Amy Peters* recalls how strange it was going shopping when she first arrived in England. by bristolmuseums

Excerpt from an interview with Amy Peters* in the British Empire and Commonwealth Collection. BECC OH 0546

Transcription:

My first experience of going shopping, my Frank took me, this in Shepherds Bush. In Ladbroke Grove he’d go and get a bit of shopping and everything. When we moved to Shepherds Bush we went shopping one day and had lots of bags of shopping and we got to the end and Frank paid for it and I said “How are we going to get all this shopping home?” he said “What do you mean?” I said “Who’s going to take it home for us?” and he said “We are” and I said “I’m not walking down the road with all these bags of shopping.” He said “Well, if you refuse to walk down the road with the bags then we’ll have to leave it here then.” He said “Look out of the window, aren’t all those people walking with bags of shopping?” and I said “Yes.” “Well then, that’s what we’ve got to do.”

And I walked out of there with these bags and I felt really, I thought “Oh no everyone’s looking at me I’ve got these bags of shopping.” and I felt awful because at home when you came out of shopping there was a coolie there and he chucked everything in his basket and he carried it to the taxi. You didn’t carry bags of shopping and everything. And I thought “Oh no, I’ve got to carry all this shopping on my own.”

And with laundry the same. We didn’t have a laundry so I had to pile everything in the pram and take it down to the laundromat and have all the washing. And I’m thinking “Oh no, I’ve got to put all this dirty washing in a pram and walk to this laundromat and put it all in then bring it all back.” All these experiences were so frightening to me.

* not her real name

This audio was digitised by Unlocking Our Sound Heritage, a national project led by the British Library and supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. Find out more about the project - www.bristolmuseums.org.uk/tag/uosh

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