Merton's Story

The African Caribbean Community: Merton’s Story

Merton, 55, is the caretaker at West Bromwich’s African-Caribbean Resource Centre, which provides the community with a range of services including meals on wheels, a youth club, a choir and education programmes. (When we arrived, Merton was busy putting some finishing touches to some paintwork around the front entrance, but didn’t seem to mind too much putting his brush down for a while to tell his story…)

Family Ties

 “I come across from Jamaica about 7 or 8 years ago; I have no blood family over here. In Jamaica you can call someone your ‘sister’ or ‘cousin’ even if you’re not blood related because you’re from the same area. It’s not as close-knit here. In Jamaica you make it like a duty to pop across and say hello and spend a few minutes after you finish work, but over here it’s different. You don’t have to have money back home to live and be happy.”

Eat to live, live to eat

“Food is a big part of life. That’s why you working - so you can put food on the table for your family. If you have food on the table, you have everything, you know?

Our main tradition of food would be bananas, yam, sweet potato, calalou, spinach, cabbage; and the coconut – which you can use for everything! The national dish is probably ackee and saltfish or jerk pork and chicken, although the Rasta don’t use pork, and the Adventists don’t use pork or things like coffee.

I can’t get into the English food! I’d rather go by the pub or by the off-license than the chip shop for food; because to me that’s just one potato! One potato and a little bit of chicken and that’s all!”

Listen to your Grandma

“From a young age I was growing up in the Baptist church. It’s not like you might go to church, it’s a must! No kids get away from that! It’s so different here because you can’t punish them. The Caribbean youth in this area; a lot of them don’t have people to talk to them on a certain level. It would help a lot, I think. In my early days, when a man go to prison it’s like a curse. But if a man go to prison now, you just go in for 6 months and then just come back – like a holiday camp! Activity would keep them off the streets. They all like music. There is some talented youth outside, but they just need something to bring them in. It would also get the kids to bind together with the older people; I believe that can do a lot. Getting the younger people to interact with the elderly is good. Like at the age of 18 you’re planning to go out but then your Grandma sit down and she start telling you some things and you just get interested, and your mind starts to go somewhere else … But music and dancing; those are the things that bring people together, otherwise funerals are the only time it happens!"

Music in your bones

 “I like listening to music; Reggae is my favourite. And I like Mento – that’s my music. Because I like things from way back, present things don’t really have much to do with me. Any thing way back, like older people - you sit down and have a chat to them and they tell you about them days and the first pair of shoes they ever wear and things like that.. You can put on some music like mento and people would just be dancing. There is no special type you dance to; it’s not a matter of practice, you just do your own thing. One might be going that way and one that way, but everyone doing their own thing, at the same time.

I believe music is like food to Caribbean people; music all the time; they listen to music or they play music. You sit down, relax, have a few friends around, have a drink and listen to your music. Don’t think about the bills coming in tomorrow – the problem gone, in other words. If I want to I can find my kind of music but it’s not easy ‘cos a CD like that going to cost. I find everything like Caribbean stuff over here is more expensive. If you go by the chip shop you can spend maybe a pound and get a dinner but if you go by the Caribbean shop you know the smallest thing is going to cost 6 or 7 quid!

I like old writers and poets as well like Louise Bennett or Ronnie Williams. If you put on shows like those I know you’d get a lot of Caribbean people just come out to see them. They talk about normal day-to-day things people can understand.”

 

Learning in the school of life

“I never do well in school. My parents were never well–off, so I’d spend time helping my dad with the land. My mum is a dressmaker so you’d have to help her with a little sewing as well. Probably that’s why I would say a lot of us never really learnt – you’ve already done a hard days work without school!

Understanding means a lot to Caribbean people. A lot of them are not well educated. They’re not stupid, but we had other things to do; getting on with day-to-day things and putting food on the table.

So when we see a flyer or leaflet about a show it means nothing – people ignore them; it’s just words. But if you get a group come and put on a half an hour, like a little demonstration then it’s more likely to spark into their minds. They can have a feel of what’s going on. People would think ‘Oh, I’m interested in that,’ you know? It’s that kind of understanding that is important.”

 Photographer: Michiru Nakayama, all rights reserved (c)

 

From Focus on Ethnicity and Religion, based on 2001 Census data

  • Black Caribbean population numbered roughly 566,000 people and accounted for about 1% of the population of Great Britain.

  • 57% of Black Caribbean population cited England as country of birth, followed by Jamaica (23%).

  • 74% classified themselves as Christian; 11% had no religion and 1% Muslim.

  • Black Caribbean population is younger than the White British population but has the oldest age profile among non-White groups, partly reflecting their earlier settlement in Britain – many having arrived in the 1950s and ‘60’s. The median age in 2001 was 35 years for men and 36 years for women.

  • The Black Caribbean population was exceptional in that women were more likely than men to be in a managerial or professional occupation group: 30% women, 24% men. Men were more likely to be in routine or manual occupations (37% men; 24% women).

  • The Black Caribbean population was concentrated in two regions of England – London, home to 61% of the population, and West Midlands (15%), with particularly large groups in Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Sandwell. 

  • Black Caribbean households were the most likely to be one-person households, accounting for 38%, closely followed by White Irish (37%).

  • The older age-structure of the Black Caribbean population is reflected in its being the most likely non-White group to consist of a pensioner living alone (10%, compared with 18% White Irish and 15% White British households).

  • Yet it is also the most likely group to contain one person living alone below pension age (28%), followed by Black African (27%) and Chinese (23%). White populations were less likely to have this type of household, which accounted for 20% of White Irish and 15% White British.