Transcript for: living with six other people

Interviewee: Jamil Akhtar

Subject: Living in England

It was a family issue, my mother died, my father got married. I knew somebody in the street who was already studying here and his younger brother was in the same class as me. He said he could come and get admission there, so that was it, I just came. It was frightening in the beginning, obviously I didn’t know anybody and I cried a few nights, but I strongly believe in fighting, I’d just go on holiday to work in busses. I thought I’d work there for 6-8 months and then I’ll come back and I stayed there 20 years.

I lived on Bradford Road there was about 5 or 6 people in a three bedroom house. I personally think that it was a good way, if I had to live there today. I think there was six people in three bedrooms, two to a room, the toilet was outside and there was no bathroom, so you’d have to go to the baths to have a bath. It was quite overcrowded. If you’d go to the toilet you’d have to put wellingtons on, because it really snowed in those days. So it was quite a harsh life. Obviously there was no jobs in those days, they did not accept qualifications from Pakistan, the only jobs were in the busses or the mills, there was no other jobs anywhere. First I went into the mill as a trainee designer of textiles, but I left there and then came to the busses as a conductor. There was a shortage of drivers in those days, so they made me a driver, and I always criticised how there used to be long hours, I would start at 5 o’clock and finish at 1 o’clock at night, and the wages you were paid. I went to the union in a meeting, and they said "why don’t you stand, if you think you can do the job?" and there was an election, somebody proposed my name and then I became shop steward. When I stood in the 70’s for secretary, some inspector said that they would leave the job, they would not accept any instruction for a black person. That was where the racism was. When I was elected, obviously I was surprised, never mind anybody else, that I was elected and I think I was probably the first Asian secretary in the north of England and the transport workers union was in those days the largest union.