about her favourite teacher, who she called ‘Mom’ as her mother died when she was very young.
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Goes on to describe how ‘Mom’ wrote to her asking to stay and she had to explain that they only had one room and she wrote back saying they only had one room when they were first married too and when they came to stay there was no problem.
1.20 Trip to Stratford with them.
1.42 In 1986 when my husband and I went to the World Federation…
Describes how they stayed with them.
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.05 I went to Crandell High School…in 1953…
Describes meeting her husband at school.
45” As time went by, I saw many of the young men becoming a bit too frivolous and noticed that Owen was quite a stable young man and that many of the young people would talk to him and tell him their problems and I thought, -he’s a serious one- and if I do get married I would like to marry to somebody, a Christian as well, who wouldn’t want to turn me out of the way, we can do things together…we can pray together and so on.
1.19 Describes how her Aunt was far too strict to allow her to have a boyfriend.
2.05 It just came out of the blue one night when we were walking home from a prayer meeting…he said ‘you know, I have something I would like to put to you’ and I said ‘Strangely you know, I have something to put to you…’ we were falling in love with each other and we wanted to ask the Lord’s guidance about this…
2.38 Both fasted and prayed together.
3.26 Sings a verse that he taught her at that time.
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31” He went to see her Aunt. Details about her husband’s qualification.
1.23 Owen came to England in 1964 and I followed in 1966…I was 29 and he was the same.
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Repeats about the strange houses in England.
50” Another thing that struck me was I saw people eating fish and chips out of newspaper. We thought as we grew up that newspaper was dirty…Another thing that struck me was how people were showing love openly, kissing in the street, and holding hands and hugging so much, the hugging wasn’t too bad but it was the kissing because we thought that you shouldn’t allow people to see you kissing, so that was a bit strange to me.
1.33 Another thing that struck me was the number of different people…people in turbans…but it looked beautiful to me to see all these sari’s and all these various people and I thought ‘how exciting!’…it was so overwhelming, all these white people…
2.45 Describes how people didn’t respond when she greeted them on the street.
3.28 At the beginning I just thought that it was because they didn’t like black people but then as time went on…it’s because we were strange to them…they had prejudices…a lot of it was just ignorance. I still believe there is prejudice and racism but a lot of people now have grown accustomed to black people and we have become accustomed to white people as well…
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3” Contrasts between Jamaica and England: not greeting each other, Jamaica smaller. She talks about getting used to the unfriendliness.
58” …during the time when Enoch Powell was making his rivers of blood speech… (story about a man telling her to go back to her own country) …I realised then that you had to keep your cool, so I didn’t reply to him because a lot of people were hated during that time...
1.32 The programme Roots caused a lot of upset, but a lot of white people were sorry about what was going on.
2.14 Talks about a woman pastor who started the partnership between black and white in Selly Oak, which is still going strong.
2.28 She told me that she was so ashamed and so upset at what had gone on that she feels that she has to spend the rest of her life doing what she can to be kind and to help other people…over the years I have grown to overcome that. I still do get upset when I do see a bit of injustice and racism…but I do not bear hatred…
2.57 Explains as a Christian she can’t allow herself to hate: ‘Father forgive them for they know not what they do…’
3.24 Story about an Irish teacher who also experienced a lot of racism and couldn’t understand how she could forgive white people.
4.20 I do believe in facing up to it…there are always people who come around and find out that it’s because they didn’t understand that they say and behave in such a way.
4.42 Talks about working as a teacher in a multicultural educational environment and how she learned a lot. (Education)
4.59 I learned to appreciate my culture more and therefore I understand why people need to know about their culture and to hold on, and you shouldn’t expect people to change the way they were born and who they are, rather to encourage them and people should learn to live together in harmony… (Education)
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30” Quotes the son of Martin Luther King. ‘We have to learn to live together as brothers or we perish as fools.’
1.15 Sings a Sunday School song.
1.26 People’s kindness when she was a child, the usefulness of the bible.
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In 1966 I spoke to my husband Owen and we decided it’s time to do something about work. I was trained as a teacher in Jamaica for three years…
36” It was my thought, like almost everyone from the West Indies that we could come here and live and work for five years and about and then go back to our country. It did not work.
51” Lengthy story about her efforts to get into teaching. Told that the standard of education in Jamaica couldn’t be equated with Jamaica, but she knew it wasn’t true.
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42” Quotes a Jamaican proverb.
1.27 Continues tale about obtaining work.
3.31 Talks about working at Grove Lane School in Handsworth.
3.59 Transferred to Summerfield Infant School in Small Heath, closer to home.
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Tells the story of how she started at Westhill College in Selly Oak.
1.11 I started Westhill College in 1968, October.
1.31 Talks about getting pregnant, and missing some College because of the culture shock, the climate etc, having to go to hospital to rest.
2.25 Difficulties of looking after the baby and studying as well.
3.04 Her daughter (second child) was born, she continued studying throughout her pregnancy.
4.53 Moving from Sparkhill to live in Highgate in a maisonette.
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They were living on the top floor with no lift and she had to organise child care.
1.35 Childcare stories.
4.10 She returned to work after a year, in Ellen Street, Spring Hill.
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0.22 Medical check up story.
4.47 They bought their house at Doris Road and she worked at Arden Primary School in Baker Street, Sparkhill.
1.32 Talks about her husband’s job with Telecommunications. Her husband was not well paid enough, despite improving his skills at night school. Foreman in Wales got him promoted.
4.15 Relates continuing practical difficulties in balancing work and children.
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More on difficulties while husband working away. She needed to work for money.
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Left Chandos school
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She returned to work at St Lukes School in 1985.
1.30 Interesting story about the language course: brilliant young teacher attempting to raise awareness of Creole’s status as a language. He gave her poems to read aloud in Creole but she found it difficult because she’d never seen Creole written down before, yet she spoke it fluently.
2.42 It wasn’t anything to be ashamed of because we were brainwashed… I took a sudden interest in this Creole language and then I started talking about it to my church friends…I started talking about the history behind it and the slave trade, the contact languages, the trade in Africa…and that was all because of that course.
3.19 She became a Caribbean Focus Committee member and found out about the Afro-Caribbean Teaching Union and a new job.
4.50 I applied and started in January 1986 to work in the Multicultural Support Services that was then at Camp Hill…
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6” Talks about her work there, and her involvement in awareness-raising of the Creole language.
1.15 Describes how Creole came about. Gives interesting examples of roti, calaban, etc.
3.40 Further history on the Caribbean and the roots of language.
4.31 Details of her working environment.
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20” Those black teachers that I met, they put everything that they had in helping to bring about this multiculturalism, they insisted that black history should be taught at the schools…people had the idea that all history was white history. We were taught precious little about our own history…
1.15 Lack of black figures in history taught in schools.
1.30 It was strange when I came here and people would say to me, ‘How did you learn to speak English?’ Then when I went into school and I began to write on the blackboard, people would say ‘Where did you learn to write?’ I said, well, in Jamaica, we write in English…it’s a British system of Education we have in Jamaica, they’re British colonies…
1.58 Describes her school visits, telling Caribbean stories and History to the children.
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She still does school visits.
1.11 She describes the things she shows to the children; a pod from the Cocoa bean plant, the bark of a banana plant, seeds and grains, coconut straw, etc.
3.10 Describes making things from natural fibres.
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35” Discusses the importance of posters showing important black figures in history.
1.20 Her church was near to the home of a famous black historical figure.
2.09 The Black and White Christian Partnership was started in the…late 70’s early 80’s.
2.19 Explains how she got involved.
3.55 In 1975, there was the big church the ‘Kirkentag’ as it’s called in Frankfurt…there were some families chosen to go and our family was chosen…
4.12 Describes the visit to Frankfurt and staying with families.
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Describes involvement of her husband in training people for the Theology qualifications.
3.14 It was our aspiration to have our own church building so…we were able to purchase the church by cash in 1984…
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4” I started teaching in November, 1966…
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4” About the last six years or so of my teaching career the only people I saw working in the schools I worked at were dinner ladies and cleaners, there were not any black teachers.
20” Things have improved, more black teachers now.
57" Talking about her children’s lives, her son and daughter are married.
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5” Describes her parents, (father a carpenter, mother a housewife.)
25” Her mother died and the family were split up, she went to live with her Aunt who introduced her to the church.
1.45 Fruits and vegetables, roasting breadfruit, okra, coconut.
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Husband had a car accident and lost his eye.
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She collapsed from stress. Difficulties in obtaining a home help. |