David Gambe
David was born in 1934 in Bulawayo, Rhodesia in one of the first townships built after the British took over the country. He remembers listening to his grandfather bitterly recounting how he lost part of his arm fighting against white colonial rule. He recalls the casual racism in his youth by a playmate who thought blackness could be washed away and the more sinister attitude in adulthood that prohibited certain career paths because of the colour bar. He arrived in England in 1967 under a trade union scholarship scheme and had a variety of careers which started with music and ended in social work with nearly 30 years of service at Hull City Council.
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Transcription: David Gambe Interview
Interview with David Gambe
Interviewer: Jerome Whittingham
Date: 2017
JW: If you can tell me who you are and what is your connection to Africa?
DG: My name is David Charles Gambe - from Zimbabwe.
JW: And when were you born in Zimbabwe?
DG: - I was born in 1934 on the 10th of March - in the, well, the western part of Zimbabwe.
JW: What are your earliest memories then of being in Zimbabwe?
DG: I remember enjoying - a ride on - on a family bull out in the bush - with my grandfather holding me and I was - I think that is memory of a very painful experience. I must have been two or three? Yes, my mother came to take me back to town, that where we lived, in town, but my grandparents lived out, out in the bush. The next time we came back, I ran around looking for the bull, you know, “where is it? Where is…we use to call him Jacob, he wasn’t there but I go to the back of one of the huts there and there was a skin, a black skin, I stood there and thought, “what’s happening?” but I can’t remember exactly what my…how my brain was functioning. Then my grandmother said, “Oh that is Jacob, we…we…you have a lot of meat today and I sobbed.
The other memory of my life in the bush, well in country rather, was - running - out the house with my mother, her sister, my sister, and two others, but I can’t really remember the other two. I must have been three, or two and a half or something, because I was partly naked actually, and they were saying “run old man.” Where we lived is in an area of Zimbabwe where there is a lot of sand, so when you’re running, your feet and I was wearing no shoes and obviously being in the bush you don’t need shoes, you don’t need trousers, - I was very, I don’t know why, I was stupidly happy. I was really very pleased. I’ll always remember the - the happiness and my mother saying “run, run old man, run…run.” But I was the only child then.
The memories I have most towards - in Bulawayo where we lived, rather than my grandparent’s place, - I was still breast feeding at three, you know, I was still enjoying my mother’s tasty milk if you like. What follows from that time, is - the memory of sometime I was taken to the country to my grandparents. I didn’t know why, I just thought it just was another holiday. But when I came back, I found my mother was breast feeding a brat, that’s my young brother. When they took me to the country, I didn’t know, well I did know she was pregnant actually, but that was the reason they got me out of the way so that she doesn’t have a lot of work to do. When I came back there was my little brother. I don’t think I ever got very friendly with him actually. I always, I did a bit of psychology later in life. They talk about - rivalry.
JW: Sibling rivalry.
DG: Sibling rivalry, and - where it comes, where it started, and I always think - I didn’t like my brother, and I knew I didn’t, but I didn’t know why...
JW: Tell me something about the village or town where you grew up?
DG: Well I grew up in Bulawayo - in the first township that was built when - the English took over our country. Makokoba it is called, Bulawayo. Of course, that’s the …all I knew, apart from a very short period before my parents got the - the house, the tenancy rather, that’s what I was looking for, in this township. My father was a waiter, he was a, they called him a head waiter, although if you ask him, he would say he was “a heart waiter.” He was a head waiter, he was. So he, they got accommodation - in the garden of this very big hotel where he worked, the Keko Hotel. So we lived there during my very young age. I used to play with the children of one of, I think he was the manager of the hotel, and I remember one incident were, were he was holding me, my arm, my hand, and he was saying “no, tell mummy, tell mummy you should wash it,” because my arm was black, and he thought that was dirt. He’d tell me “my mummy to wash my hand.” But that was play, just playful. We were very happy. That was before my brother was born. So I was a happy young man.
The other thing I remember, I think it must be, must have been my first English word that I learnt apart from “no” - “nothing” I used to pronounce that word as “nothinga,” you know with an “inga”, and I don’t know whether that was a child, a child way of pronunciation or it was from some place here. What else do I remember?
JW: So how many brothers and sisters do you have?
DG: Oh, and I had 5 brothers and 2 sisters, and the sad thing is that I’m the only one alive.
JW: What did your mum do? Did your mum work?
DG: No, no, no. My mother was a housewife.
JW: So did you get any perks then - from the hotel?
DG: Oh I don’t know. I think I did, well I would have been like two or three or four, what perks. If I did, I didn’t know they were perks. I just thought this is how we lived. I remember the - wife of the owner- the lady of the hotel, used to bring - like a carpet mat put it on the green grass and my mother too and - they would bring a lemonade, things like that for me and the boy to sit there and they would be sitting there. My mother used to be fond of crocheting, is it?
JW: Crochet
DG: Yeah, crochet. My - grandfather - was, he’d been one of the chaps that were the resistors to the British, you know. Because we’re talking about, that country was taken over in 1896 or 1897, that time, and so my father was already born and - So my grandfather was still alive when I was born and - yeah he had - one of his arms blown off. It’s not many times I think must have been two or three times, whenever we walked together into town in the centre of Bulawayo’s main street there was this cannon and my grandfather would, yes, he would be holding me with his right hand and he used to say “David do you see that? I would say “Yes”, “That is what knocked this, my arm off, yes that is what knocked my arm.” “Oh no.” “Oh yes that is what knocked my arm…” I use to be very, very angry, very angry and he use to say “when you grow up, you must - you must fight to get rid of these white people,” and I use to say “yes, yes” and then say “what about so and so, my little friend,” and he would say, “get rid of him!” To me, colour and politics or race was not an issue because I did not know what we were fight for except my grandfather was fighting for that cannon.
On my first day at school, first day at school 1940, I had a fight. Very first day at school, I was punished because the other guy came and sat next to me and, I can’t seem to remember what else we had done, but we started punching each other on the floor.
JW: Was school all Black?
DG: Was school, pardon?
JW: Was school all Black?
DG: Oh yes, oh yes, yes.
JW: So what about the rest of your school life, did it improve after that?
DG: Oh school life was ok. Yes, I never failed.
JW: What were your favourite subjects?
DG: At school, oh, actually I enjoyed - learning about animals. I enjoyed learning about animals. I could say I enjoyed learning English language and arithmetics as we use to call it. But what I would probably be saying is I excelled on those two subjects. What I enjoyed doing was singing. Well I really enjoyed singing. Oh I really enjoyed singing, yes, at school. I did not enjoy athletics when it was games day. Partly because - at that time I was a little bit overweight.
JW: When you were, sort of, a very young man mid-teens 16 years old or so, had you got any ambitions career wise; anything that you were aiming for?
DG: Yeah - we use to sell newspapers where we lived, well my home was about a mile from the Newspaper Distribution Office. This particular paper was The African Paper and we used to go selling papers. We would go there and they would give you 12 papers or 10, you go, sell them and come back with the cash and they’d give you a shilling or whatever. Yeah and I use to enjoy reading and there was some people whose names had initials at the end, so like, you know, John so and so, MP and so so and so MP, and I thought that the MP was a qualification, Master of Politics, yes so I was going to go to the university and study master of politics.
You see, coming from Rhodesia where as a Black person, your position is already determined by their colour. There were certain jobs or professions which you dared dreamed to enter because there is nothing you can do. I did later dream to be a lawyer, and fortunately I did study. I wanted to be a lawyer when I was back home and I was advised, you know, it’s stupid, you know. You haven't seen a Black Lawyer so.
JW: When, when did that realization dawn on you?
DG: That which?
JW: That – there were certain careers and professions that you were never going to be able to achieve.
DG: Oh! I can’t. I can’t remember when in terms of time but- any young person from that country – knows what jobs they will not apply to. Not now, I mean when I was growing up - a lot of jobs that you knew that were reserved for white people.
JW: What was your first job?
DG: Yes, the first what I would call a job was – in a brass band. What had happened when I was - a little boy, I think, I was a cub scout – our cub master had a bugle and – he, he taught me, taught me how to play the bugle and he, he left it with me, said, every, every, can’t remember the date we used to meet twice a week, – you must bring the bugle and when we do the marching you, you, play the bugle. OK? Yes, so when I left school – we had a family friend who worked in – in a brass band so I got a job – in that brass band and the first time, oh the first time I was learning the clarinet. Yes I played the se… yes I think it was second clarinet and something happened. I don’t know if they had got broken or what I can’t remember now – they gave me a, a cornet because I’d been a, a bugler and after that bugling job I got – simple jobs in China Town. I can’t even, at the - Light Plane Club they called it.
Light Plane Club where people learnt how to fly. We had Tiger Moths you know, the two winged things and we had Oysters and we had yeah and so my job was really to look after the clubhouse, receive – the payments from the members and also to help pilots when they, when they.. I used to look after the aircraft, pull them out, out get them ready for the – learner pilot and I would be the one swinging the, the propeller, you know to, to enable the plane to start and quite often I would – then jump in – and, and then, then fly with the pilot.
Yes, that’s one wonderful experience but I had friends who used to, to come and see me – I used to tell them that “I go by plane,” you know and I, I in my, my job but I didn’t really. But they didn’t know they thought I was the pilot because in a tiger moth you know there are these two, yeah the pilot sits at the back - the front space is for the passenger so they are they are two places, the pilot sits at the back and the passenger sits at the front and for some reason they believed I was the pilot because they would see me in the you know, jumping in the front and the plane flying.
JW: Did you ever have to use that parachute?
DG: No, no but I was, I was taught how to do it if I needed to and I was, I was given all the equipment that you need including a revolver and – yes, we used to fly not very far. - Bulawayo is my home town. We, we, we used to fly maybe ten, twenty miles out of town and come back. I would sometimes fly twice – with one pilot and then another pilot and – yeah.
JW: Let’s find out how you came to the UK. How did that happen?
DG: Oh I was not smuggled. How I came to the UK, how I started. I was studying, I had been – a trade unionist and – the ICFTU, International Confederation of Free Trade Unions – they always ad, advertised -, - for places for colleges and universities for some of the member, some of their members who were able to, who were wishing to be trained, who wished to study. So that’s just the benefit of being a trade unionist in a, in a Country like that, a poor country, so I was, I, I had already done my – I, I had failed two or three of my A levels -, yeah but I was still going on I was still studying – when this – thing came and I was asked if I wanted to go to Ruskin College in Oxford where I would study.
JW: Gosh!
DG: “What would you like to be?” “Oh I would like to be a lawyer.” Oh wow, yes, yes I didn’t become a lawyer but I say that – anyway that’s how I got a place at Ruskin and I went in 1967 and I was at Heathrow on the second of October 1967 and caught a lift from, no, yes someone was there to meet me and she took me to Paddington and to the station where I then – board a train and went to Oxford.
JW: So tell me about the shock of landing in the UK. What, what were your first impressions?
DG: Well, hmmm, this British Consul lady took me to Paddington but before we got to, to Paddington yes – she said she was taking me to P, to Paddington and we go through Paddington is on the other side – west London that side and I asked her if she could -, - take me to the offices of the, of the funding – people, the Public Services, International offices in London and because I knew, I knew some of the people there, the people who were actually paying for me. They were the same people who were funding my trade union – so she, she said yes.
Now we travelled from Heathrow, travelled, travelled looking at these dirty, dirty, dirty houses, you know, all the buildings, full of, as they were full of soot, you know, who… in my head had, I, I knew London was a very beautiful place, golden walls of… and I said, I said to her “When are we going to get to London?” and she said, “No, we have been driving in, in London for the last…” I don’t know what she said, forty five minutes or what, whatever. I said “Is this London?” She said, “Yes.” That was the first impression of a very filthy city. London was very filthy but that’s because I was used to the press, impression – Buckingham Palace and -, the Houses of Parliament. When you see them in pictures they, they all look golden don’t they, you know as if there is gold and that was the first thing and oh a lot of other problems about being in England, coming from that Country.
The first one which I told – I told a meeting of students in Oxford was I could see, I could, I could be, yes I could be seen as someone who was running away from Ian Smith cause he was the - Prime Minister. So I landed in Oxford. Oh I was housed that night, there were no many students but – I was given a bed in the – students’ – house – which is called Smith House, pooh, Smith House, this House, belonged to, you know the Smith I left at home, I don’t, I don’t, didn’t say anything but two, two days later I was introduced or someone introduced to me “Hello, hello my name is…” She was a Miss Smith. I looked at her and I thought I aren’t touching you and she was a Miss Smith. I hope she doesn’t hear this – and – we started classes I think – three, four days later and my, I, my lecturer, no, no my, my Supervisor – was a Mr Smith. So, just feel, just think how that feels. Who is my enemy? Mr Smith back home and what, who are you with here. They, they are all Smiths, Smiths.
JW: So what course were you reading at Oxford?
DG: I was, I was, was reading a Diploma in Social Science.
JW: So, after your Oxford days once you’d got your qualifications and graduated …
DG: Yes?
JW: …where to next, what happened?
DG: Next, to Hull, 1969.
JW: What was Hull like in 1969 for you?
DG: Oh Hull, as a foreigner coming in – coming from a Country like mine which was – less – although the city, town, although it was very light nice – sunshine and, but coming to Hull, which although the buildings are nice etc but because the weather, the climate is always dull you don’t feel – the brightness – in houses. Everything you look around seems to be you know dull. So Hull was OK – the difficulties with that - in my first course, the law course I was the only Black person – change courses to -…
JW: Did that make you feel quite isolated?
DG: No.
JW: No
DG: No, no I didn’t because I was used, I was used to – a multi- racial group. Back home before I left – I had studied in the - Royal Academy of Music, Rhodesia , Royal Rhodesia Academy of Music. I studied music there, part-time and I was the only Black person so I was used to being in a multi- racial group back home before I had even thought of, of Britain. No, I didn’t feel lonely at all actually, -…
JW: Where abouts were you living at that time?
DG: I was married, I was already married then. I was living ???
JW: Where did you meet your wife?
DG: Met my wife in, in Zimbabwe.
JW: So you came over together?
DG: Yes, yes. Well she followed me here yes. We were living in Park Avenue – anyone who knows that part of Hull, Park Avenue, Hull, they know there’s a fountain between – Victoria Avenue and – well it’s on Park Avenue, - yes so we moved from - 169 Park Avenue to the – flats at the corner of - Salisbury Street and Park Avenue. - Yes we lived there for ten years. Now in 1993 we bought a house where I live now cause - my wife and I split up.
JW: So tell me just briefly really about your career in Hull?
DG: Oh my career. I never became a lawyer but – became a social worker – I had spent some years being a part-time lecturer where are we, at this college here somewhere – I was teaching the, oh in fact from 1970 to 1978 and got a job the City Council as a social worker – yeah, stayed there. We had Humberside - coming in 1974, I was still a social worker and we, we continued – I had a, a promotion - to Senior Social Worker in 1978 and another promotion in 197... ummm 8, 19...
JW: It’s really difficult isn’t it to pinpoint dates when you’re…
DG: I’m over 40 you see. No, I mean I was promoted to Senior Social Worker.
JW: So a social worker pretty much your career really
DG: Yes, oh yes. I am a social worker.
JW: Yeah.
DG: - the 1996 – when Humberside was dissolved - I was one of those people who, who was not offered retirement because my task then, I was Principle Officer Race and Equalities – for Humberside so I – I used to work in Grimsby and Bridlington, Scarborough, Withernsea, Hornsea and all the, Beverley. All the areas of Humberside. I used to give talks and lectures and run…
JW: Would you be able to give us from your professional background some idea as to how you think the ethnicity of Hull as it got broader, did that add to the life of the city or did it create problems for the city?
DG: Very interestingly the – by the time the life of - by the time we got more non-white people I’d retired so I did not experience…no I think it became better for me personally I felt it was a lot better because I think there was more people who looked like me in the city you know. Previously there was not. We sit in the front of our house on Park Avenue. My children were 3 – one was 12 and the other one a girl would have been 2 or 3 years younger then a boy at 6 I think and – they were sitting, we were sitting there and they said, “Dad, dad, mum, come and have a look”.
What they had seen were two or three Black men walking past in the Park Avenue, back of Park Avenue there is Westbourne Avenue and there is International House which you probably know and there were these gentlemen were from International House just taking a walk and our children thought that was fun, unbelievable to see Black people in, around yes surely because … when you even look at their school pictures they are the only one, the only dark person in the pictures and sadly when you look at my pictures whether it’s at work or Rotary, I’d been the president of Rotary now – in recent years, I’m always the black dot . My son use to say oh if you want to find…this picture has a lot of people, it’s dad, dad’s picture and his friends but you can’t see him, if you want to see him just look for the black dot where there is. So 50 people there, but to find me look for the empty space where there is a black dot. So that is what I was like.
No again we lived in an area which I would say peaceful in the Avenues which I’m sure you know and - our children went to schools which were Bricknell Junior, you know Hull Grammar and St Mary’s. I mean they were very nothing very much about race in terms of children fighting or whatever in those schools but what it made, it made the kids that went to those schools – unable, unable to communicate. They’d grown to see Black people as foreigners instead of one of them because they’ve grown up with all English people. My children were playing football in the school team or cricket, they were the only Black people there but – I think if they hear this they would say, “Rubbish dad we used to go to London and meet our friends”, yeah well they did but Hull in those days quite peaceful.
JW: To what extent has Hull always felt fully home to you?
DG: Hull is home. – Ooh, hmmm. Yes I think, yes it did feel as home before I settled, before I settled properly, I had a house etc in and my kids are grown. It did feel as home but I was always aware that it is a temporary home. It is, it was home but temporary. But by the time I was retiring and buying property because I had three houses at some stage and letting the other two. Hull was my home, permanent home. Yes I had actually said David Gambe from Hull. I felt I belonged here and when I went home and home I meant Rhodesia as it was then, I actually felt as a visitor. Actually felt as a visitor. Partly that was because the fact that my family for some reason seem to have lost their lives so quickly. My brothers they – funnily enough the first born was the last one to die last year. And she was 97. That was my old…well the first born in the family – my sister but the other 6 all went, all went and that made me feel lonely. Yes, I do feel lonely. So when I went home I don’t have the same passionate feeling of home. I’ve got cousins but they are not the people I grew up with you know.
JW: Yes. If you - wanted to leave the listener with one message drawn from your life experience what would that be.
DG: Unfortunately my life experience – is, is dominated by living under oppression. Oh my people fighting and being defeated. My people as a community and not having the opportunity to access – all the privilege resources so I will be fighting for yeah, equality for them.
JW: We have had a long in-depth conversation…
DG: Oh yeah…
JW: It has been lovely to talk to you, thank you very much.
DG: Thank you. Thank you.
Interviewer: Jerome Whittingham
Date: 2017
JW: If you can tell me who you are and what is your connection to Africa?
DG: My name is David Charles Gambe - from Zimbabwe.
JW: And when were you born in Zimbabwe?
DG: - I was born in 1934 on the 10th of March - in the, well, the western part of Zimbabwe.
JW: What are your earliest memories then of being in Zimbabwe?
DG: I remember enjoying - a ride on - on a family bull out in the bush - with my grandfather holding me and I was - I think that is memory of a very painful experience. I must have been two or three? Yes, my mother came to take me back to town, that where we lived, in town, but my grandparents lived out, out in the bush. The next time we came back, I ran around looking for the bull, you know, “where is it? Where is…we use to call him Jacob, he wasn’t there but I go to the back of one of the huts there and there was a skin, a black skin, I stood there and thought, “what’s happening?” but I can’t remember exactly what my…how my brain was functioning. Then my grandmother said, “Oh that is Jacob, we…we…you have a lot of meat today and I sobbed.
The other memory of my life in the bush, well in country rather, was - running - out the house with my mother, her sister, my sister, and two others, but I can’t really remember the other two. I must have been three, or two and a half or something, because I was partly naked actually, and they were saying “run old man.” Where we lived is in an area of Zimbabwe where there is a lot of sand, so when you’re running, your feet and I was wearing no shoes and obviously being in the bush you don’t need shoes, you don’t need trousers, - I was very, I don’t know why, I was stupidly happy. I was really very pleased. I’ll always remember the - the happiness and my mother saying “run, run old man, run…run.” But I was the only child then.
The memories I have most towards - in Bulawayo where we lived, rather than my grandparent’s place, - I was still breast feeding at three, you know, I was still enjoying my mother’s tasty milk if you like. What follows from that time, is - the memory of sometime I was taken to the country to my grandparents. I didn’t know why, I just thought it just was another holiday. But when I came back, I found my mother was breast feeding a brat, that’s my young brother. When they took me to the country, I didn’t know, well I did know she was pregnant actually, but that was the reason they got me out of the way so that she doesn’t have a lot of work to do. When I came back there was my little brother. I don’t think I ever got very friendly with him actually. I always, I did a bit of psychology later in life. They talk about - rivalry.
JW: Sibling rivalry.
DG: Sibling rivalry, and - where it comes, where it started, and I always think - I didn’t like my brother, and I knew I didn’t, but I didn’t know why...
JW: Tell me something about the village or town where you grew up?
DG: Well I grew up in Bulawayo - in the first township that was built when - the English took over our country. Makokoba it is called, Bulawayo. Of course, that’s the …all I knew, apart from a very short period before my parents got the - the house, the tenancy rather, that’s what I was looking for, in this township. My father was a waiter, he was a, they called him a head waiter, although if you ask him, he would say he was “a heart waiter.” He was a head waiter, he was. So he, they got accommodation - in the garden of this very big hotel where he worked, the Keko Hotel. So we lived there during my very young age. I used to play with the children of one of, I think he was the manager of the hotel, and I remember one incident were, were he was holding me, my arm, my hand, and he was saying “no, tell mummy, tell mummy you should wash it,” because my arm was black, and he thought that was dirt. He’d tell me “my mummy to wash my hand.” But that was play, just playful. We were very happy. That was before my brother was born. So I was a happy young man.
The other thing I remember, I think it must be, must have been my first English word that I learnt apart from “no” - “nothing” I used to pronounce that word as “nothinga,” you know with an “inga”, and I don’t know whether that was a child, a child way of pronunciation or it was from some place here. What else do I remember?
JW: So how many brothers and sisters do you have?
DG: Oh, and I had 5 brothers and 2 sisters, and the sad thing is that I’m the only one alive.
JW: What did your mum do? Did your mum work?
DG: No, no, no. My mother was a housewife.
JW: So did you get any perks then - from the hotel?
DG: Oh I don’t know. I think I did, well I would have been like two or three or four, what perks. If I did, I didn’t know they were perks. I just thought this is how we lived. I remember the - wife of the owner- the lady of the hotel, used to bring - like a carpet mat put it on the green grass and my mother too and - they would bring a lemonade, things like that for me and the boy to sit there and they would be sitting there. My mother used to be fond of crocheting, is it?
JW: Crochet
DG: Yeah, crochet. My - grandfather - was, he’d been one of the chaps that were the resistors to the British, you know. Because we’re talking about, that country was taken over in 1896 or 1897, that time, and so my father was already born and - So my grandfather was still alive when I was born and - yeah he had - one of his arms blown off. It’s not many times I think must have been two or three times, whenever we walked together into town in the centre of Bulawayo’s main street there was this cannon and my grandfather would, yes, he would be holding me with his right hand and he used to say “David do you see that? I would say “Yes”, “That is what knocked this, my arm off, yes that is what knocked my arm.” “Oh no.” “Oh yes that is what knocked my arm…” I use to be very, very angry, very angry and he use to say “when you grow up, you must - you must fight to get rid of these white people,” and I use to say “yes, yes” and then say “what about so and so, my little friend,” and he would say, “get rid of him!” To me, colour and politics or race was not an issue because I did not know what we were fight for except my grandfather was fighting for that cannon.
On my first day at school, first day at school 1940, I had a fight. Very first day at school, I was punished because the other guy came and sat next to me and, I can’t seem to remember what else we had done, but we started punching each other on the floor.
JW: Was school all Black?
DG: Was school, pardon?
JW: Was school all Black?
DG: Oh yes, oh yes, yes.
JW: So what about the rest of your school life, did it improve after that?
DG: Oh school life was ok. Yes, I never failed.
JW: What were your favourite subjects?
DG: At school, oh, actually I enjoyed - learning about animals. I enjoyed learning about animals. I could say I enjoyed learning English language and arithmetics as we use to call it. But what I would probably be saying is I excelled on those two subjects. What I enjoyed doing was singing. Well I really enjoyed singing. Oh I really enjoyed singing, yes, at school. I did not enjoy athletics when it was games day. Partly because - at that time I was a little bit overweight.
JW: When you were, sort of, a very young man mid-teens 16 years old or so, had you got any ambitions career wise; anything that you were aiming for?
DG: Yeah - we use to sell newspapers where we lived, well my home was about a mile from the Newspaper Distribution Office. This particular paper was The African Paper and we used to go selling papers. We would go there and they would give you 12 papers or 10, you go, sell them and come back with the cash and they’d give you a shilling or whatever. Yeah and I use to enjoy reading and there was some people whose names had initials at the end, so like, you know, John so and so, MP and so so and so MP, and I thought that the MP was a qualification, Master of Politics, yes so I was going to go to the university and study master of politics.
You see, coming from Rhodesia where as a Black person, your position is already determined by their colour. There were certain jobs or professions which you dared dreamed to enter because there is nothing you can do. I did later dream to be a lawyer, and fortunately I did study. I wanted to be a lawyer when I was back home and I was advised, you know, it’s stupid, you know. You haven't seen a Black Lawyer so.
JW: When, when did that realization dawn on you?
DG: That which?
JW: That – there were certain careers and professions that you were never going to be able to achieve.
DG: Oh! I can’t. I can’t remember when in terms of time but- any young person from that country – knows what jobs they will not apply to. Not now, I mean when I was growing up - a lot of jobs that you knew that were reserved for white people.
JW: What was your first job?
DG: Yes, the first what I would call a job was – in a brass band. What had happened when I was - a little boy, I think, I was a cub scout – our cub master had a bugle and – he, he taught me, taught me how to play the bugle and he, he left it with me, said, every, every, can’t remember the date we used to meet twice a week, – you must bring the bugle and when we do the marching you, you, play the bugle. OK? Yes, so when I left school – we had a family friend who worked in – in a brass band so I got a job – in that brass band and the first time, oh the first time I was learning the clarinet. Yes I played the se… yes I think it was second clarinet and something happened. I don’t know if they had got broken or what I can’t remember now – they gave me a, a cornet because I’d been a, a bugler and after that bugling job I got – simple jobs in China Town. I can’t even, at the - Light Plane Club they called it.
Light Plane Club where people learnt how to fly. We had Tiger Moths you know, the two winged things and we had Oysters and we had yeah and so my job was really to look after the clubhouse, receive – the payments from the members and also to help pilots when they, when they.. I used to look after the aircraft, pull them out, out get them ready for the – learner pilot and I would be the one swinging the, the propeller, you know to, to enable the plane to start and quite often I would – then jump in – and, and then, then fly with the pilot.
Yes, that’s one wonderful experience but I had friends who used to, to come and see me – I used to tell them that “I go by plane,” you know and I, I in my, my job but I didn’t really. But they didn’t know they thought I was the pilot because in a tiger moth you know there are these two, yeah the pilot sits at the back - the front space is for the passenger so they are they are two places, the pilot sits at the back and the passenger sits at the front and for some reason they believed I was the pilot because they would see me in the you know, jumping in the front and the plane flying.
JW: Did you ever have to use that parachute?
DG: No, no but I was, I was taught how to do it if I needed to and I was, I was given all the equipment that you need including a revolver and – yes, we used to fly not very far. - Bulawayo is my home town. We, we, we used to fly maybe ten, twenty miles out of town and come back. I would sometimes fly twice – with one pilot and then another pilot and – yeah.
JW: Let’s find out how you came to the UK. How did that happen?
DG: Oh I was not smuggled. How I came to the UK, how I started. I was studying, I had been – a trade unionist and – the ICFTU, International Confederation of Free Trade Unions – they always ad, advertised -, - for places for colleges and universities for some of the member, some of their members who were able to, who were wishing to be trained, who wished to study. So that’s just the benefit of being a trade unionist in a, in a Country like that, a poor country, so I was, I, I had already done my – I, I had failed two or three of my A levels -, yeah but I was still going on I was still studying – when this – thing came and I was asked if I wanted to go to Ruskin College in Oxford where I would study.
JW: Gosh!
DG: “What would you like to be?” “Oh I would like to be a lawyer.” Oh wow, yes, yes I didn’t become a lawyer but I say that – anyway that’s how I got a place at Ruskin and I went in 1967 and I was at Heathrow on the second of October 1967 and caught a lift from, no, yes someone was there to meet me and she took me to Paddington and to the station where I then – board a train and went to Oxford.
JW: So tell me about the shock of landing in the UK. What, what were your first impressions?
DG: Well, hmmm, this British Consul lady took me to Paddington but before we got to, to Paddington yes – she said she was taking me to P, to Paddington and we go through Paddington is on the other side – west London that side and I asked her if she could -, - take me to the offices of the, of the funding – people, the Public Services, International offices in London and because I knew, I knew some of the people there, the people who were actually paying for me. They were the same people who were funding my trade union – so she, she said yes.
Now we travelled from Heathrow, travelled, travelled looking at these dirty, dirty, dirty houses, you know, all the buildings, full of, as they were full of soot, you know, who… in my head had, I, I knew London was a very beautiful place, golden walls of… and I said, I said to her “When are we going to get to London?” and she said, “No, we have been driving in, in London for the last…” I don’t know what she said, forty five minutes or what, whatever. I said “Is this London?” She said, “Yes.” That was the first impression of a very filthy city. London was very filthy but that’s because I was used to the press, impression – Buckingham Palace and -, the Houses of Parliament. When you see them in pictures they, they all look golden don’t they, you know as if there is gold and that was the first thing and oh a lot of other problems about being in England, coming from that Country.
The first one which I told – I told a meeting of students in Oxford was I could see, I could, I could be, yes I could be seen as someone who was running away from Ian Smith cause he was the - Prime Minister. So I landed in Oxford. Oh I was housed that night, there were no many students but – I was given a bed in the – students’ – house – which is called Smith House, pooh, Smith House, this House, belonged to, you know the Smith I left at home, I don’t, I don’t, didn’t say anything but two, two days later I was introduced or someone introduced to me “Hello, hello my name is…” She was a Miss Smith. I looked at her and I thought I aren’t touching you and she was a Miss Smith. I hope she doesn’t hear this – and – we started classes I think – three, four days later and my, I, my lecturer, no, no my, my Supervisor – was a Mr Smith. So, just feel, just think how that feels. Who is my enemy? Mr Smith back home and what, who are you with here. They, they are all Smiths, Smiths.
JW: So what course were you reading at Oxford?
DG: I was, I was, was reading a Diploma in Social Science.
JW: So, after your Oxford days once you’d got your qualifications and graduated …
DG: Yes?
JW: …where to next, what happened?
DG: Next, to Hull, 1969.
JW: What was Hull like in 1969 for you?
DG: Oh Hull, as a foreigner coming in – coming from a Country like mine which was – less – although the city, town, although it was very light nice – sunshine and, but coming to Hull, which although the buildings are nice etc but because the weather, the climate is always dull you don’t feel – the brightness – in houses. Everything you look around seems to be you know dull. So Hull was OK – the difficulties with that - in my first course, the law course I was the only Black person – change courses to -…
JW: Did that make you feel quite isolated?
DG: No.
JW: No
DG: No, no I didn’t because I was used, I was used to – a multi- racial group. Back home before I left – I had studied in the - Royal Academy of Music, Rhodesia , Royal Rhodesia Academy of Music. I studied music there, part-time and I was the only Black person so I was used to being in a multi- racial group back home before I had even thought of, of Britain. No, I didn’t feel lonely at all actually, -…
JW: Where abouts were you living at that time?
DG: I was married, I was already married then. I was living ???
JW: Where did you meet your wife?
DG: Met my wife in, in Zimbabwe.
JW: So you came over together?
DG: Yes, yes. Well she followed me here yes. We were living in Park Avenue – anyone who knows that part of Hull, Park Avenue, Hull, they know there’s a fountain between – Victoria Avenue and – well it’s on Park Avenue, - yes so we moved from - 169 Park Avenue to the – flats at the corner of - Salisbury Street and Park Avenue. - Yes we lived there for ten years. Now in 1993 we bought a house where I live now cause - my wife and I split up.
JW: So tell me just briefly really about your career in Hull?
DG: Oh my career. I never became a lawyer but – became a social worker – I had spent some years being a part-time lecturer where are we, at this college here somewhere – I was teaching the, oh in fact from 1970 to 1978 and got a job the City Council as a social worker – yeah, stayed there. We had Humberside - coming in 1974, I was still a social worker and we, we continued – I had a, a promotion - to Senior Social Worker in 1978 and another promotion in 197... ummm 8, 19...
JW: It’s really difficult isn’t it to pinpoint dates when you’re…
DG: I’m over 40 you see. No, I mean I was promoted to Senior Social Worker.
JW: So a social worker pretty much your career really
DG: Yes, oh yes. I am a social worker.
JW: Yeah.
DG: - the 1996 – when Humberside was dissolved - I was one of those people who, who was not offered retirement because my task then, I was Principle Officer Race and Equalities – for Humberside so I – I used to work in Grimsby and Bridlington, Scarborough, Withernsea, Hornsea and all the, Beverley. All the areas of Humberside. I used to give talks and lectures and run…
JW: Would you be able to give us from your professional background some idea as to how you think the ethnicity of Hull as it got broader, did that add to the life of the city or did it create problems for the city?
DG: Very interestingly the – by the time the life of - by the time we got more non-white people I’d retired so I did not experience…no I think it became better for me personally I felt it was a lot better because I think there was more people who looked like me in the city you know. Previously there was not. We sit in the front of our house on Park Avenue. My children were 3 – one was 12 and the other one a girl would have been 2 or 3 years younger then a boy at 6 I think and – they were sitting, we were sitting there and they said, “Dad, dad, mum, come and have a look”.
What they had seen were two or three Black men walking past in the Park Avenue, back of Park Avenue there is Westbourne Avenue and there is International House which you probably know and there were these gentlemen were from International House just taking a walk and our children thought that was fun, unbelievable to see Black people in, around yes surely because … when you even look at their school pictures they are the only one, the only dark person in the pictures and sadly when you look at my pictures whether it’s at work or Rotary, I’d been the president of Rotary now – in recent years, I’m always the black dot . My son use to say oh if you want to find…this picture has a lot of people, it’s dad, dad’s picture and his friends but you can’t see him, if you want to see him just look for the black dot where there is. So 50 people there, but to find me look for the empty space where there is a black dot. So that is what I was like.
No again we lived in an area which I would say peaceful in the Avenues which I’m sure you know and - our children went to schools which were Bricknell Junior, you know Hull Grammar and St Mary’s. I mean they were very nothing very much about race in terms of children fighting or whatever in those schools but what it made, it made the kids that went to those schools – unable, unable to communicate. They’d grown to see Black people as foreigners instead of one of them because they’ve grown up with all English people. My children were playing football in the school team or cricket, they were the only Black people there but – I think if they hear this they would say, “Rubbish dad we used to go to London and meet our friends”, yeah well they did but Hull in those days quite peaceful.
JW: To what extent has Hull always felt fully home to you?
DG: Hull is home. – Ooh, hmmm. Yes I think, yes it did feel as home before I settled, before I settled properly, I had a house etc in and my kids are grown. It did feel as home but I was always aware that it is a temporary home. It is, it was home but temporary. But by the time I was retiring and buying property because I had three houses at some stage and letting the other two. Hull was my home, permanent home. Yes I had actually said David Gambe from Hull. I felt I belonged here and when I went home and home I meant Rhodesia as it was then, I actually felt as a visitor. Actually felt as a visitor. Partly that was because the fact that my family for some reason seem to have lost their lives so quickly. My brothers they – funnily enough the first born was the last one to die last year. And she was 97. That was my old…well the first born in the family – my sister but the other 6 all went, all went and that made me feel lonely. Yes, I do feel lonely. So when I went home I don’t have the same passionate feeling of home. I’ve got cousins but they are not the people I grew up with you know.
JW: Yes. If you - wanted to leave the listener with one message drawn from your life experience what would that be.
DG: Unfortunately my life experience – is, is dominated by living under oppression. Oh my people fighting and being defeated. My people as a community and not having the opportunity to access – all the privilege resources so I will be fighting for yeah, equality for them.
JW: We have had a long in-depth conversation…
DG: Oh yeah…
JW: It has been lovely to talk to you, thank you very much.
DG: Thank you. Thank you.