Dan Syanda
Dan Syanda grew up in Kenya in the 1960s. His aptitude for learning at a school which owned its own plane (!) ignited an existing curiosity about aviation and led him to explore other countries. He found himself first in Poland in 1982 during the time of the Solidarity movement and became a student activist. He also lived in Sweden before coming to Hull in 2007. He considers in this interview how well Hull is known to outsiders and what he thinks has become of the Wilberforce legacy.
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Transcription: Dan Syanda Interview
Interview with Dan Syanda
Interviewer: Jerome Whittingham
Date: 6 September 2016
JW: Dan, lovely to meet you - For the sake of the listen, can you introduce yourself to us please?
DS: My name is Dan, Dan Syanda - I was born in Kenya and – I went to school in Kenya. My ‘O’ levels and ‘A’ Levels in Kenya and after my ‘A’ levels - I got a scholarship to Poland.
JW: A scholarship to Poland - So, let’s go, let’s go a little bit further back then, before you head off to Poland, which we will come to, sounds very exciting. Tell me about your childhood and family back in Kenya.
DS: Well, it was an ordinary, ordinary childhood. We weren’t – very- , we weren’t elite – we weren’t very poor - we were just an ordinary family. There were six of us – four boys and two girls. I am the fourth born in the family – my dad was a machine operator for a German company for many, many years. My mum, as would expect in those days – she was, she still is, a housewife. So she basically took care of most everything in the family, yes.
JW: So when you say, ‘those days’, which decade are we talking about?
DS: Yeah well, that was in early, early, mid 60s to early 70s.
JW: You say you had, - you know, average childhood and average family – nothing out of the ordinary but you know but obviously we are looking at this from a UK perspective so can you sort of expand just a bit more on what average meant? What was your house like? What was your village like?
DS: In a Kenyan context it would mean that – in the sixties one had enough food for the family and the kids weren’t going about naked and they had enough to eat – we had one or two bicycles to share between the five of us before the youngest girl was born. So, that meant we, we weren’t poor, you see. Of course we had slippers and sometimes we were walking about barefooted but that was fine. We all went to school – which meant that the parents could take care of their young ones, I mean their children. So that’s what I meant by average. We didn’t have electricity. We didn’t have piped water, we had a well nearby, that meant something for the entire village. We didn’t have to go very far. So yeah, yeah, it was a good life actually.
JW: Good, good a really enjoyable childhood then. So, what were your parents’ expectations for you and for your siblings?
DS: Right, so since we are talking about the 60s, and we have to note that Kenya became independent in 1963 and therefore it means that my father had experienced the – entire structures of – colonialism therefore - Kenya being between five and six years into independence, most of the parents wanted, you know, their kids to study hard and be somebody. So it meant therefore that - all the parents were expecting us to go into engineering, teaching, medicine, but not music.
JW: Not music. Why the objection to music?
DS: Yeah, I don’t know. There was that, there was that kind of general assumption that - going into music – going into bands – and music groups meant – demoralisation of some kind or lowering of morals and therefore I don’t know – it had a bad connotation to go into music - but they all wanted us to go and become a teacher, or a doctor, journalist. Yes.
JW: So, so being told not to do something usually makes a young person want to do that thing.
DS: Right, yes – but - my parents weren’t that – you know, very strict on matters of interest. That is if one showed an interest in something, they sort of supported it – I wanted to be a pilot – almost became a laughing stock within the village, ‘How can you fly something up in the air’ – so, yeah, so we had all kinds of ambitions.
JW: Where had that thought to be a pilot come from? DS: I don’t know! I was just fascinated by, you know – planes flying over the region and – and always wondered how it would be for one to view the land from up there.
JW: Was it more a case that you were wanting tickets to travel, do you think?
DS: Could be – My grandma used to say it was a little bit crazy and later on she said ‘ Oh yes, the craziness later on became a reality’, but I ended up travelling to many places.
JW: So, tell me about your teenage years in particular. Did you engage with any sort of cultural activity or sporting activity? What was your obsession as a sort of 15 to 16 year old?
DS: Yeah, I was, I was more into books – a bookworm, I would say. I - two of my brothers were into athletics – but I liked football - and table tennis – I’d never participated in traditional dances because again, there was that assumption that kind of a cloak around traditional music that, you go into that kind of - practice and you will not be able to study well. So, - some of the neighbours were very much into -traditional music in the evenings, youngsters would cluster around the village in the evenings and sing so – yeah – I was more into books – I was more into things that weren’t around us – sort of. I remember the first time I read a newspaper – it was like ‘Oops!’ Yes, it talked about the other, you know, parts of the country. So – yeah, traditional music was not in, was not my interest – but I very much into church and Sunday school. I remember the African Inland Church – which was one of the oldest churches in that part of the country.
JW: Was that the norm, for a young person to be so engaged with the local church?
DS: Yes and we were all encouraged to go to Sunday school. That meant - you’d be in school from Monday to Friday and Saturday you’re off and Sunday you’d spent the whole day in the church, singing or you know, walking around singing the gospel and spreading the word.
JW: So, what did you know of western culture in your sort of mid to last teens, as a young man?
DS: Right, in the early teens, I had no clue at all about western culture – All we knew was - that the nearby shops were being run by - Indians and must have been Portuguese – and they all spoke the local vernacular. So - we felt that they may have come from far but they were part of us. I remember we, we could not imagine that they were from far. Well, when I went into upper primary school, then of course we had Geography and History and therefore we started learning about other countries – the history of religions. C.R.E. we used to call it, Christian Religious Education – And History, Geography – I was quite good in Geography so I knew where - most of the countries and continents were located.
JW: How broad was your history study?
DS: Yeah – it was much later on I realised that we, we studied history that was not really much into what - would – create a critical mind. It was not something that would initiate us into thinking - because we were cramming dates and events. 1666, London burning and things like that – I think – 1770 - something – the American – civil war and the French Revolution. Only the dates and the events and who did what and of course, William Wilberforce – John Livingston.
JW: What were you told of William Wilberforce, then?
DS: Yeah – You see this is the man who, against all odds, fought to end slavery – and of course we couldn’t imagine what was slavery. We just thought ‘oh, something worse than colonialism’ and – yeah - there were all kinds of dates, names and events, yes. There wasn’t anything that would sort of – help us to discuss, in terms of ‘if it didn’t happen what else could have happen’ or ‘why did these events take place the way they did?’
JW: So, as a much younger boy you had this vision of becoming a pilot and flying. How old were you when it really dawned on you that actually yes, you could get out and travel?
DS: I think I was 14 – I went to school a bit late - because the primary school was quite far and the head of school had a very funny way of - guessing what age you were. Note that in those days most of us were born in villages so we did not have the normal, ordinary birth certificate. So, you would go there and they would tell you ‘ok touch your ear from this end’ and therefore I couldn’t even though I must have been around seven [years old]. And they’d say ‘No, go back, you’re still young’.
JW: Can you do that now?
DS: Well I think I can yeah. At the age of 13 or 14, I got a government scholarship the only young person from my village to get a government scholarship. Note that in Kenya those days education was all paid for, it wasn’t free education. So I got a government scholarship, I went to a National School. So out of the forty-four – provinces in Kenya, we called them provinces but now they are counties – I was in a class of twenty-two and there were two streams so forty-four from each one from each district and this school had been previously, had been run by missionaries they were Irish and – the Irish all Irish missionaries. But it was in the process of being taken over by the local Catholic Church in Kenya and they use to have a navigation course at school so I ended up in school which owned a plane, a glider so, so yeah, it was, it was quite an experience to go to that school, so I was there for four years and ….
JW: So you came out with good grades, you got yourself a good education.
DS: Yes, from primary school I had the best grades in the district, so I got a scholarship – so they took the best from each province – sorry from every district and yeah, I went to that school and we formed classes of young people from the best, with the best grades and I was there for four years and - yeah, it was a good experience as well.
JW: So later education? Further education? Higher education? Did you do that back in Kenya?
DS: Yeah, so I was there for four years and so then after that I continued to – to A levels. At A levels of course I touched more on the mathematics, physics, geography, biology it used to be MPGB, well the best ones were MPC, maths physics and Chemistry but I wanted four and of course I was more interested in other matters so I went to Civil Education which was an option not obligated, it was not in the curriculum but if you wanted it, then one would take it.
Yes so I was there for, for two more years and – that no 1981 I finished and that’s when I got a scholarship to Poland in 1982.
JW: Right Ok. So it’s through education that you ended up in Poland
DS: Yes I got a scholarship straight away from UNESCO.
JW: Yes OK. So tell me how, how did you feel – knowing that you’d be leaving Kenya, leaving Africa behind?
DS: Right – well it was something that we all, most of us all wanted to, we all wanted to travel out, you understand in a foreign country. So – some of my classmates of course they went straight to the local universities – I got a scholarship and it was something that I really appreciated, something that I struggled to get otherwise because there was a set of interviews and tests – there was excitement and at the same time a bit of fear – a sense of fear that, you know, there’s a big question mark, really, where are you going to. So anyway – by and large it was a positive expectation to travel to Poland for further studies.
JW: How long did you live in Poland?
DS: Well so I came, I flew to Poland 1982, I had one year of local, pre-university education that meant learning Polish as well and some subjects that related to the main course. And I was in Poland from 1982 to 1989.
JW: Oh right OK. So a very interesting time politically.
DS: Yes politically, right
JW: Did you engage with it?
DS: Well we, we distributed pamphlets for the solidarity movement because most of our colleagues from university could not or rather they were under the eye of the big brother so it was easier for foreign students to, to collect and distribute pamphlets of course anti government pamphlets for solidarity movement. Being international students we were not often, you were not often under the rudder [sic], we sort of, they felt we were – harmless.
JW: Is this something you did willingly or were you…?
DS: Yeah we did willingly, we knew what, what the polish solidarity movement was fighting for – some of us had, had now grown into that level whereby we could compare to future of a society leading this kind of social political system and the, the importance of the possibility of developing the human being – without, without freedom we rarely can, we can rarely enjoy the fruits of our labour and therefore this was on a voluntary basis yes, voluntary and no pay so do it in the evenings or drive around and delivery behind churches and schools and things like that yes, or factories, yes,
JW: Ok so – you left Poland then in 1989, is that when you came to the UK?
DS: Well in 1988 there was a bit of political instability in Kenya so by 1989 the, the leadership, the Kenyan leadership was under a lot of pressure to change from a more mono-political system to a plural politics – plural politics in Kenya so and that time there, there was a lot of corruption within the ruling clique so you would be surprised that somehow – my scholarship was – discontinued. I did get my air ticket to return to Kenya so in 1989 after graduation I went to Sweden and worked in the firms to get enough money to pay for my air ticket. Worked in Sweden for one year, come back to Poland, got married and flew to Kenya.
JW: When did you - set foot in England then? When did you move over to the UK?
DS: Right, yeah I move to the UK in 2006. Yes well fairly recent yeah
JW: Yes – Is that due to employment or, or what?
DS: More or less yes, because in, we went to Kenya and we got jobs, I and my ex-wife. So we, we felt that – again we could not fully – realise our dreams – now we’re talking about setting up a family and having the necessary amenities as a family. So at the same time we were monitoring the situation in Poland and Europe and we knew that in the early 2 around 2000 – Poland was almost was ready to join the EU. And we felt that the job market would be wider so we again came back to Poland and we go jobs and my wife got a job with – an English company and she was posted to London. So – I stayed in Poland because I had, I had some responsibility – I was working for a public school as well as a private school and therefore I followed her much later so she got a job in 2004 and I followed her in 2006. Yes so 2006 I came over there and – I felt that in terms of bringing , bringing up your family this was a better place once again than Poland – I wanted my kids to have a more opportunities and, I, a lot, a lot more - chances to develop themselves, but better chances to develop themselves. Yeah so I decided to settle again, settle here.
JW: OK so tell me about this sort of community that you moved into in London. Did you feel as though you were part of a community, part of a wider city. How, how quickly did you feel that you, you’d got your feet under the table? In England.
DS: Well. Actually we, I didn’t live in London for a long time, only for 6 months and that time I wasn’t very sure I wanted to settle here, I wanted to continue with my job in Poland so it was like the summer holidays and then December was up and down travelling to Poland and back but - yes it’s, it’s much easier for - I think for an educated Kenyan to, to settle down here, - you do not expect things to be – that easy but at the same time – at the same time you have a sense of tolerance for any incidences whereby you may, once in a while feel, feel a foreigner but it’s not as much as you would like, you would find in other societies especially if you are widely travelled you’ve been to many places, I’ve been to Sweden, I’ve lived in Japan as well, that was much earlier. Yes. So.
JW: Make some - comparisons contrasts between how you felt part of London though you weren’t there for long and how you feel part of Hull... or how you felt part of Hull in the first six months or so of being here.
DS: Not so much, there’s very little difference between London and Hull.
JW: I would find a huge difference myself.
DS: Apart from, well apart from the accents and – in London – I rarely drove, I rarely used my car in London. So I remember going into a bus, onto a bus and – nobody would look who’s sitting next to who as oppose to Poland you would find yourself you know having a seat, the whole seat to yourself everybody sits, well whether it’s because they respect you or fear you is another question, I don’t know. So you feel that you are not different, that’s London. On coming here the only thing was ‘wha’ without the ‘t’ instead of ‘what’ and I kept saying, “Sorry, wha…”.
Right, the first time I went to a recruitment agency I kept on saying “Sorry” and - it really made me a bit, little bit nervous. I couldn’t understand what they were talking about, otherwise it’s quite easy to assimilate and feel part of the community. Within a short time I had made friends within the estate the, where my house was so it’s not, it’s not something you would … into for a long time … or in depth.
JW: So when did you actually come to Hull?
DS: In 2007, 2007 February, and I was lucky I got a job within 3 days in a factory, so I didn’t want to waste time.
JW: Tell us where, tell us where, which factory?
DS: I worked for Garthwest, it used to be a paper factory, cardboard, yes packaging - very nice people actually. I was visibly the smallest in the production line so some well-built fellows would tell me, “Come on, step aside, this is the way we push the paper cardboards”. I really liked it, I was physically fit, very physically fit then because, you know, a lot of movement. I worked there for 3 months then moved on to Bishop Burton, now within my area of study, so I was a tutor there until 2009 and then I moved to Hull College.
JW: Do you keep in touch with family and friends back in Kenya?
DS: Yes I do.
JW: How do you describe Hull to your family and friends when you’re writing to them, communicating with them?
DS: Yes, it’s a bit awkward. Hull doesn’t seem to have made an effort to sell itself in the international community. People would ask me, “Sorry, where is Hull?” It sits somewhere between London and Manchester, right. People know York, people know Leeds, but Hull is “Hool? Hull, ok, right”. I think Hull has not in the recent past made a concerted effort to popularise itself. I don’t know whether it’s because the shipping companies are going down the drain or the institutions have not marketed themselves properly, I don’t know why, most Kenyans would not know where Hull is. Of course the football-crazy youngsters would tell me who plays what position for Hull City, in Kenya, I wouldn’t know who plays where, but generally it’s not popular, not many people know about Hull.
JW: In terms of Wilberforce, how widely is Wilberforce and what Wilberforce did from this city, how widely is that know amongst your…
DS: I think he’s one of the most famous sons of the city, and he’s, especially for the well-read, he’s appreciated the world over, all over the world. Even some of my students from the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Kuwait, they will know about Wilberforce and we always make an effort to take some of our students, you know for a walk around the museums and the historical places, like the Fish Trail, it’s very popular with our students, especially early spring when no one wants to be indoors. So yeah, Wilberforce, William Wilberforce, I think has a special place in the hearts of people of goodwill and I think he remains a valued contributor to the welfare of us all because we all can imagine those days, someone questioning what was established as a way of living, or a way of socio-economic development, and therefore I think he needs, William Wilberforce, needs his idea, still needs to be propagated and, and people need to discuss about whether his efforts and his dream is still, needs to be you know, enforced further or have we reached a stage whereby we can , you know, say it’s been done.
JW: So to what extent do you feel free?
DS: Well I think yeah, I think once in a while people need to reflect and discuss about - how we, did we backslide somehow in terms of the use of human power unfairly, the unfair exploitation of human beings ... So definitely, definitely his contribution is still felt today, that means most of, most human beings are free, there is still that underground, unassuming kind of, what you call it, human trafficking, right, and I think that’s the thing, some of the things people need to you know reflect upon and find solutions, that is to make sense for, the idea behind the entire historical development to be lost.
JW: To what extent do you think boundaries are still important, geographical boundaries?
DS: There is that sense of vandalism (?) amongst young people, but I think we still need boundaries, national boundaries, geographical boundaries. Perhaps there are arguments against the strict - combining of, you know, nations and nationalities in one places, in one place so, yeah, amongst young people there is an overwhelming majority of them, they feel they are Europeans - a big number, they are British rather than English, Scottish, Welsh, and I think that’s a good thing, but you see in times of hardship it takes a little effort to cause problems, so in times of economic or unemployment, problems of any kind, some people will feel like what they’ve always thought to be true isn’t beneficial to them, that’s why, for example, the Brexit succeeded. If it was during the economic boom then that would not have been a question, yeah, but I think we all realise that mistake are made, are made to be corrected. I think the majority of especially young people do feel things have been short changed a bit that they are more European, more British, you know, more universal citizens, global citizens.
JW: What do you hope people will take away from this story you have shared with us?
DS: Oh yeah, that sometimes it’s possible to have an idea that may be a bit weird, may be a bit out of place, and with time some of those ideas may be realised, that like a twelve year old boy, hiding coats in the evening classes and see a plane and say, “One time I will fly it or fly in it”. Yeah, so yeah things are possible. I think the more widely travelled we are the more tolerant we tend to become. I think we are a little bit wiser because we’ve collected lots and lots of things on the way, I think it’s a good thing that most young people today will travel to different places before they take up permanent employment or before they finish university and I think it is a good thing that we become responsible for our actions, wherever we are, and - I think we become more familiar with the differences between us and the strengths of humanity.
JW: Dan, thank you very much.
DS: Thank you.
Interviewer: Jerome Whittingham
Date: 6 September 2016
JW: Dan, lovely to meet you - For the sake of the listen, can you introduce yourself to us please?
DS: My name is Dan, Dan Syanda - I was born in Kenya and – I went to school in Kenya. My ‘O’ levels and ‘A’ Levels in Kenya and after my ‘A’ levels - I got a scholarship to Poland.
JW: A scholarship to Poland - So, let’s go, let’s go a little bit further back then, before you head off to Poland, which we will come to, sounds very exciting. Tell me about your childhood and family back in Kenya.
DS: Well, it was an ordinary, ordinary childhood. We weren’t – very- , we weren’t elite – we weren’t very poor - we were just an ordinary family. There were six of us – four boys and two girls. I am the fourth born in the family – my dad was a machine operator for a German company for many, many years. My mum, as would expect in those days – she was, she still is, a housewife. So she basically took care of most everything in the family, yes.
JW: So when you say, ‘those days’, which decade are we talking about?
DS: Yeah well, that was in early, early, mid 60s to early 70s.
JW: You say you had, - you know, average childhood and average family – nothing out of the ordinary but you know but obviously we are looking at this from a UK perspective so can you sort of expand just a bit more on what average meant? What was your house like? What was your village like?
DS: In a Kenyan context it would mean that – in the sixties one had enough food for the family and the kids weren’t going about naked and they had enough to eat – we had one or two bicycles to share between the five of us before the youngest girl was born. So, that meant we, we weren’t poor, you see. Of course we had slippers and sometimes we were walking about barefooted but that was fine. We all went to school – which meant that the parents could take care of their young ones, I mean their children. So that’s what I meant by average. We didn’t have electricity. We didn’t have piped water, we had a well nearby, that meant something for the entire village. We didn’t have to go very far. So yeah, yeah, it was a good life actually.
JW: Good, good a really enjoyable childhood then. So, what were your parents’ expectations for you and for your siblings?
DS: Right, so since we are talking about the 60s, and we have to note that Kenya became independent in 1963 and therefore it means that my father had experienced the – entire structures of – colonialism therefore - Kenya being between five and six years into independence, most of the parents wanted, you know, their kids to study hard and be somebody. So it meant therefore that - all the parents were expecting us to go into engineering, teaching, medicine, but not music.
JW: Not music. Why the objection to music?
DS: Yeah, I don’t know. There was that, there was that kind of general assumption that - going into music – going into bands – and music groups meant – demoralisation of some kind or lowering of morals and therefore I don’t know – it had a bad connotation to go into music - but they all wanted us to go and become a teacher, or a doctor, journalist. Yes.
JW: So, so being told not to do something usually makes a young person want to do that thing.
DS: Right, yes – but - my parents weren’t that – you know, very strict on matters of interest. That is if one showed an interest in something, they sort of supported it – I wanted to be a pilot – almost became a laughing stock within the village, ‘How can you fly something up in the air’ – so, yeah, so we had all kinds of ambitions.
JW: Where had that thought to be a pilot come from? DS: I don’t know! I was just fascinated by, you know – planes flying over the region and – and always wondered how it would be for one to view the land from up there.
JW: Was it more a case that you were wanting tickets to travel, do you think?
DS: Could be – My grandma used to say it was a little bit crazy and later on she said ‘ Oh yes, the craziness later on became a reality’, but I ended up travelling to many places.
JW: So, tell me about your teenage years in particular. Did you engage with any sort of cultural activity or sporting activity? What was your obsession as a sort of 15 to 16 year old?
DS: Yeah, I was, I was more into books – a bookworm, I would say. I - two of my brothers were into athletics – but I liked football - and table tennis – I’d never participated in traditional dances because again, there was that assumption that kind of a cloak around traditional music that, you go into that kind of - practice and you will not be able to study well. So, - some of the neighbours were very much into -traditional music in the evenings, youngsters would cluster around the village in the evenings and sing so – yeah – I was more into books – I was more into things that weren’t around us – sort of. I remember the first time I read a newspaper – it was like ‘Oops!’ Yes, it talked about the other, you know, parts of the country. So – yeah, traditional music was not in, was not my interest – but I very much into church and Sunday school. I remember the African Inland Church – which was one of the oldest churches in that part of the country.
JW: Was that the norm, for a young person to be so engaged with the local church?
DS: Yes and we were all encouraged to go to Sunday school. That meant - you’d be in school from Monday to Friday and Saturday you’re off and Sunday you’d spent the whole day in the church, singing or you know, walking around singing the gospel and spreading the word.
JW: So, what did you know of western culture in your sort of mid to last teens, as a young man?
DS: Right, in the early teens, I had no clue at all about western culture – All we knew was - that the nearby shops were being run by - Indians and must have been Portuguese – and they all spoke the local vernacular. So - we felt that they may have come from far but they were part of us. I remember we, we could not imagine that they were from far. Well, when I went into upper primary school, then of course we had Geography and History and therefore we started learning about other countries – the history of religions. C.R.E. we used to call it, Christian Religious Education – And History, Geography – I was quite good in Geography so I knew where - most of the countries and continents were located.
JW: How broad was your history study?
DS: Yeah – it was much later on I realised that we, we studied history that was not really much into what - would – create a critical mind. It was not something that would initiate us into thinking - because we were cramming dates and events. 1666, London burning and things like that – I think – 1770 - something – the American – civil war and the French Revolution. Only the dates and the events and who did what and of course, William Wilberforce – John Livingston.
JW: What were you told of William Wilberforce, then?
DS: Yeah – You see this is the man who, against all odds, fought to end slavery – and of course we couldn’t imagine what was slavery. We just thought ‘oh, something worse than colonialism’ and – yeah - there were all kinds of dates, names and events, yes. There wasn’t anything that would sort of – help us to discuss, in terms of ‘if it didn’t happen what else could have happen’ or ‘why did these events take place the way they did?’
JW: So, as a much younger boy you had this vision of becoming a pilot and flying. How old were you when it really dawned on you that actually yes, you could get out and travel?
DS: I think I was 14 – I went to school a bit late - because the primary school was quite far and the head of school had a very funny way of - guessing what age you were. Note that in those days most of us were born in villages so we did not have the normal, ordinary birth certificate. So, you would go there and they would tell you ‘ok touch your ear from this end’ and therefore I couldn’t even though I must have been around seven [years old]. And they’d say ‘No, go back, you’re still young’.
JW: Can you do that now?
DS: Well I think I can yeah. At the age of 13 or 14, I got a government scholarship the only young person from my village to get a government scholarship. Note that in Kenya those days education was all paid for, it wasn’t free education. So I got a government scholarship, I went to a National School. So out of the forty-four – provinces in Kenya, we called them provinces but now they are counties – I was in a class of twenty-two and there were two streams so forty-four from each one from each district and this school had been previously, had been run by missionaries they were Irish and – the Irish all Irish missionaries. But it was in the process of being taken over by the local Catholic Church in Kenya and they use to have a navigation course at school so I ended up in school which owned a plane, a glider so, so yeah, it was, it was quite an experience to go to that school, so I was there for four years and ….
JW: So you came out with good grades, you got yourself a good education.
DS: Yes, from primary school I had the best grades in the district, so I got a scholarship – so they took the best from each province – sorry from every district and yeah, I went to that school and we formed classes of young people from the best, with the best grades and I was there for four years and - yeah, it was a good experience as well.
JW: So later education? Further education? Higher education? Did you do that back in Kenya?
DS: Yeah, so I was there for four years and so then after that I continued to – to A levels. At A levels of course I touched more on the mathematics, physics, geography, biology it used to be MPGB, well the best ones were MPC, maths physics and Chemistry but I wanted four and of course I was more interested in other matters so I went to Civil Education which was an option not obligated, it was not in the curriculum but if you wanted it, then one would take it.
Yes so I was there for, for two more years and – that no 1981 I finished and that’s when I got a scholarship to Poland in 1982.
JW: Right Ok. So it’s through education that you ended up in Poland
DS: Yes I got a scholarship straight away from UNESCO.
JW: Yes OK. So tell me how, how did you feel – knowing that you’d be leaving Kenya, leaving Africa behind?
DS: Right – well it was something that we all, most of us all wanted to, we all wanted to travel out, you understand in a foreign country. So – some of my classmates of course they went straight to the local universities – I got a scholarship and it was something that I really appreciated, something that I struggled to get otherwise because there was a set of interviews and tests – there was excitement and at the same time a bit of fear – a sense of fear that, you know, there’s a big question mark, really, where are you going to. So anyway – by and large it was a positive expectation to travel to Poland for further studies.
JW: How long did you live in Poland?
DS: Well so I came, I flew to Poland 1982, I had one year of local, pre-university education that meant learning Polish as well and some subjects that related to the main course. And I was in Poland from 1982 to 1989.
JW: Oh right OK. So a very interesting time politically.
DS: Yes politically, right
JW: Did you engage with it?
DS: Well we, we distributed pamphlets for the solidarity movement because most of our colleagues from university could not or rather they were under the eye of the big brother so it was easier for foreign students to, to collect and distribute pamphlets of course anti government pamphlets for solidarity movement. Being international students we were not often, you were not often under the rudder [sic], we sort of, they felt we were – harmless.
JW: Is this something you did willingly or were you…?
DS: Yeah we did willingly, we knew what, what the polish solidarity movement was fighting for – some of us had, had now grown into that level whereby we could compare to future of a society leading this kind of social political system and the, the importance of the possibility of developing the human being – without, without freedom we rarely can, we can rarely enjoy the fruits of our labour and therefore this was on a voluntary basis yes, voluntary and no pay so do it in the evenings or drive around and delivery behind churches and schools and things like that yes, or factories, yes,
JW: Ok so – you left Poland then in 1989, is that when you came to the UK?
DS: Well in 1988 there was a bit of political instability in Kenya so by 1989 the, the leadership, the Kenyan leadership was under a lot of pressure to change from a more mono-political system to a plural politics – plural politics in Kenya so and that time there, there was a lot of corruption within the ruling clique so you would be surprised that somehow – my scholarship was – discontinued. I did get my air ticket to return to Kenya so in 1989 after graduation I went to Sweden and worked in the firms to get enough money to pay for my air ticket. Worked in Sweden for one year, come back to Poland, got married and flew to Kenya.
JW: When did you - set foot in England then? When did you move over to the UK?
DS: Right, yeah I move to the UK in 2006. Yes well fairly recent yeah
JW: Yes – Is that due to employment or, or what?
DS: More or less yes, because in, we went to Kenya and we got jobs, I and my ex-wife. So we, we felt that – again we could not fully – realise our dreams – now we’re talking about setting up a family and having the necessary amenities as a family. So at the same time we were monitoring the situation in Poland and Europe and we knew that in the early 2 around 2000 – Poland was almost was ready to join the EU. And we felt that the job market would be wider so we again came back to Poland and we go jobs and my wife got a job with – an English company and she was posted to London. So – I stayed in Poland because I had, I had some responsibility – I was working for a public school as well as a private school and therefore I followed her much later so she got a job in 2004 and I followed her in 2006. Yes so 2006 I came over there and – I felt that in terms of bringing , bringing up your family this was a better place once again than Poland – I wanted my kids to have a more opportunities and, I, a lot, a lot more - chances to develop themselves, but better chances to develop themselves. Yeah so I decided to settle again, settle here.
JW: OK so tell me about this sort of community that you moved into in London. Did you feel as though you were part of a community, part of a wider city. How, how quickly did you feel that you, you’d got your feet under the table? In England.
DS: Well. Actually we, I didn’t live in London for a long time, only for 6 months and that time I wasn’t very sure I wanted to settle here, I wanted to continue with my job in Poland so it was like the summer holidays and then December was up and down travelling to Poland and back but - yes it’s, it’s much easier for - I think for an educated Kenyan to, to settle down here, - you do not expect things to be – that easy but at the same time – at the same time you have a sense of tolerance for any incidences whereby you may, once in a while feel, feel a foreigner but it’s not as much as you would like, you would find in other societies especially if you are widely travelled you’ve been to many places, I’ve been to Sweden, I’ve lived in Japan as well, that was much earlier. Yes. So.
JW: Make some - comparisons contrasts between how you felt part of London though you weren’t there for long and how you feel part of Hull... or how you felt part of Hull in the first six months or so of being here.
DS: Not so much, there’s very little difference between London and Hull.
JW: I would find a huge difference myself.
DS: Apart from, well apart from the accents and – in London – I rarely drove, I rarely used my car in London. So I remember going into a bus, onto a bus and – nobody would look who’s sitting next to who as oppose to Poland you would find yourself you know having a seat, the whole seat to yourself everybody sits, well whether it’s because they respect you or fear you is another question, I don’t know. So you feel that you are not different, that’s London. On coming here the only thing was ‘wha’ without the ‘t’ instead of ‘what’ and I kept saying, “Sorry, wha…”.
Right, the first time I went to a recruitment agency I kept on saying “Sorry” and - it really made me a bit, little bit nervous. I couldn’t understand what they were talking about, otherwise it’s quite easy to assimilate and feel part of the community. Within a short time I had made friends within the estate the, where my house was so it’s not, it’s not something you would … into for a long time … or in depth.
JW: So when did you actually come to Hull?
DS: In 2007, 2007 February, and I was lucky I got a job within 3 days in a factory, so I didn’t want to waste time.
JW: Tell us where, tell us where, which factory?
DS: I worked for Garthwest, it used to be a paper factory, cardboard, yes packaging - very nice people actually. I was visibly the smallest in the production line so some well-built fellows would tell me, “Come on, step aside, this is the way we push the paper cardboards”. I really liked it, I was physically fit, very physically fit then because, you know, a lot of movement. I worked there for 3 months then moved on to Bishop Burton, now within my area of study, so I was a tutor there until 2009 and then I moved to Hull College.
JW: Do you keep in touch with family and friends back in Kenya?
DS: Yes I do.
JW: How do you describe Hull to your family and friends when you’re writing to them, communicating with them?
DS: Yes, it’s a bit awkward. Hull doesn’t seem to have made an effort to sell itself in the international community. People would ask me, “Sorry, where is Hull?” It sits somewhere between London and Manchester, right. People know York, people know Leeds, but Hull is “Hool? Hull, ok, right”. I think Hull has not in the recent past made a concerted effort to popularise itself. I don’t know whether it’s because the shipping companies are going down the drain or the institutions have not marketed themselves properly, I don’t know why, most Kenyans would not know where Hull is. Of course the football-crazy youngsters would tell me who plays what position for Hull City, in Kenya, I wouldn’t know who plays where, but generally it’s not popular, not many people know about Hull.
JW: In terms of Wilberforce, how widely is Wilberforce and what Wilberforce did from this city, how widely is that know amongst your…
DS: I think he’s one of the most famous sons of the city, and he’s, especially for the well-read, he’s appreciated the world over, all over the world. Even some of my students from the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Kuwait, they will know about Wilberforce and we always make an effort to take some of our students, you know for a walk around the museums and the historical places, like the Fish Trail, it’s very popular with our students, especially early spring when no one wants to be indoors. So yeah, Wilberforce, William Wilberforce, I think has a special place in the hearts of people of goodwill and I think he remains a valued contributor to the welfare of us all because we all can imagine those days, someone questioning what was established as a way of living, or a way of socio-economic development, and therefore I think he needs, William Wilberforce, needs his idea, still needs to be propagated and, and people need to discuss about whether his efforts and his dream is still, needs to be you know, enforced further or have we reached a stage whereby we can , you know, say it’s been done.
JW: So to what extent do you feel free?
DS: Well I think yeah, I think once in a while people need to reflect and discuss about - how we, did we backslide somehow in terms of the use of human power unfairly, the unfair exploitation of human beings ... So definitely, definitely his contribution is still felt today, that means most of, most human beings are free, there is still that underground, unassuming kind of, what you call it, human trafficking, right, and I think that’s the thing, some of the things people need to you know reflect upon and find solutions, that is to make sense for, the idea behind the entire historical development to be lost.
JW: To what extent do you think boundaries are still important, geographical boundaries?
DS: There is that sense of vandalism (?) amongst young people, but I think we still need boundaries, national boundaries, geographical boundaries. Perhaps there are arguments against the strict - combining of, you know, nations and nationalities in one places, in one place so, yeah, amongst young people there is an overwhelming majority of them, they feel they are Europeans - a big number, they are British rather than English, Scottish, Welsh, and I think that’s a good thing, but you see in times of hardship it takes a little effort to cause problems, so in times of economic or unemployment, problems of any kind, some people will feel like what they’ve always thought to be true isn’t beneficial to them, that’s why, for example, the Brexit succeeded. If it was during the economic boom then that would not have been a question, yeah, but I think we all realise that mistake are made, are made to be corrected. I think the majority of especially young people do feel things have been short changed a bit that they are more European, more British, you know, more universal citizens, global citizens.
JW: What do you hope people will take away from this story you have shared with us?
DS: Oh yeah, that sometimes it’s possible to have an idea that may be a bit weird, may be a bit out of place, and with time some of those ideas may be realised, that like a twelve year old boy, hiding coats in the evening classes and see a plane and say, “One time I will fly it or fly in it”. Yeah, so yeah things are possible. I think the more widely travelled we are the more tolerant we tend to become. I think we are a little bit wiser because we’ve collected lots and lots of things on the way, I think it’s a good thing that most young people today will travel to different places before they take up permanent employment or before they finish university and I think it is a good thing that we become responsible for our actions, wherever we are, and - I think we become more familiar with the differences between us and the strengths of humanity.
JW: Dan, thank you very much.
DS: Thank you.