Daphne May Clarke
"Di road we walk nuh easy, it rough an full a trials.
But we mek di sacrifice fi protect di pickney dem, so dem can find di door open an di path smoother fi dem walk."Translation:
"The journey we've taken hasn't been easy—it's been rough and filled with challenges. But we've made sacrifices to protect our children, so they can find the doors already open and walk a smoother path."
Place of Origin: Hanover,
Jamaica
Arrival: 1962
A story about raising a family, strong values and faith.
Daphne May Clarke, 83, came from Jamaica to Darlaston, England, hoping for a better life. She faced racism and rejection because of her colour — neighbours moved away, and factories turned her down.
Still, she kept going, taking any work she could find, cleaning in hospitals and learning new skills. Life was hard, but she built a family and taught her children and grandchildren honesty, saving money, and faith in God.
Daphne reminds them to stay proud, choose good friends, and never forget their roots. She’s proud of how far they’ve come and the strength they’ve inherited from her journey.
Listen to Daphne’s Oral Stories
Proud of Our Family
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Daphne speaks: I'm proud of my family because Alan is a deacon in the church, apart from Kevin. Michael is a minister. Neville is a minister. Glenn is a minister. Sarah is en route. Then Church of worship, yeah, so that's my blessing, yeah?
Perfect Hatred
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It did affect you a lot. It did because you realise that, I mean, you know definitely because of your colour, you know. And those days, well, I mean, it's not like when you have a lot of black people, Jamaican and Indians around, there's mostly white.
And they did hate us with perfect hatred. Yeah, they detest the black, there's no doubt about that. Because, I mean, even if you bought a house here and they live next door, the following day they put their house up, they would never live it. Yeah, that's what they used to do.
But it did affect us, because imagine that you’ve got to live. You know, you've got to survive. And you're in a strange country, and you wonder. You go from factory to factory for the day [looking for work], and everybody rejects you. And you find, why? What have I done?
You know, it affects you a lot, but tell me not that time you don't realise how much it affects you. You just gotta get on with life. So you don't realise the effect that it had on you.
You just say, Well, how many there was another day and maybe tomorrow, I get another day maybe tomorrow, and it carries on and on until eventually you might get a job, you know, and then you just carry on and that’s life.
