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Oral history recording with Elva Headman, born in Tweedside District, in the parish of Clarendon, Jamaica. Recorded as part of Race Council Cymru’s Windrush Cymru Heritage Project.

“I adapt when I came here, you have to when you go from one place to another…”

Elva Headman was born in Tweedside District, in the parish of Clarendon, Jamaica.

“I had a happy childhood, very happy childhood… wonderful Grandparents… Fried dumpling, I used to love fried dumpling,”

“I came on my own. My father came over first int it, in the 50s when they wanted people to work in this country. Mother joined, couple of years after with my two brothers. I was about 10 or 11 [then]. I decided I didn’t want to come to England, till the long years after, about six years after, I was in my 20s when I came here.”

“I learnt to do hairdressing, so that’s what I used to do, before I came here, I had my certificate…when I came here…it was so cold… I not going to do no hairdressing. So I went into nursing then.”

“When I was in Bristol, I used to work in the psychiatric hospital, in the Fishponds [Blackberry Hill Hospital], and there was quite a lot of Jamaicans was there as well, see, so I was all right.”

“When I got married, I came to live in Port Talbot. He [her husband] used to work with the dry docks and when the dry docks closed, then [with]… Brilliant Press. Although twas’ cheap labour… he always work… When I came here [Wales], I work in Groeswen in the infectious ward, that’s where I started over in Port Talbot.”

“We were brought up as a British, when I came here I had a British passport, we didn’t have no other nationality but British, as Jamaicans. “

“They always tell you that ‘manners maketh the man’. If you got manners you can go through the whole world without a penny.”