My name is Charles Bin Said Mohammed. I was born in 1936, down Tiger Bay, Cardiff Docks, and I lived there for 25 years.

NADINE THOMAS

My name is Nadine Semille Thomas. I was born in 1984 which makes me 14 and I’ve lived in Tiger Bay all my life.

Said

Tiger Bay was unique. It was the only place in Great Britain where all nationalities, creeds, were together and they lived in harmony and although we were poor, we just didn’t know prejudices.

Nadine

Tiger Bay to me is loud and energetic, messy and boring.

Said

All I can say is whatever I did in Tiger Bay when I was a child, it was just the happiest place I’ve ever been to and I’ll live with it for the rest of my life. I’ll never forget my roots.

Nadine

What was it like down here when you was little?

Said

Can you imagine it was quite different. This part would be full of boats, loading, unloading. These ports were really busy. That’s how Tiger Bay evolved beacuase the sea men when they came ashore, that worked here because this was where the work was. They met Welsh girls and married them and they needed somewhere to live and Tiger Bay was ideal because there was no prejudices there. If they would have gone further into Cardiff they probably would have come against prejudice, but they didn’t. My father was Malaysian, there was Japanese, Norwegian. Every country you could think of lived here because I think most of the white people wouldn’t do the jobs on the ships that they did. It was the very hard strenuous jobs. Did your grandparents work down the dock at all, do you know?

Nadine

I don’t know, probably my grandfather.

Said

Where were you from, or your parents?

Nadine

I’m Arab, part Welsh, part Irish, part Jamaican.

Said

That shows you the multi-cultural nature down Tiger Bay. How old are you Nadine?

Nadine

14.

Said

When I was 15 I had to go out and find full-time employment. So I worked actually on the docks and I walked every morning from where you live, round the corner from where you live, 2 miles over to one of these, Queen Alexander Dock and worked in a warehouse at the side.

Nadine

Doing what?

Said

We used to pack oil. This oil, we used to use it on machines, but we added Brilliantine to it, put it in bottles and sent it to Africa and they put it on their hair.

Nadine

That’s most probably where all their hair products come from.

Said

Probably. You see the church there?

Nadine

Yes.

Said

That used to be just a tin hut. The Norwegian sailors used to pray there. They used to come off the ships and they needed somewhere to pray and that’s where they went. But now they’ve dolled it up and actually Norwegians come from Norway to look at it, it’s a tourist attraction.

Nadine

What was it like in school?

Said

School was nice – great teachers – but we didn’t have many aspirations because even if we were good and academical you couldn’t afford to go on to further education, but one girl actually did. Her name’s Betty, I can remember her profoundly. She went to one of the teachers and said, ‘I’d like to be a teacher like you’. And she said, ‘Don’t be silly, girl. You would never be...’ And that girl went on to be a head teacher which we thought was great.

BETTY CAMPBELL

I’m Betty Campbell, I was born in 1934 and I’ve lived all my life in Butetown, formerly known as Tiger Bay.

Nadine

Said’s been telling me that when you were little you wanted to be a teacher but people were telling you that you couldn’t be one. Why was that?

Betty

What happened was I was in High School and we had to choose our subjects for what we called ‘O’ level. We had to tell the head teacher what we wanted to be and I told her I wanted to be a teacher. I was in the grammar school then and she said I should forget about it, there would be too many problems. And it wasn’t until I went back to my desk and sat down that I realised what the problem must have been because I was quite good academically, so that wasn’t the problem, and I remember I burst out crying for the first time in my life.

Nadine
So the problem was…?

Betty

The problem was that I think I was the wrong colour at that particular time, because we are going back now to 1948 I think that was.

Nadine

So you experienced a lot of racism when you was growing up, did you?

Betty

We didn’t experience racism in our own area, we all got on very well together. But when you went outside of the docks there would be name calling. If you were older there would be certain places you couldn’t go. They wouldn’t let you into some dance halls.

Nadine

What was it like growing up with all different nationalities?

Betty

It was absolutely wonderful. Today in schools you learn about other people’s religions – we didn’t have to learn from a book and we didn’t have to learn from school because it was here for us. When it was Easter time we went to the Greek church. When it was Mohammedan Festival we put a scarf on our head and we would go round to the... we didn’t have a mosque at the beginning, it was a zouiah in Bute St. We would go and we would be made welcome and we would have apples and oranges and don’t forget if it was in the war when sweets were on ration, we were very pleased to have a handful of sweets as well. So we learned about different religions just by meeting people who had a different religion to us.

Nadine

My Nan and Said have been saying how in the good old days everyone was happy and everything was better, but I don’t think you all could have been that happy. I don’t think it was that better because we’ve got Nintendo, Play Station, 20 channels, we’ve got all the music programmes. So I think it’s quite better.

Betty

I have to disagree with you, I’m afraid Nadine, because we were friendly, we cared for each other. We don’t really care for each other in this area any more. We were like a family and the different religions didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that we were Christian or Muslim, we were all from the Bay and that was our badge.

Nadine

And you knew everybody that lived by you, did you?

Betty

I knew everybody who lived in my street and other streets.

Nadine

Who lived next door to you then?

Betty

I lived in Sophia Street first of all and I had Mrs Ali and then we had Mrs Bowden and next to Mrs Bowden was a lady called Mrs Coles and next to Mrs Coles there lived Mrs James and next to Mrs James there lived Mrs Neal and next to Mrs Neal there lived Mrs Condon...

Nadine

OK, you’ve got me.

Betty

I could go through all the street. That was the big difference. Today, do you know who lives in the flats? Do you know all the people who live on our block? Do you know all the people who live in Loudoun square?

Nadine

No.

Betty

...Because I don’t and that is the big difference. We knew each other.

Nadine

You know when you said the first time you seen a TV set was round by here? Whose was it?

Said

It was one of the people who lived in the the Square, posh people probably. And they run a line probably to their house right here along the Square. But it was so magic to us, it was like photographs beamed from the sky – that was the first time we ever saw one.

Nadine

So every time you came here there’d be...

SAD

No, that was just an occasion because it was the Queen’s Coronation, but within four or five years nearly everybody had television sets; black and white, mind.

Nadine

So what did you do before there was television?

Said

A lot of people came out on the streets at night and played guitars and some of them had a couple of drums and we’d dance as well and talk. One of the big things, we’d have street parties for occasions like the Festival of Britain – that was about 1950. We even decorated the lamp posts outside your house. You put trimmings on, you put bunting across from one street to another. But then you had radio. The radio was a box, it wasn’t a transistor like you got, you can’t take it away, it was fixed to the wall and you rented it like you would rent a television set today and that was great, we could listen to music. But then the transistor radio came in, that was fabulous and you could actually put it in your pocket or go upstairs and listen to it under the blankets.

Nadine

When you was about my age, how was your life different to mine?

Said

For a start we slept four in a bed, which you probably don’t know, you’ve probably got your own divan bed. We had one bed and there would be four children and we wouldn’t have a duvet on, some days we’d have a coat on the bed.

Nadine

To keep warm, did you have to have a coal fire?

Said

A coal fire, yes. We burnt most of our rubbish. I even remember throwing cabbage leaf stalks onto the fire just to keep it going and that was the only heating, which was downstairs in the house. But you were never hungry. I didn’t have rickets or anything. We had enough food to eat. My Mother used to like backing the horses – now it’s legal today, but it wasn’t then – are there bookmakers around this way? You’ve got some bookmakers.

Nadine

Bookmakers?

Said

Bookies, where you bet horses? Like William Hill?

Nadine

Yes, OK. There’s one down the bottom.

Said

Years ago when I was your age, my Mother used to send me with a little bet and if she won, we’d have bacon, eggs, chips for tea on a Friday.

Nadine

What about if she lost then?

Said

We’d end up with bread and dripping or bread and jam, something like that.

Nadine

That sounds nasty.

Said

This was the in place on Tuesday night. We used to call it The Razzle Dazzle Club and it was live music. And we used to come on the train from Cardiff and come here and this was jumping. Rock and Roll was more like a fever than anything else.

Nadine

So the clothes you wore were really colourful were they?

Said

Teddy boys had started, but the Bay Boys had invented their own style. We wore black suits, slip-on shoes, I bought luminous socks. You ever seen luminous socks? Pink and green? Imagine them under the strobe lighting, moving around and the girls looking at your feet – fantastic, really great.

Nadine

Girls looking at your feet!

Said

Yes, I never asked girls to dance, they asked me.

Nadine

Did you have any certain dance you used to do?

Said

What we did, we practised with partners round the back at the bay, there’d be a girl come round and we’d practise a routine and then show it out on the dance floor and then watch everyone’s face when we did it in the room, twisting and twirling. Innovation it was. It just came spontaneous to us, we called it jiving. This is like walking into my past. Can you imagine this all lit up with neon lights and fairy lights all over the place? This is blowing me away, this is.

Nadine

It’s changed has it?

Said

It’s changed. I bought a couple of photos to show you. I know, you can see how straight my hair is. What we did, I used to sleep with a pipe-cleaner in the front of my hair so that in the morning it would fall in front of your face. But the clothes themselves, I was a cool dude then, I really was. Those clothes were tailor-made. I saved for months, went without a lot of things to have a suit like that made. This is the other one – that’s me...

Nadine

Look at your hair!

Said

See how it’s all brought forward? And we used to have a DA cut – do you know what a DA means? A duck’s anatomy. You know the back of a duck?

Nadine

Yes.

Said

Your hair used to have to meet like at the back of a duck.

Nadine

You had to, otherwise it wasn’t...

Said

It wasn’t right. So we carried a comb and every five minutes we’d take it out and comb our hair. We were quite vain thinking of it, but we had to be in – it had to be the in thing to do.

Nadine

There’s one more thing I’d like to ask you. It’s kind of a surprise so... I want to know if you’ll try this on for me?

Said

Oh God. The trousers and all? No, I’m not taking my trousers off here.

Nadine

And the socks. Go on, you can go and put it on and come back looking proper.

Said

Elvis has left the building. I think it will come back this style, don’t you think so? It’s a lovely colour this, I love blue.

Nadine

Blue’s my favourite colour.

Said

Blue always suited me. But I never wore trainers, tracksuits or I don’t like jeans – I wore them but I don’t like jeans. I don’t feel dressed in jeans, never did.