First Impressions

Mr Bakhsish Singh Attwal came to Highfields in 1957.
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A peaceful area. Few Asians in Leicester about 4050

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No Indian vegetables available. No yoghurt available.

One grocery shop. Mr Patel used to come to your house and drop lentils etc off. Could telephone him.

Yoghurt was essential so asked dairies to produce yoghurt.

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CO Nobody around Highfields to teach English. Many Asians could not speak English.

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Mr Boleslaw Dobski came to Highfields in 1947/48.
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OK, let's change the subject. When you came here, did you feel you integrated well in to the local community?

No, unfortunately not. First it was a lack of language you see. That was one thing. Secondly, which was perhaps the worst of it, the anti-Polish and anti-image propaganda, propaganda by Warsaw, by the government there in Poland. They call us racists, they call us anything. And of course, the British leftwing press picked it up and when ever we went to work, "Why don't you go back home?" They were reading the Daily Worker. And then, when you were looking for a job you saw, "Poles don't need to apply" that happened quite frequently in Leicester. That's why we stuck together. A lack of language and an anti-Polish feeling and various things. The British Press wasn't very helpful because they had been in love with Stalin and that system. "Why don't you go home? Look how they live." There was plenty of jobs around the corner, you didn't have to worry about that because there was plenty of work.

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Dr Stuart Fraser lived in Highfields from 1946 the year he was born.
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My first impressions of Highfields I suppose was really the fact that I lived in this rather large house, downstairs it had a large hall, a dining room and a front sitting room, a scullery a kitchen, a pantry larder, a small yard at the back with an outside toilet, there was a small Butler's pantry going into the dining room and off that lead the dispensary, a small consulting room and then a large waiting room. The consulting room, dispensary and waiting room were very much forbidden territories for me when I was younger because that was where there were patients and I just kept out of it but a weekends on the Sunday because there were surgeries all the way through Saturday I could play in the waiting room. It had, what I call railway benches all the way round the wall and school benches down the middle of the room and it was quite a good play room, and I could have a competition to see how long I could not touch the floor by running around the furniture and various things is what I remember, but the other rooms were very much forbidden areas altogether, there was a door directly onto the road out of the waiting room and the one thing I do remember there is that they had a brass voice piece there which the idea was that there was a tube going up to the bedside of my parents and the patients could take out a bung and blow in this and a whistle blew at the other end and you could speak, it was the night call tube.

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Mr Tirthram Hansrani came to live in Highfields in the late 1940s.
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The Highfields area was nice then. It was a family area. It was a peaceful area. The weather used to be so cold. It would snow heavily and be very foggy. There used to be more snow then.

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I knew English so I did not find things that difficult. The people were very helpful then. A person did not feel silly asking for some help. The people were ever so helpful. They could not do enough for one another.

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Mr Amarjit Singh Johl came to Highfields in 1964.
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Everybody used to do very hard work and long hours. Life was harsh and rough, I felt uneasy after seeing their lifestyle.

Where was your father living in those days?

He was living at East Park Road. He also owned another house at Mere Road which was rented to tenants. There were many people living at East Park Road.

How many people were living East Park Road?

I think about 10 people were living there. I was very upset to see this. There was no privacy and no facilities. I thought I wouldn't be able to live like that.

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Highfields was mostly inhabited by English and white people. The indigenous population was very helpful and sympathetic. If you had any difficulty, there was somebody to help you. It was a good time when you came from India everything looked nice and systematic. It was not overpopulated as it is now. It did not have a bad name either. Everything was peaceful.

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Did you face any difficulties as far as language and communication was concerned?

I was a graduate, so I was familiar with English, I could speak and write good English. There was some difficulty with pronunciation, sometimes I could not understand properly. I was wondering about uneducated people who came from India, they must have faced many difficulties. If there is no communication and a language barrier, you feel they must be very brave to settle themselves in spite of the difficulty.

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Mr Aidan Maguire came to Highfields in 1962.
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When I came from Ireland, we lived in a village where there wasn't a great deal of people, so when you came to Leicester it was very scary.

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I think that everyone walked. I remember my mother saying when we first came to Leicester that every place looked the same because of the big red buildings. I think it must have been the same for people who came from the West Indies because we used to come in from small places maybe or small towns.

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Mr Charan Singh came to Highfields in the 1950s.
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As soon as I got here, I started work the next day in Richard's Foundry – on night shifts. I had never seen a foundry. My boots burnt in 10-15 minutes with the hot metal. At night I thought I would not go back to work. The next day, all my dear friends bought me some more boots. I ended up working there for a year. Then I moved onto the Russell Foundry. I worked there for 3 years. Then after that I went to Melton Mowbray Petfoods because my brother worked there.

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Before me, my brother lived at Highfields at 18 Hartington Road. We both shared a room. Then we moved together onto Mere Road. We lived together for 2 years. Highfields was a lovely area. Everybody loved one another. There were only 10-12 Asians. Everybody, despite colour, race, was friendly. Everybody cared about one another. There were no baths in the houses then and it was difficult.

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Councillor Farook Subedar came to live in Highfields in 1972.
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What were your first impressions of Highfields?

It was quite a pleasant Victorian area. Where we came, most of the houses in Highfields area were quite clean and tidy and we were told by the local resident this was one of the most poshest areas of Leicester some 30 or 40 years ago.

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Mrs Muriel Wilmot came to live in Highfields in 1927.
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You were seven years old at the time, can you remember your impressions of Highfields when you moved there?

Yes I can, very favourable, yes I thought it was lovely. For one thing it was a tree lined road, Mere Road. There were all rather large houses which I found bloody impressive at that age and also there was Spinney Hill Park. I was delighted about that because coming from the country, town seemed a little bit strange.

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It was a very large family house which apparently used to have servants because in the basement they had a bell fixed on the wall.

Had it been split into three?

It had been split into three flats. We had the ground floor.

Was it nice living in a flat?

Well, it was rather strange at first. We had never been in a flat before, having come from the country, so it was a different type of living altogether really, absolutely different.

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