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Oral history recording with Laceta Reid, born in Manchester, Jamaica, in May of 1931.. Recorded as part of Race Council Cymru’s Windrush Cymru Heritage Project.

“I climatise here and I make here my home.”

Laceta Reid was born in Manchester in Jamaica in May of 1931.

“I remember a train disaster not far from where we were living [in Jamaica], August 1957, they called it the ‘Kendal Crash’. It was an excursion from Kingston to Montego Bay.”

“They took the bodies out and put them under a cotton tree, in the open space there for people to come… It was hard, it was terrible. I never see anything like that before.”

“I left for Britain shortly after… the journey was long, 23 days…The ship was called the SS Montserrat – it wasn’t a pleasant journey; I took sick on there…”

“It was sunny when we landed in Britain. I was surprised. It was September. The way we grow up listen to what the elders had said, and the way the talk, it was like the sun didn’t shine in Britain.”

“The two kids were born, a boy and a girl, and I was trying to get work, but no one would rent a place with kids. To be Jamaican is funny…"

“I left the candle factory and got a job in a paraffin work, we make paraffin heaters. Wages went up to £18… Quite a few Black people working there… there were Arabs, Pakistani, loads, all nations.”

“I am a country lad and it was just right for me. It was quiet, no hustling and bustling like London, so I just decide after a while to settle down. 1962 I come down.”

“Try to be nice to all and you’ll find your way around. Try and learn a trade – that would be the best part of your life coming up.