Living with dementia and memory problems

It was the dominoes that reminded me because there was.

That’s right, uh huh.

So how did, how did you find that? Did you enjoy going there or?

Yeah, it was, it bring back a lot of memory, yeah, a lot of memory. They, they call them grip but it, they’re suitcase now, they call them grip, so I had a little brown grip, something like that, that I fetch in this country [laughs] it really does bring back memory. Everybody used to just fold their clothes neat, neatly and, you know, set it in it and set off, uh huh.

So, so that fairly small suitcase, grip [laughs] would, would be, that would be all you would have arrived with? 

Arrived with- and a little bag with shoes and thing like that. All the clothes were really, you know, fold neatly in the suitcase and you’ve got a bag, a handbag, your shoes and thing would be in it. But all the trousers and shirt- because we never wear a suit in Jamaica, I only get a suit when I was coming here.

Oh right. 

Yeah, I came in a nice pinstripe suit and a trilby hat [laughs] and, because we never wear a suit in Jamaica, we just, we go in the church, we just go with the shirt and, and because it’s warm they don’t; it’s only the older fellas, you know, who travel used to wear suit, but we never bother with suits, we just go out there and never realise what, what [laughs] that this country was a cold country, unless you’re wrapped up [laughs].

But my dad was always very good, he was very good at, story-writer and he was always a very good one who wanted to read [laughs] read everything to us. Yeah, he used to like stories and everything, yeah, dad was brilliant.

But it, it was my dad I think probably that encouraged me, because he used to say, “Pat, do what you enjoy doing and you know is going to help you, and if you get stuck just come,” you know, whatever it, because my dad [laughs] my dad and one of his brothers and his father, they all had this shoe repairing business, right? So, we always had good shoes as well [laughs] on us kids going to school, and then my dad made sure we all polished them [laughs] before we went. It was good, yeah, it was smashing, yeah.

So, do you remember anything of being in Bombay even though you were only four when you left?

I can still picture the, where we lived yes, and I would like to go back and, you know, see who’s still alive [laughs].

My mother in, she was wonderful, she lived till ninety-three, and she loved cakes and cream [laughs] she was; well we had a bakery shop.

Ooh.

And she was a marvellous cook, mm. She loved cream cakes and Mars bars; I used to take her to the supermarkets when she was older and she’d say to the checkout girl, “I don’t know if I should have these,” Mars bars going through [laughs] and I said, “I think you’re ninety-two, I don’t think you should stop now really.” [Laughs].

Well, the memories, memories.

Oh reminiscing?

Yes, there’s plenty of things there, memories. There’s sewing, the machine, that little machine that I start sewing on it from when I was about twelve, my mum have it, you know that little machine, yes. Hers were called National, the first one, and then, then the Singer come afterward, then the Jones come afterward. But I always wanting to sew, from a little child, little dollies, make little dolly things and thing like that, all along, all along sewing, yes. And I did some beautiful sewing before I came over to, over in England, wedding dress and bridesmaid dress.

Wow.

Yeah, and since I came here, oh I make some powerful dress, I make some; I, all my children, their clothes, school uniforms and things, the boys their, their blazers and their suits, you know.

Oh really?

Yes, I make up uniforms, oh everything. The teacher always ask him to tell him mum to come and show us to do that and thing like that, but mum never had the time. Yes, I did plenty, plenty, plenty sewing, yes.

Lawrence: I can’t remember it from all the, all that time, but my mam was with me as I can and I played that and that and it was really on the thing and he, he, he went, “Right,” he says, “well I’m very, I’m very happy,” he said, “and it’s got, it’s really, it’s really good, we could, we could have you and go.” And, and I went, “Oh right.” He said, “There’s only one thing though, it’s £500.” [Laughs] So, so I said, “Mam, we’re back, we’re back, we’re out, we’re going, OK?”

Daughter: Yeah, you had a place, didn’t you, but.

Lawrence: And I can remember changing that to my, my rock, my rock and roll guitar.

Anyway, yeah, I enjoyed that, that was lovely [laughs].

So, you played rugby while you were there then with the local team? 

Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Do you want to tell me [laughs] about that? That sounds fun.

I can’t, I can’t, I mean it’s a long time ago.

Of course.

I would have been twenty-two, twenty-one/twenty-two yeah, and it was, it was a sort of real mixture, real melange, dare I use the word? A, a real mixture of age groups in the team, yeah, from; I suppose I was middle, middle, in the middle aged, not middle aged but in the group that were-

In the middle of the group?

Yeah, that order. Yeah, and I just, I just love. the general ambience of it was; there’s a, there’s a move called the scissors move in rugby, but I mean people believe that, that rugby’s not particularly skilled but there’s all sorts of skill levels develop in all sorts of jobs and roles aren’t there? I mean, and I learnt, I learnt the words for how to do scissors. You, you have to trap the person in; you will have passed the ball but you want to fox the opposition, yeah? So you, you, you cry, “Croiser, croiser,” which you’ll know is ‘cross’ and pass the ball behind you as that person runs behind you and takes the ball, thus fooling the opposition, you hope [laughs].

Right. So, you had to learn the calls in French obviously as well, yeah.

Oh, you’re the cook though aren’t you? 

I’m the cook, yeah.

I poison people sometimes [laughs]. I can remember when I first went to work doing that it was at a school, right? Oh it, it did weigh on me, I thought if I do something wrong, suppose any of these children get ill, you know, it really, really bothered me, but.

It’s responsible feeding all those people, isn’t it? 

Yeah.

Yeah, well I mean it, it was a good school and, you know, it was fine. But yeah, it’s strange, isn’t it? You look back and think oh I wonder why I did that, I wonder why I did that; but I didn’t, my sister was always in, she was a machinist and she loved what she did, now I liked doing what I did at the schools because, well I mean let’s put it like this, I was about, would I be about, because I didn’t know you then, did I, when I started working there?

So, I would be about fourteen when I went working at the boys’ school; wow, all those boys, can you imagine? [laughs] I got invited to all the parties [laughs].

Oh, oh that’s fun.

But when I worked at [name] Panel Works the man who owned, owned the company was very into old vintage and veteran cars and he’d go to an auction and buy this old dilapidated car and we would have to renovate it [laughs]. I mean the oldest car he had was a 1920 Clyno; you’ve never heard of it have you? No, no, no, no. And it needed quite a lot of work, it took us, in-between doing repairs on other people’s cars any spare time we had we spent doing his car, it took us nearly a year to renovate it.

Gosh.

Yeah, but it was a lovely car.

Yeah.

Yeah. And I used to go all the motor shows with it, you know, the old vintage cars and veteran car rallies as well, yeah.