Adolphus Woodley's Family History
I was born in Basseterre in the Caribbean, St Kitts I was 12 and a half years old when I left to come over here. While I was there I used to do all sorts. I would run with my mates, we used to hop on the train; we used to carry the sugar cane. We used to offload them and squeeze them into bottles to make sugar cane juice. We used to race each other. We used to do all sorts. We’d collect pigeons.
Every school holiday I used to go down to my grandmother’s who lived in the Country. She would make homemade bread in a brick oven outside. We would go down to the bay and fish down there. We would run about down there and swim; we would lark about as kids. The sea was only down the road from us so we didn’t have to travel far. We used to pick cherries from the cherry trees. I had a Saturday job, I used to go to the market with a friend of my mums and we would sell fruit and cabbages and all these different things in the town centre.
Every school holiday I used to go down to my grandmother’s who lived in the Country. She would make homemade bread in a brick oven outside. We would go down to the bay and fish down there. We would run about down there and swim; we would lark about as kids. The sea was only down the road from us so we didn’t have to travel far. We used to pick cherries from the cherry trees. I had a Saturday job, I used to go to the market with a friend of my mums and we would sell fruit and cabbages and all these different things in the town centre.
Then one day my mum got a letter to say that my dad wanted me to come to England. My dad was already in this country. I never knew him because he came here while I was very young and my mum said to me that he wanted me to come over. My sister and brother came over to live with him in 1968 just before my 13th birthday. We were invited over to work in 1955. We were a part of the British Government. Lot of people from Jamaica and St Kitts came here to work to make a better life for their family. Some did, some didn’t. My dad was part of the Windrush Project. That’s what the actual ship was called. We classed England as the mother country.
I never really got to know my dad as I was 13 when I came over. It was a confusing experience. By the time I tried to get to know him it didn’t go very well for me. I loved my dad but I just didn’t know him. I knew my mother. My mother cared for me and bandaged all my bumps and that sort of thing, so it was like a bonding ritual from the day I was born.
I’ve never been back to St Kitts. I went straight to secondary school in Harehills, Leeds for about 3 years and then I had to come back out. I used to lark about a lot at school. I can remember getting my school report and one of my teachers said. “Woodley would be a better student if he wasn’t such a practical joker!” I never used to bother anybody, I just used to crack jokes and everyone would laugh.
When I left school, in theory you’re supposed to be go to work in a factory. My first job was working as a cabinet maker but that didn’t work out because in those days there was still the stigma of people trying to take your jobs. So there was a lot of friction in the factory and that’s the reason I left. That caused a problem for me because I wasn’t in the country long enough to acclimatise myself because I had only been here three years so I couldn’t handle it. I just wandered around for years and still thought I had enough time to get a career. I grabbed temporary employment here and there. I finally settled down and started working in the timber trade as a machinist. I wouldn’t say it was the kind of career that I wanted to pick. My mother wanted me to be a motor mechanic but because I was old enough to guide my own career I just went with what my teacher said at school. My teacher said that I was good with my hands and he would prefer me to go into the wood working trade, so that’s where I went in appose to what I wanted to do or my mum wanted me to do. A lot of people can say that now they wished they would have done what their mum wanted them to do. It’s hindsight in a way. I worked there for many years but was made redundant in 2009.
Prior to that I met my wife in 1975, we lived in Chapel Town for a while and then moved up here because this is where my wife was originally from on Kentmere Crescent and she didn’t want the boys growing up in a bad environment down Chapel Town. So that’s how we came to live up here. So the boys would have a better understanding of life. We lived up here on Kentmere Rise in the maisonettes until my son was about 5 years old and then we moved onto North Parkway, where we had our second son. We still live there now.
My wife and I have been together for 37 years. I have had a great time here. I have met lots of interesting people throughout the years. When the old Nettos was up I used to go there for my shopping and sometimes I was a bit short on money, people would step forward and pay the difference. I remember one time when I was working in Armley I had just come off a night shift and went to catch the bus and I didn’t have any money but the bus driver still let me on and this woman stepped forward and said she would pay the bus fare. It’s the kindness I remember. I’ve met a lot of people over the years that have been good to me and I’ve helped them out.
My dad decided to go back to the Caribbean. He has now passed away. He lived out the rest of his life over there. My mum passed away in 2000. My mum went to live in London with my sister. She went back to the Caribbean for a while.
I’ve never been back to St Kitts. I went straight to secondary school in Harehills, Leeds for about 3 years and then I had to come back out. I used to lark about a lot at school. I can remember getting my school report and one of my teachers said. “Woodley would be a better student if he wasn’t such a practical joker!” I never used to bother anybody, I just used to crack jokes and everyone would laugh.
When I left school, in theory you’re supposed to be go to work in a factory. My first job was working as a cabinet maker but that didn’t work out because in those days there was still the stigma of people trying to take your jobs. So there was a lot of friction in the factory and that’s the reason I left. That caused a problem for me because I wasn’t in the country long enough to acclimatise myself because I had only been here three years so I couldn’t handle it. I just wandered around for years and still thought I had enough time to get a career. I grabbed temporary employment here and there. I finally settled down and started working in the timber trade as a machinist. I wouldn’t say it was the kind of career that I wanted to pick. My mother wanted me to be a motor mechanic but because I was old enough to guide my own career I just went with what my teacher said at school. My teacher said that I was good with my hands and he would prefer me to go into the wood working trade, so that’s where I went in appose to what I wanted to do or my mum wanted me to do. A lot of people can say that now they wished they would have done what their mum wanted them to do. It’s hindsight in a way. I worked there for many years but was made redundant in 2009.
Prior to that I met my wife in 1975, we lived in Chapel Town for a while and then moved up here because this is where my wife was originally from on Kentmere Crescent and she didn’t want the boys growing up in a bad environment down Chapel Town. So that’s how we came to live up here. So the boys would have a better understanding of life. We lived up here on Kentmere Rise in the maisonettes until my son was about 5 years old and then we moved onto North Parkway, where we had our second son. We still live there now.
My wife and I have been together for 37 years. I have had a great time here. I have met lots of interesting people throughout the years. When the old Nettos was up I used to go there for my shopping and sometimes I was a bit short on money, people would step forward and pay the difference. I remember one time when I was working in Armley I had just come off a night shift and went to catch the bus and I didn’t have any money but the bus driver still let me on and this woman stepped forward and said she would pay the bus fare. It’s the kindness I remember. I’ve met a lot of people over the years that have been good to me and I’ve helped them out.
My dad decided to go back to the Caribbean. He has now passed away. He lived out the rest of his life over there. My mum passed away in 2000. My mum went to live in London with my sister. She went back to the Caribbean for a while.
My mother didn’t like living in England. It was a bit of a letdown for her. She came here with the intention of being with my father but because my father had been here all those years he’d made a life for himself and my mum wasn’t included in that life. So when my mum came here, it wasn’t so much of an invitation from him, so much as it was from her sister who wanted her to come up and look after my brother and my sister which was pointless really because they were already wayward.
I felt sorry for my mum. I felt like she should have just stayed in the Caribbean with all of us until we were old enough to decide for our self whether we wanted to come over to England. Up to this day I always say that my mum should never have come. She was a pensioner when she came back and she thought that she was better off over here as we could look after her. There is no welfare support over in the West Indies so if you don’t work you don’t eat. You have to have your family to look after you. She tried to be happy but I think she was sad. A lot of people from St Kitts did the same as my family did.
I felt sorry for my mum. I felt like she should have just stayed in the Caribbean with all of us until we were old enough to decide for our self whether we wanted to come over to England. Up to this day I always say that my mum should never have come. She was a pensioner when she came back and she thought that she was better off over here as we could look after her. There is no welfare support over in the West Indies so if you don’t work you don’t eat. You have to have your family to look after you. She tried to be happy but I think she was sad. A lot of people from St Kitts did the same as my family did.
When you live in a village you get used to death pretty quickly. I remember my friend Everton and something went wrong so I went to his house and a lot of people were, and what had happened was he was suffering from blood poisoning. His mother was there and she was pregnant at the time and people were saying that she would be allright as one life goes out another life comes in. It was a bit brutal that way. But I got the idea of what they were saying. If your next door neighbour died you used to go and view the person in the coffin. That’s the culture of where I came from.
My friends used to get bodybuilding magazines from here and America to copy them. I remember playing outside the corner shop, playing marbles on the street and buying sweets. I liked sugar cakes which were made of coconut and sugar.
I didn’t find the food different to ours when I came over here. The oddest thing about where I came from was, because we had a link with this Country, some of it rubbed off on us. It was similar in a sense because my mum cooked West Indian food. I didn’t find it different over here.
My mum worked in a place called the Infirmary but we didn’t know what the Infirmary actually meant and what it entailed. Looking back now as I got older and understand, it was a home for retired seamen. All the black guys who used to go around the world as merchant seamen, when they finished their time they used to end up in the Infirmary if they didn’t have any families. I used to sit down with the retired seamen on a night sometimes and they would tell me stories. I remember this one particular one where he told us about snow and robins. When the snow came I started crying because I couldn’t understand the numbness in my feet. It was painful for me I wasn’t used to such a thing. Everything was such a different experience. I didn’t get discriminated against. I always had my big brother to look after me. He was at my school for another year when I started so he watched out for me. He was strong willed and liked to do his own thing.
Over in the Caribbean my mum worked nights and my big sister looked after us. She would give us chores to do around the house. The thing about the West Indies is from the time you have got knowledge – you have got chores! I used to carry water on my head to fill the bath. I used to have to leave the water out in the sun to warm up before I would use it to bathe. With my father not being around I assumed the role of doing all the chores. I had a little job. I used to go down to this drinks place, where they made Coca Cola and Fanta. There was a big complex that used to do all those drinks and I would go down there with a little cart and get boxes of supplies and take them to my next door neighbour and she would give me a dollar which I would give to my mum. This was what was expected of you as a child. You didn’t just sit around. On Sundays you weren’t allowed to play out because of the strict upbringing, Sunday was a day of rest so you stayed inside. If we were caught outside we would get a good hiding. Because we were a village you could not cheek your neighbour. He was allowed to give you a hiding and then you’d get one off your parents when your neighbour told your parent. My mum used to lever us and so did my uncle. I wish I had more family photographs.
My friends used to get bodybuilding magazines from here and America to copy them. I remember playing outside the corner shop, playing marbles on the street and buying sweets. I liked sugar cakes which were made of coconut and sugar.
I didn’t find the food different to ours when I came over here. The oddest thing about where I came from was, because we had a link with this Country, some of it rubbed off on us. It was similar in a sense because my mum cooked West Indian food. I didn’t find it different over here.
My mum worked in a place called the Infirmary but we didn’t know what the Infirmary actually meant and what it entailed. Looking back now as I got older and understand, it was a home for retired seamen. All the black guys who used to go around the world as merchant seamen, when they finished their time they used to end up in the Infirmary if they didn’t have any families. I used to sit down with the retired seamen on a night sometimes and they would tell me stories. I remember this one particular one where he told us about snow and robins. When the snow came I started crying because I couldn’t understand the numbness in my feet. It was painful for me I wasn’t used to such a thing. Everything was such a different experience. I didn’t get discriminated against. I always had my big brother to look after me. He was at my school for another year when I started so he watched out for me. He was strong willed and liked to do his own thing.
Over in the Caribbean my mum worked nights and my big sister looked after us. She would give us chores to do around the house. The thing about the West Indies is from the time you have got knowledge – you have got chores! I used to carry water on my head to fill the bath. I used to have to leave the water out in the sun to warm up before I would use it to bathe. With my father not being around I assumed the role of doing all the chores. I had a little job. I used to go down to this drinks place, where they made Coca Cola and Fanta. There was a big complex that used to do all those drinks and I would go down there with a little cart and get boxes of supplies and take them to my next door neighbour and she would give me a dollar which I would give to my mum. This was what was expected of you as a child. You didn’t just sit around. On Sundays you weren’t allowed to play out because of the strict upbringing, Sunday was a day of rest so you stayed inside. If we were caught outside we would get a good hiding. Because we were a village you could not cheek your neighbour. He was allowed to give you a hiding and then you’d get one off your parents when your neighbour told your parent. My mum used to lever us and so did my uncle. I wish I had more family photographs.