|
Ysabelle Wombwell
Ysabelle is of Jamaican, Cuban and Scottish ancestry. She talks about how distant her connection with Jamaica sometimes feels as it is several generations removed and she has not visited there very often. Despite this she ponders on how easy and comfortable it is for her and her siblings to slip into behaviour that echoes the characteristics of her mother and her grandmother. She remembers coming to Hull from London in 2007 to study and staying on through her interest in music
|
To go to the written transcription click on the box below
Transcription: Ysabelle Wombwell Interview
Interview with Ysabelle Wombwell
Interviewer: Jerome Whittingham
Date: 20 October 2016
JW: So - first and foremost then, can you introduce yourself and tell the listener who you are?
YW: - I’m Ysabelle Wombwell from, what…?
JW: So yeah, yeah, what is your connection to Africa?
YW: Oh - well my grandma is from Jamaica, and I’m assuming it goes back and back, and the likelihood is probably from the slave trade. - Well I believe it is anyway. I think my great-great-great-grandad or something, was Scottish and my grandad was Cuban. It’s all, yeah…
JW: So have you explored your ancestry in any sort of depth at all?
YW: - No, yes, no. My grandma used to tell us bits and that’s how I know my great great-grandad or something was Scottish. Yeah she told me a bit about Jamaica. I went to Jamaica when I was eight.
JW: Oh right, OK.
YW: And so, we visited some family around there which was really nice…
JW: Oh well let’s dig into that a little bit more then. What, what, you know, what were your expectations of going to Jamaica?
YW: Oh as an eight year old, I don’t know. It’s the first time going on a flight, I think it’s, it’s probably overwhelming of just, excitedness and going on holiday. So I can’t remember what I was thinking at that time, but my experience from it was, I guess, amazing, because, well it was just beautiful. Jamaica’s really beautiful. And we got to see like the two, I guess, two drastic sides of it. I think a hurricane had just been, or a few years before. So mine and my auntie’s was, house was, she was living in a, in a hut, and next door to her house, her hut, was her house being built, which had been built for ages I think, and it was just concrete, but like no doors, no windows, and just, I don’t even think it had a roof. And, but everyone lived in like the hills in huts with these houses that were half built, and, yeah.
No yeah I didn’t, I, yeah. This is coming back to that idea right. I didn’t really have expectations. I didn’t really know what to expect to…but yeah. And then the other side of that, that’s what I was going to say, we had to stay in a hotel, I think that my uncle owned, and that was proper like extravagant in comparison. It’s so weird to think that was the same family.
JW: Yeah. So tell me something then, but I mean you were eight years old when you went to Jamaica, but what about, you know the, the previous eight years. What are your earliest memories? Where you, where you born in Hull?
YW: No.
JW: No?
YW: I was born in London, in Hammersmith. - My earliest memory, I think, will be meeting my younger brother for the first time. So I would’ve been three or four and it’s hard to know whether that’s memory, or just memory of the story being told. But - we were at our granny’s in Cambridge and we stayed there for over the summer holidays. I remember just being really excited to meet him because we knew that he was arriving and yeah he was quite chubby and cute. And…it didn’t stay that way for long.
JW: So how big a family - do you come from?
YW: There’s my mum, my dad, my elder sister, older sister, and my younger brother, and then my stepdad and I guess I could go on, but yeah that’s immediate family I guess.
JW: - When did you move to Hull?
YW: In 2007 I went to Hull College to do Music Performance in September, and then, yeah and I just stayed. Did that for three years and stayed. I think the music scene just kind of kept me in.
JW: So how, how closely connected with the music scene are you then, do you sing in a band yourself or…?
YW: - Yeah, I write my own music and I sometimes do that. I’m in a couple of other bands around Hull - I think, mainly in terms of Hull and why like music has kept me here is probably the, we did a project - when I was at uni, and I was one of the young people on the project, and I got to meet a load of other musicians who were like, kind of in the same position as me. And that’s kind of what’s kept, and we kind of still see, get to see each other quite a bit. Even though we don’t, we don’t play music together but we’ll kind of link, well we’ve got that little link I think.
JW: So what’s your own musical style then? Who are your influences?
YW: - That’s a difficult question. I don’t, I don’t - I don’t know what my style is; probably acoustic, pop stuff, my, my own music. My influences, I don’t know. I just tend to listen to randomness music, but I don’t listen to it very often, so, which is strange, but...
JW: Well I’m going to dig deeper now, there must be people, you know, albums that you buy or download from ITunes or whatever. There must be artists that you can’t wait for their next track to come out or something.
YW: No, it’s a strange thing but I, I didn’t really listen to music that much - and I, I still don’t really. - It’s just stuff that I come across and I’ll listen to it, for a bit for a few months, and then stop listening to it. So I say probably most recently I’ve been listening to Vampire Weekend and The Shins, and a bit of Regina Spektor, but yeah it changes. I don’t really have, I don’t know why, I think music’s, is I think listening to music, it’s been a tool to do something else in a way. So I’ll be listening to music to write an essay at uni, or to do that while I’m working. But other than that I don’t really listen to it.
JW: Producing your own content…
YW: Yeah.
JW: …and writing songs. Are you more of a lyricist or a musician?
YW: - Ooh, I don’t know. Probably musician, but I don’t write very often. I just don’t. I just haven’t put any music out for about, since 2009. So, it’s kind of been connected to, I probably only write like once a year.
JW: So, - lets go right to - well not right to the beginning but, you know, an earlier age again, and talk about your identity. How much of an impact or influence did this Jamaican identity have on your, on your upbringing?
YW: I’d say, and it’s hard, it’s hard to say. It probably did because I had a very close relationship with my grandma, who was Jamaican. But I guess it’s unnoticeable because it’s not like normal isn’t it in your life that - if I think back really because Jamaican food wise, that I’ve been, I always wanna kind of share that with other people that I meet, like my partner and tryin’ like go “why don’t we try some of this Jamaican food.” And then I guess from that I’ve realised how different actually it is from the cuisine that we usually eat. And I guess when I get, when I get with my brother and sister we are, our language changes a bit, and it’s quite a similar type my grandma would speak. I guess it’s a slang almost, or, whilst I guess threatening to, to hit each other, in like a telling off way, because that’s what my grandma used to do; get a slipper or a bible or go get anything. So it’s kinda like that.
JW: Do you feel as though you’re almost making that conscious effort to, to use that sort of style of language or…?
YW: I guess, yeah, I guess we must be amongst my brother and sister, between us three; it must be, kind of. I guess its key within our, within our, within our lives without really thinking about it.
JW: Are you trying to preserve and feel proud of, of your heritage, do you think?
YW: Yeah, and I’d say we, we are very proud. Even though I feel a little bit like a hypocrite for saying that. I don’t really know that much about it. But I do feel proud to be from - Jamaica and, or my grandma being from Jamaica, and I kind of, I guess this is a regret, but it seems silly to say regret because I’ve still got, because I can still do it, but, not to delve deeper into it, maybe my chance of getting actual, you know, personal story from my grandma, and, is probably gone. But doesn’t mean to say I can’t delve into it but. I know, I know my mum’s very interested in it, so maybe it’s something that when the time comes, when, when myself and my sister are ready, we could help her on her journey.
JW: Is the Jamaican influence on your family getting visibly and noticeably diluted, generation by generation? Is your mum for example, - more Jamaican than you are… in the way it’s expressed, not necessarily in the visual way you look?
YW: I, I don’t know, that’s a difficult one, because my mum is deaf, so her culture isn’t necessarily, I don’t know how much of it is Jamaican culture or whether it’s deaf, culture, do you know what I mean? So it’s kind of, - and it’s hard to identify what would be Jamaican culture in our family, - like I said it’s kind of, because it’s normal. I guess in a way it must be getting well diluted because if you look at me, my brother and my sister, we’re very different from my grandma. So yeah it must, yeah I guess it must be, and, we’re very close to my father’s family who are British, you know, roast dinner every Sunday kind of thing, lived in England for generations in the countryside. So I guess we’re, because we’re quite close to that, I guess maybe we might lose, I wouldn’t say we identify as much with Jamaican culture. But as I say, it’s real difficult to pinpoint what Jamaican culture is, or…
JW: …Because that’s just your natural identity growing up or something.
YW: Yeah.
JW: That’s what you’ve grown up with. It’s probably not until this point maybe that no one asked you in any great detail about it.
YW: No. Yeah I mean you could go to the stereotypes but even then I wouldn’t know how a real stereotype is because I’ve not lived in Jamaica and I’ve only really got my grandma and that time that I went, to go on, so yeah.
JW: Yeah. What would you say the stereotypes are?
YW: A Jamaican stereotype? Well, from my experience, it’s been dreadlocks, well not my experience of stereotypes, but from my experience from people assuming from looking at me that, you know, that I’ve got dreadlocks and I smoke weed and things like that. But yeah, I don’t like stereotypes. They come from, I don’t know, yeah. You lose individuality don’t you?
JW: Let’s go back when you were a child. What were your ambitions and have you achieved them?
YW: - Hmm, when I was, I think I wanted to be a musician and earn enough to just play music all the time and be happy with that, and I tried that in 2010 and it wasn’t fun. So, I’d like to keep, so I did, I guess I, I accomplished my childhood dream and realised it wasn’t that great, so yeah. I think turning music, I think it was the problem of turning music into a job, that’s the problem. You lose your kind of hobby don’t you, by doing that? It becomes stressful and then there’s the pressure to do music and yeah, it’s just not fun.
JW: So what direction did you take after you had achieved that ambition?
YW: - I looked into, I guess, social care and work like that. So I became a personal assistant and now music’s just on an evening when I choose to, and not when I need to.
JW: How much influence did your parents have in, in terms of your ambition and your career route?
YW: Well at the time, I guess in terms of music, they were real, really supportive and that. So if I, if I asked for a keyboard or a guitar, they’d try and get it for me and, you know. - When I, when I asked for piano lessons, they got me piano lessons. When I didn’t wanna go to piano lessons, they were fine with me not going, do you know, just really, I guess, supportive. Yeah, if I had a gig they’d come and see it, even if they couldn’t hear it, and they still do actually, if I’m in London, they’ll come to a gig, so yeah real, real, real supportive.
JW: So let’s look a little bit more at the city of Hull, and - why you made it home, and how you feel about being here? I mean, what was the character of the city for you, if you had to describe it to friends that haven't visited?
YW: It’s - I guess it sounds real simple but I’d say, friendly. There’s kind it’s like a, an ease to it, where can just, you know, talk and not worry really about what people are gonna think of you I think. I’ve got London to compare it to, and only London which I guess is very, very different to Hull, so unbusy in comparison.
JW: So what are the key differences?
YW: Well yeah, well yeah unbusy well in London it’s yeah busier and it’s, it changes, a lot so. I guess – my mum and my brother said like, why don’t I go to London, I can get a job technically easier and stuff, but you know, I won’t be able to afford to live on my own, or if I could I wouldn’t be able to afford to live in a nice, nice - the size of a place that I have now, in Hull and I was thinking this well when I think in terms of Hull it seems exciting to think what’s gonna happen. There’s always, it’s always kind of moving and it feels like it’s moving towards something, and there’s, there’s always something going on, where in London there is always something going on but, but what’s it for is it what’s the aim, and I think like the reason behind, I well in the project that I’m involved anyway in Hull, it feels like there’s, there’s something really good gonna be accomplished from it, do you get what I mean, whereas I’d not got that in London, but then I left when I was eighteen in London so. But that’s my experiences of it.
JW: Your perception of Hull?
YW: Mmm
JW: You say it, it seems to have a purpose, it’s going somewhere?
YW: Yeah
JW: Erm
YW: Where’s it going to?
JW: Yeah
YW: Yeah, I dunno. I feel like - just seeing more and more arts, more and more music, more acceptance of that. I mean I don’t think it’s perfect, I think there’s still, there’s still - discrimination and stuff but, but you have that everywhere. And I mean I do feel like, like there’s - you kind of do have that a little more, more I feel like I’ve experienced discrimination more in Hull than I have in London, but, I’ve still, I feel, I feel like in the time I’ve been there I’ve seen it develop, in way, that’s kind of getting less, apart from, from Brexit. After Brexit but - I felt a bit uneasy in that situation. But, it’s – yeah its real difficult to say because of where I work, and who I hang around with, so I can’t speak in, on the whole for Hull but work, who I’m around in Hull it feels like yeah people are very accepting and like they’re really, really interested in something new happenings. There’s an excitement in Hull.
JW: Mmm. Let’s talk just a little bit more about Brexit then, your feelings around that, positive or negative. And your – I think I’m right in, you’re feeling negatively towards the whole Brexit thing?
YW: Yeah. I feel like there’s almost been - well I feel like I feel - uneasy. On the morning when I found out we’d voted to leave the EU I felt very uneasy, and I was very aware that I wasn’t white. Don’t know if that sounds racist by saying that but, yeah, and – and there’s almost feels like there’s been vindication of people being able to say – oh I guess blame migrants and do you know blame people who are different, essentially. But I feel like, the reason we voted to leave is because, people wanted change, and not necessarily for there wasn’t necessarily a racist thing. People are fed up and this is, probably this is the only, only election or the only vote that we’ve had where our vote really makes a difference, like my vote means this, not that, I’m not a part of a constituency. If I’m gonna vote this it’s gonna make a difference, you know, this is the only time when it’s actually made a difference so if people are tired, and people are living in poverty and stuff, just vote to change. That’s what I think’s happened, but I still feel that there’s an increase in - in discrimination, in racism from that, which is a real shame.
JW: Is that a feeling, or is there evidence?
YW: Feeling, I don’t – evidence wise I did, somebody did call me the ‘n’ word a few weeks ago but you can’t say whether that’s off the back of that and whether that could’ve still happened but, my feeling is I just feel uneasy for it and I did feel uneasy. Going down a bit, but I feel uneasy for other people as well. That’s, it’s not nice.
JW: So where are your favourite haunts then around Hull and perhaps the surrounding areas too?
YW: Ooh, well, I really like, going to Hessle foreshore, really like there. Danes Dyke…
JW: Mmm
YW: I went there for the first time a couple of years ago. I mean that’s not Hull, it’s nearby and that was ace. In Hull I dunno, It depends on the people I guess that’s essentially it can’t it. If, if my mates are around, like going there, so that.
JW: What is it about Hessle foreshore that you like?
YW: The bridge. It’s massive. It’s like this huge! You just sit underneath it and you feel tiny. It’s like, it’s do you know those things, you just look at it and you just go – you can’t really understand the size of it by looking at it, do you know what I mean, but you just keep trying I don’t know. It might be different for other people but to me it’s yeah you can’t really compute the size. I find it fascinating, the way it curves where it’s wider at the top than it is at the bottom, the bridge yeah.
JW: Do you want to go over on to the south bank? Do you ever use the Humber Bridge, go and explore the south bank or not?
YW: No. No I went to - is it Cleethorpes, on the other side? I went there once, on a bus. That’s right, it was the weather, I think it really, really poured it down when we got there - so, I was a bit miserable. But, arcades, they fascinate me as well, you don’t really get them in London.
JW: I find it interesting that you, and many other people that I know, the majority of the people in the city, don’t seem to go over the Humber Bridge.
YW: No.
JW: They see it not as a bridge to go somewhere else to go and explore. They see the bridge as a barrier. The question really is, are sort of barriers natural to us humans? You know. Are we naturally, you know, do we naturally spread our wings and want to explore or are we, are we just home birds really?
YW: - I guess it depends on how what you mean by naturaI, like, I think it’s engrained in us, that we can’t do things and there’s barriers, and stuff like that, so, maybe if you mean that, I guess you could say naturally, ‘cos that’s all you know maybe. I don’t see the Humber Bridge as a barrier though. I just haven’t gone over, well I have driven over it a few times but only driven over it. I do want to walk across it, it’s just getting the time really, but yeah I don’t see it as a barrier.
JW: So - what do you want to be doing in the future, what are your longer term goals?
YW: Dunno, nothing really, I don’t really have any aims. I’m pretty happy with what I’m doing now. I just, I guess that I just be doing, carrying on with this for the time being. Not really thinking too far ahead. Be nice to be really rich but you know, that’s not gonna be, that’s not, that’s not really gonna, it’s not a real goal of mine to get rich, but yeah.
JW: So you’ve not really got a bucket list?
YW: No. I’d like to own my own home, that’s probably not likely because, in terms, yeah it would be really boring to get into the mortgage side of it but in terms of where we are financially in, in Britain, inflation rates and all that…
JW: More achievable in Hull than it would be in London.
YW: Ah yeah, but ideally I’d like to own more of my home than the bank, so, not really achievable in that sense. But that’s well yeah but definitely more affordable in Hull than in London but then so is renting, yeah.
JW: So no plans to travel? Places you’d love to visit abroad?
YW: Saying that I’d like to go to, Thailand or Vietnam, or, Iceland, so maybe, maybe I’ll try and do that next year, that’d be alright if I did. But yeah. That‘d be nice.
JW: What message - would you want the listeners to take - from what you’ve shared with us?
YW: I guess, I guess I hope it’s kind of inspired people to think a bit about themselves and their background ‘cos it has me. Made me wanna delve a lot more into my history where I’ve come from and find out where they’ve come from and I guess how it’s all, I dunno, how we’re all kind of linked, I guess, in a way, and that people from those places. From London and Hull, definitely I’d say I’m from Hull now. Even though I’m from London, I’m from Hull.
JW: Well that’s fine. It’s been lovely to chat. Thank you for coming in
YW: Thank you.
JW: Thank you.
YW: Cheers. Thank you.
Interviewer: Jerome Whittingham
Date: 20 October 2016
JW: So - first and foremost then, can you introduce yourself and tell the listener who you are?
YW: - I’m Ysabelle Wombwell from, what…?
JW: So yeah, yeah, what is your connection to Africa?
YW: Oh - well my grandma is from Jamaica, and I’m assuming it goes back and back, and the likelihood is probably from the slave trade. - Well I believe it is anyway. I think my great-great-great-grandad or something, was Scottish and my grandad was Cuban. It’s all, yeah…
JW: So have you explored your ancestry in any sort of depth at all?
YW: - No, yes, no. My grandma used to tell us bits and that’s how I know my great great-grandad or something was Scottish. Yeah she told me a bit about Jamaica. I went to Jamaica when I was eight.
JW: Oh right, OK.
YW: And so, we visited some family around there which was really nice…
JW: Oh well let’s dig into that a little bit more then. What, what, you know, what were your expectations of going to Jamaica?
YW: Oh as an eight year old, I don’t know. It’s the first time going on a flight, I think it’s, it’s probably overwhelming of just, excitedness and going on holiday. So I can’t remember what I was thinking at that time, but my experience from it was, I guess, amazing, because, well it was just beautiful. Jamaica’s really beautiful. And we got to see like the two, I guess, two drastic sides of it. I think a hurricane had just been, or a few years before. So mine and my auntie’s was, house was, she was living in a, in a hut, and next door to her house, her hut, was her house being built, which had been built for ages I think, and it was just concrete, but like no doors, no windows, and just, I don’t even think it had a roof. And, but everyone lived in like the hills in huts with these houses that were half built, and, yeah.
No yeah I didn’t, I, yeah. This is coming back to that idea right. I didn’t really have expectations. I didn’t really know what to expect to…but yeah. And then the other side of that, that’s what I was going to say, we had to stay in a hotel, I think that my uncle owned, and that was proper like extravagant in comparison. It’s so weird to think that was the same family.
JW: Yeah. So tell me something then, but I mean you were eight years old when you went to Jamaica, but what about, you know the, the previous eight years. What are your earliest memories? Where you, where you born in Hull?
YW: No.
JW: No?
YW: I was born in London, in Hammersmith. - My earliest memory, I think, will be meeting my younger brother for the first time. So I would’ve been three or four and it’s hard to know whether that’s memory, or just memory of the story being told. But - we were at our granny’s in Cambridge and we stayed there for over the summer holidays. I remember just being really excited to meet him because we knew that he was arriving and yeah he was quite chubby and cute. And…it didn’t stay that way for long.
JW: So how big a family - do you come from?
YW: There’s my mum, my dad, my elder sister, older sister, and my younger brother, and then my stepdad and I guess I could go on, but yeah that’s immediate family I guess.
JW: - When did you move to Hull?
YW: In 2007 I went to Hull College to do Music Performance in September, and then, yeah and I just stayed. Did that for three years and stayed. I think the music scene just kind of kept me in.
JW: So how, how closely connected with the music scene are you then, do you sing in a band yourself or…?
YW: - Yeah, I write my own music and I sometimes do that. I’m in a couple of other bands around Hull - I think, mainly in terms of Hull and why like music has kept me here is probably the, we did a project - when I was at uni, and I was one of the young people on the project, and I got to meet a load of other musicians who were like, kind of in the same position as me. And that’s kind of what’s kept, and we kind of still see, get to see each other quite a bit. Even though we don’t, we don’t play music together but we’ll kind of link, well we’ve got that little link I think.
JW: So what’s your own musical style then? Who are your influences?
YW: - That’s a difficult question. I don’t, I don’t - I don’t know what my style is; probably acoustic, pop stuff, my, my own music. My influences, I don’t know. I just tend to listen to randomness music, but I don’t listen to it very often, so, which is strange, but...
JW: Well I’m going to dig deeper now, there must be people, you know, albums that you buy or download from ITunes or whatever. There must be artists that you can’t wait for their next track to come out or something.
YW: No, it’s a strange thing but I, I didn’t really listen to music that much - and I, I still don’t really. - It’s just stuff that I come across and I’ll listen to it, for a bit for a few months, and then stop listening to it. So I say probably most recently I’ve been listening to Vampire Weekend and The Shins, and a bit of Regina Spektor, but yeah it changes. I don’t really have, I don’t know why, I think music’s, is I think listening to music, it’s been a tool to do something else in a way. So I’ll be listening to music to write an essay at uni, or to do that while I’m working. But other than that I don’t really listen to it.
JW: Producing your own content…
YW: Yeah.
JW: …and writing songs. Are you more of a lyricist or a musician?
YW: - Ooh, I don’t know. Probably musician, but I don’t write very often. I just don’t. I just haven’t put any music out for about, since 2009. So, it’s kind of been connected to, I probably only write like once a year.
JW: So, - lets go right to - well not right to the beginning but, you know, an earlier age again, and talk about your identity. How much of an impact or influence did this Jamaican identity have on your, on your upbringing?
YW: I’d say, and it’s hard, it’s hard to say. It probably did because I had a very close relationship with my grandma, who was Jamaican. But I guess it’s unnoticeable because it’s not like normal isn’t it in your life that - if I think back really because Jamaican food wise, that I’ve been, I always wanna kind of share that with other people that I meet, like my partner and tryin’ like go “why don’t we try some of this Jamaican food.” And then I guess from that I’ve realised how different actually it is from the cuisine that we usually eat. And I guess when I get, when I get with my brother and sister we are, our language changes a bit, and it’s quite a similar type my grandma would speak. I guess it’s a slang almost, or, whilst I guess threatening to, to hit each other, in like a telling off way, because that’s what my grandma used to do; get a slipper or a bible or go get anything. So it’s kinda like that.
JW: Do you feel as though you’re almost making that conscious effort to, to use that sort of style of language or…?
YW: I guess, yeah, I guess we must be amongst my brother and sister, between us three; it must be, kind of. I guess its key within our, within our, within our lives without really thinking about it.
JW: Are you trying to preserve and feel proud of, of your heritage, do you think?
YW: Yeah, and I’d say we, we are very proud. Even though I feel a little bit like a hypocrite for saying that. I don’t really know that much about it. But I do feel proud to be from - Jamaica and, or my grandma being from Jamaica, and I kind of, I guess this is a regret, but it seems silly to say regret because I’ve still got, because I can still do it, but, not to delve deeper into it, maybe my chance of getting actual, you know, personal story from my grandma, and, is probably gone. But doesn’t mean to say I can’t delve into it but. I know, I know my mum’s very interested in it, so maybe it’s something that when the time comes, when, when myself and my sister are ready, we could help her on her journey.
JW: Is the Jamaican influence on your family getting visibly and noticeably diluted, generation by generation? Is your mum for example, - more Jamaican than you are… in the way it’s expressed, not necessarily in the visual way you look?
YW: I, I don’t know, that’s a difficult one, because my mum is deaf, so her culture isn’t necessarily, I don’t know how much of it is Jamaican culture or whether it’s deaf, culture, do you know what I mean? So it’s kind of, - and it’s hard to identify what would be Jamaican culture in our family, - like I said it’s kind of, because it’s normal. I guess in a way it must be getting well diluted because if you look at me, my brother and my sister, we’re very different from my grandma. So yeah it must, yeah I guess it must be, and, we’re very close to my father’s family who are British, you know, roast dinner every Sunday kind of thing, lived in England for generations in the countryside. So I guess we’re, because we’re quite close to that, I guess maybe we might lose, I wouldn’t say we identify as much with Jamaican culture. But as I say, it’s real difficult to pinpoint what Jamaican culture is, or…
JW: …Because that’s just your natural identity growing up or something.
YW: Yeah.
JW: That’s what you’ve grown up with. It’s probably not until this point maybe that no one asked you in any great detail about it.
YW: No. Yeah I mean you could go to the stereotypes but even then I wouldn’t know how a real stereotype is because I’ve not lived in Jamaica and I’ve only really got my grandma and that time that I went, to go on, so yeah.
JW: Yeah. What would you say the stereotypes are?
YW: A Jamaican stereotype? Well, from my experience, it’s been dreadlocks, well not my experience of stereotypes, but from my experience from people assuming from looking at me that, you know, that I’ve got dreadlocks and I smoke weed and things like that. But yeah, I don’t like stereotypes. They come from, I don’t know, yeah. You lose individuality don’t you?
JW: Let’s go back when you were a child. What were your ambitions and have you achieved them?
YW: - Hmm, when I was, I think I wanted to be a musician and earn enough to just play music all the time and be happy with that, and I tried that in 2010 and it wasn’t fun. So, I’d like to keep, so I did, I guess I, I accomplished my childhood dream and realised it wasn’t that great, so yeah. I think turning music, I think it was the problem of turning music into a job, that’s the problem. You lose your kind of hobby don’t you, by doing that? It becomes stressful and then there’s the pressure to do music and yeah, it’s just not fun.
JW: So what direction did you take after you had achieved that ambition?
YW: - I looked into, I guess, social care and work like that. So I became a personal assistant and now music’s just on an evening when I choose to, and not when I need to.
JW: How much influence did your parents have in, in terms of your ambition and your career route?
YW: Well at the time, I guess in terms of music, they were real, really supportive and that. So if I, if I asked for a keyboard or a guitar, they’d try and get it for me and, you know. - When I, when I asked for piano lessons, they got me piano lessons. When I didn’t wanna go to piano lessons, they were fine with me not going, do you know, just really, I guess, supportive. Yeah, if I had a gig they’d come and see it, even if they couldn’t hear it, and they still do actually, if I’m in London, they’ll come to a gig, so yeah real, real, real supportive.
JW: So let’s look a little bit more at the city of Hull, and - why you made it home, and how you feel about being here? I mean, what was the character of the city for you, if you had to describe it to friends that haven't visited?
YW: It’s - I guess it sounds real simple but I’d say, friendly. There’s kind it’s like a, an ease to it, where can just, you know, talk and not worry really about what people are gonna think of you I think. I’ve got London to compare it to, and only London which I guess is very, very different to Hull, so unbusy in comparison.
JW: So what are the key differences?
YW: Well yeah, well yeah unbusy well in London it’s yeah busier and it’s, it changes, a lot so. I guess – my mum and my brother said like, why don’t I go to London, I can get a job technically easier and stuff, but you know, I won’t be able to afford to live on my own, or if I could I wouldn’t be able to afford to live in a nice, nice - the size of a place that I have now, in Hull and I was thinking this well when I think in terms of Hull it seems exciting to think what’s gonna happen. There’s always, it’s always kind of moving and it feels like it’s moving towards something, and there’s, there’s always something going on, where in London there is always something going on but, but what’s it for is it what’s the aim, and I think like the reason behind, I well in the project that I’m involved anyway in Hull, it feels like there’s, there’s something really good gonna be accomplished from it, do you get what I mean, whereas I’d not got that in London, but then I left when I was eighteen in London so. But that’s my experiences of it.
JW: Your perception of Hull?
YW: Mmm
JW: You say it, it seems to have a purpose, it’s going somewhere?
YW: Yeah
JW: Erm
YW: Where’s it going to?
JW: Yeah
YW: Yeah, I dunno. I feel like - just seeing more and more arts, more and more music, more acceptance of that. I mean I don’t think it’s perfect, I think there’s still, there’s still - discrimination and stuff but, but you have that everywhere. And I mean I do feel like, like there’s - you kind of do have that a little more, more I feel like I’ve experienced discrimination more in Hull than I have in London, but, I’ve still, I feel, I feel like in the time I’ve been there I’ve seen it develop, in way, that’s kind of getting less, apart from, from Brexit. After Brexit but - I felt a bit uneasy in that situation. But, it’s – yeah its real difficult to say because of where I work, and who I hang around with, so I can’t speak in, on the whole for Hull but work, who I’m around in Hull it feels like yeah people are very accepting and like they’re really, really interested in something new happenings. There’s an excitement in Hull.
JW: Mmm. Let’s talk just a little bit more about Brexit then, your feelings around that, positive or negative. And your – I think I’m right in, you’re feeling negatively towards the whole Brexit thing?
YW: Yeah. I feel like there’s almost been - well I feel like I feel - uneasy. On the morning when I found out we’d voted to leave the EU I felt very uneasy, and I was very aware that I wasn’t white. Don’t know if that sounds racist by saying that but, yeah, and – and there’s almost feels like there’s been vindication of people being able to say – oh I guess blame migrants and do you know blame people who are different, essentially. But I feel like, the reason we voted to leave is because, people wanted change, and not necessarily for there wasn’t necessarily a racist thing. People are fed up and this is, probably this is the only, only election or the only vote that we’ve had where our vote really makes a difference, like my vote means this, not that, I’m not a part of a constituency. If I’m gonna vote this it’s gonna make a difference, you know, this is the only time when it’s actually made a difference so if people are tired, and people are living in poverty and stuff, just vote to change. That’s what I think’s happened, but I still feel that there’s an increase in - in discrimination, in racism from that, which is a real shame.
JW: Is that a feeling, or is there evidence?
YW: Feeling, I don’t – evidence wise I did, somebody did call me the ‘n’ word a few weeks ago but you can’t say whether that’s off the back of that and whether that could’ve still happened but, my feeling is I just feel uneasy for it and I did feel uneasy. Going down a bit, but I feel uneasy for other people as well. That’s, it’s not nice.
JW: So where are your favourite haunts then around Hull and perhaps the surrounding areas too?
YW: Ooh, well, I really like, going to Hessle foreshore, really like there. Danes Dyke…
JW: Mmm
YW: I went there for the first time a couple of years ago. I mean that’s not Hull, it’s nearby and that was ace. In Hull I dunno, It depends on the people I guess that’s essentially it can’t it. If, if my mates are around, like going there, so that.
JW: What is it about Hessle foreshore that you like?
YW: The bridge. It’s massive. It’s like this huge! You just sit underneath it and you feel tiny. It’s like, it’s do you know those things, you just look at it and you just go – you can’t really understand the size of it by looking at it, do you know what I mean, but you just keep trying I don’t know. It might be different for other people but to me it’s yeah you can’t really compute the size. I find it fascinating, the way it curves where it’s wider at the top than it is at the bottom, the bridge yeah.
JW: Do you want to go over on to the south bank? Do you ever use the Humber Bridge, go and explore the south bank or not?
YW: No. No I went to - is it Cleethorpes, on the other side? I went there once, on a bus. That’s right, it was the weather, I think it really, really poured it down when we got there - so, I was a bit miserable. But, arcades, they fascinate me as well, you don’t really get them in London.
JW: I find it interesting that you, and many other people that I know, the majority of the people in the city, don’t seem to go over the Humber Bridge.
YW: No.
JW: They see it not as a bridge to go somewhere else to go and explore. They see the bridge as a barrier. The question really is, are sort of barriers natural to us humans? You know. Are we naturally, you know, do we naturally spread our wings and want to explore or are we, are we just home birds really?
YW: - I guess it depends on how what you mean by naturaI, like, I think it’s engrained in us, that we can’t do things and there’s barriers, and stuff like that, so, maybe if you mean that, I guess you could say naturally, ‘cos that’s all you know maybe. I don’t see the Humber Bridge as a barrier though. I just haven’t gone over, well I have driven over it a few times but only driven over it. I do want to walk across it, it’s just getting the time really, but yeah I don’t see it as a barrier.
JW: So - what do you want to be doing in the future, what are your longer term goals?
YW: Dunno, nothing really, I don’t really have any aims. I’m pretty happy with what I’m doing now. I just, I guess that I just be doing, carrying on with this for the time being. Not really thinking too far ahead. Be nice to be really rich but you know, that’s not gonna be, that’s not, that’s not really gonna, it’s not a real goal of mine to get rich, but yeah.
JW: So you’ve not really got a bucket list?
YW: No. I’d like to own my own home, that’s probably not likely because, in terms, yeah it would be really boring to get into the mortgage side of it but in terms of where we are financially in, in Britain, inflation rates and all that…
JW: More achievable in Hull than it would be in London.
YW: Ah yeah, but ideally I’d like to own more of my home than the bank, so, not really achievable in that sense. But that’s well yeah but definitely more affordable in Hull than in London but then so is renting, yeah.
JW: So no plans to travel? Places you’d love to visit abroad?
YW: Saying that I’d like to go to, Thailand or Vietnam, or, Iceland, so maybe, maybe I’ll try and do that next year, that’d be alright if I did. But yeah. That‘d be nice.
JW: What message - would you want the listeners to take - from what you’ve shared with us?
YW: I guess, I guess I hope it’s kind of inspired people to think a bit about themselves and their background ‘cos it has me. Made me wanna delve a lot more into my history where I’ve come from and find out where they’ve come from and I guess how it’s all, I dunno, how we’re all kind of linked, I guess, in a way, and that people from those places. From London and Hull, definitely I’d say I’m from Hull now. Even though I’m from London, I’m from Hull.
JW: Well that’s fine. It’s been lovely to chat. Thank you for coming in
YW: Thank you.
JW: Thank you.
YW: Cheers. Thank you.