Olive Drummond
“Kreeshie mannahs before yuh linen yellow”
Translation:
“Make good manners a regular part of your life.”Explanation:
Simply saying “Hello”, introducing yourself or offering help when appropriate are great ways to show respect for those around you.
Place of Origin: Westmorland, Jamaica
Arrival: 1961
A story of strength, discipline, and fierce independence.
Recalled by her daughter Maureen, Olive’s story is one of strength, discipline, and fierce independence. Arriving in England to a cold, unfamiliar environment, she built a life through hard work, raising her family with strong values of cleanliness, manners, and respect. Despite hardship, including an unhappy marriage and financial struggles, she fought tirelessly to secure a home for her children—never relying on others, always determined to stand on her own.
Listen to Olive’s Oral Stories
Housing
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When she first came over, she moved in with my godmother. They lived in the Pleck area of Walsall. I think they lived there for a while until, and then they moved out and got a little bedsit, on Corporation Street. Because it is a shared room, it's like erm, in the day, one settles, sleep in the bed while the other's gone to work, and then it's like vice versa. It was that sort of living.
Soon after that, I think my mum became pregnant, so I think my dad needed to find somewhere to live. So he found erm, our first house, which is a terraced house. Yeah, very close terrace, with the passage at the side. Because he had a good job on the railway, because he was a railway engineer, I think he was able to have get a mortgage. Because I remember as well, although they had the house, which was my dad's and mum's house, friends would rent out the front room so they'd live downstairs, so they probably would help with the payments until they got their own place. Yeah, I remember actually, that other families lived there as well.
Independent Woman
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I think it's because of a hard life, because she's always had to fight for everything, even when um, she was in Jamaica. But she was the youngest, and although her parents spoilt her, siblings didn't treat her very well. She talked about incidents where her elder sisters would beat her, and she was looking after her sister's children when she got married.
She used to work for an American as well, looking after their children, so she's always worked hard. And when she got married to dad, I guess she had to work hard. Because my dad weren't easy. He’d had a lot of affairs. [laughter].
Yeah, so she would say, if I'm a dear me, take him up, you have to work hard. So yeah, she'd have an easy life. And there was domestic violence as well. Yeah, so I think because of that, she was always in survival mode. Because she's always been a very independent person. She can hold her own. She will never beg anybody for anything. She'll resource herself. If it wasn't for my mum, we wouldn't have a house today, because my dad used to gamble outside. Because she was the one who went down to the council, said, I need a house for my family, and she got it.
And in the end, they sold it to her, very cheap price, because it was in there for about 15 years. And yeah, she made sure the deeds were sorted, it was registered with the solicitor, although my dad tried to go down there to take it off the solicitor. But no, my mum had to fight, fight to survive.
Hygiene
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As Black people, we just get on with life, don't we? Until it affects you directly, don't we do anything, you just carry on. Apart from them being dirty and them kiss their dog and sleep with them dog, laughter none of them.
I think for me, because my mum was a very meticulous person in terms of cleanliness and the, seeing how British people lived, for her, it was like, yeah, a big thing. And I think from that, she just keep away from them, and then too dirty.