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Oral history recording with Sacha Pingue, born in Victoria Jubilee Hospital in Jamaica in 1975. Recorded as part of Race Council Cymru’s Windrush Cymru Heritage Project.

“When I was in school, I think I had it the worst, because I was neither Black nor white.”

Sacha Pingue was born in Victoria Jubilee Hospital in Jamaica in 1975. She came to the UK at around 14 years old.

“..It was either there [the hosptial] or at home… there was always one or two older women who, when you were giving birth, they were like the unqualified but qualified midwives. My nan was one of those women, and when you was having problem, [they] get the castor oil out and some hot water and towel…they came out safer than when you was in the hospital.”

Sacha boarded a British Airways plane on the 20th of June 1990, bound for the UK; hoping for a better quality of life.

“I was the eldest… my mum thought it would have been better for me… I had a little black and white skirt with frills and a little top, and I don’t know what possessed them to dress me in that.”

“The first year was torture, hated it. The bullying, the ignorance, the questions I was asked… they make it out like, because you come from a certain place, you’re illiterate, and you’re asking me if we’ve got electric…”

“[In Jamaica] you don’t fear everything, like here… my nan always say ‘don’t burn your bridges behind you’… try and live good with people… maybe one of my children, if they’re in a situation, and somebody said ‘Oh, that’s Sasha’s daughter, oh, we’ll help em’ out.’”

“The sunrise and the sunset is my therapy, I don’t care how stressed I get, when I get there, that’s all I focus on is the sunrise, the sunset and the water. When I’m here, that’s all I think about and I record the sea waves and sometimes I just listen to it.”