Trinnie
Lime Tree Road Allotments, Ward End
Trinnie reveals that he is 87 years old – and he still has three plots. He discusses his village in Trinidad and recalls that there used to be lots of other Caribbean people on the site.
Dougie
Moor Green Allotments, Moseley
Dougie divulges the prejudice he faced when first arriving in the UK from Jamaica in 1959, and the anger he felt at being unable to tackle it. He concludes: ‘Things change – a lot of things change.’
Mr. Bansal
Clay Lane Allotments, Acocks Green
Mr. Bansal reports that his journey to an allotment plot was marred by racism. He was told there was a long waiting list, but white people didn’t have to wait. It took him 20 years to get a plot.
Paul Rooney
Moor Green Allotments, Moseley
Paul explains that allotments were ‘unofficial leisure gardens’ for elderly Irish & Afro-Caribbean men on their plots, long before the concept of the leisure garden was introduced.
Trinnie
Lime Tree Road Allotments, Ward End
Trinnie shares how he got his name, his allotment routine, and the lack of other Trinidadians in the local area.
Mr. Bansal
Clay Lane Allotments, Acocks Green
Mr. Bansal continues: when he got a plot, one particular site secretary and his wife used to take Mr Bansal’s plots away and give them to their friends.
Teresinha
Walsall Road Allotments, Perry Barr
Teresinha remarks on a vote she initiated to stop smoking in the pavilion, and how keen she had always been to reflect the cultural background of the neighbourhood.
Dougie
Moor Green Allotments, Moseley
Dougie shares his experience of being pushed out of the Moor Green pavilion in the 1980s by a group of racists and how he and the other Afro-Caribbean plot holders successfully challenged this.
Mr. Bansal & Jeevan
Clay Lane Allotments, Acocks Green & Victoria Jubilee Allotments, Handsworth
Jeevan & Mr. Bansal examine how Uplands allotments used to be predominantly for white people. Jeevan asserts that this has changed and that everyone shares at her allotment Victoria Jubilee, in Handsworth.
Trinnie
Lime Tree Road Allotments, Ward End
Trinnie remembers coming to the UK in 1962, arriving on a boat that took 15 days. He says he used to be scared to talk to people, but he is braver now.