Transcript for: Memories

Interviewee: Mehboob Khan

Subject: Growing up in Huddersfield

I remember that we myself, my cousins and uncles lived very close together, our houses were only three or four streets apart and there were about three uncles and an aunt who lived there and the uncles had wives and kids. So I remember the cousins who then moved away in the 80's to Glasgow and to London, who were close together there. I remember more than anything else playing with them, socialising with immediate family, really. I'm the eldest in my own family, so I remember that. I also remember that we went to a local school, infants and nursery school. English was a problem I was struggling with English, struggling for example at assembly time when everyone was singing hymns that I had to follow. Its a bit comical now looking back on to it, but it wasn't for a four year old. Our parents were trying really hard to improve our education, learning English and the alphabet at home from the age of three years old, but still not having proper English, but school was good and as a little lad life was good, I enjoyed it.

My Dad's from a town called Shortcut which is about 70 miles from Faisalabad. Our mum is from a village, which is jaack number 478 near Samundri. Again, thats about 50 miles from Faisalabad. Actually I remember once going back to Pakistan, my first trip ever was in 1974 when I was 5 years old and we spent about three or four months in Pakistan, possibly longer. It was my first experience of going back to there and in those days it was a proper third world country no gas, electric, but I think as kids you adapt very quickly and we enjoyed the trip out there. I was ill, I had malaria when I came back and I spent three weeks in hospital, I was always getting ill anyway, even now.

Some of the things from those early years that define me now as a person was the poverty that we felt. Even though as kids we were really happy and playful and enjoying life, but thinking back we had an outside toilet, up until at least 1976 and also it was freezing. With weather like today, when its 2 degrees outside, it was absolutely freezing for anyone to go out and use the outside toilet in winter. There wasn't a proper bathroom in the house there was a bath in the cellar, which had an old gas geyser next to it which was erratic, it didn't work whenever you were fully immersed in water it decided go off just like that. The kitchen was just a little stove at the top of the cellar head and my sister was born a year after myself in a two bedroom house, we weren't overcrowded as such and we didn't think of anything other than that this was how life was normally for people in that age. Thinking back now, that was abstract poverty compared to current standards. I mean, yes, by those standards things were beginning to improve then, but it makes you never take for granted what you've got now, and appreciate how the Asian community in Huddersfield has progressed and how the quality of life has improved for us and for everyone else.