| Description | Gordon
DOB: 1930s or early 1940s
DOD: N/A
Born and grew up in Scarborough, Jamaica. Did not know his mother well, lived with his father and stepmother.
Disliked school, often avoided it and eventually went to work on the farm with his father from a young age.
Limited age formal education.
Could not read or write and struggled with literacy into adulthood.
Began attending the Hackney Reading Centre in later life and made meaningful progress.
Early farm labourer with his father in Jamaica.
Constructive work in Treawney.
Scrap metal year working in London.
Brief sting in the garden. Eventually employed in garden maintenance at Kenwood, Hampstead.
Married in the UK around the mid-1960s; has two daughters who both attend school and read well.
Childhood street games: marbles, gig, cricket, dominoes.
Church participation.
Reading and writing later in life.
Farming and gardening - ongoing passion.
Emigrated to the US for seasonal work under contract.
When returned to India, then moved back to England in 1960.
Lost fingers in an industrial accident shortly after arriving in the UK.
Sued for compensation and used the funds to buy a house in 1969.
Lost fingers in an industrial accident shortly after arriving in the UK.
Sued for compensation and used the funds to buy a house in 1959.
Leared to read and write as an adult.
Type-written autobiography.
Jamaica, migration, literacy, farm labour, England, accident, compensation, family, education, bauxite, homecoming, resilience. |