A House Full of Friends

Adapted from an interview with Kausar Parveen

My dad came in 1964, working at the Catton tank factory and within a year, going back to Pakistan to marry and bring over my mum Najma. By 1968, I was born the third child and first girl. My sister Musarat hadn’t been born yet; we’d have to wait till the 70s for her arrival; we were the babies of the 60s.

We lived in a damp old terrace house on Gathorne Terrace, the third house from the end, I remember. There was a dark attic, I’d be too scared to ever go up to, upstairs we had an indoor bathroom, with two bedrooms and down stairs we had two living rooms, with our kitchen in the cellar. The walls were painted dark and dull colours, with lino flooring only in the parlour, where guest would sit. We were never allowed in there unless invited to greet our parent’s friends.

Most rooms had bare wooden floor boards, with the windows draped in mums home sewn material curtains. I remember this horrible old wall paper in the living room, with a reindeer pattern.it was ugly but mum seemed to like it, and she was the boss.

But as a family of five, we grew up in one room together. My parents had been raised in impoverished villages in Faisalabad, so living in one room was something they were accustomed too, whilst owning a small house, no matter how cold, dark and simple in furnishings, was a luxury.

We three children would sleep with our mum in the upstairs bedroom, whilst dad worked the night shift. The room had one large double bed, with an old-fashioned wardrobe in the corner and a small side table wed use to eat on, whilst we were seated upon the floor. When dad would come back from a 12-hour shift, he’d have the room to himself and mum would ask us to go play with our neighbours in the street, in order not to disturb our tired dad.

Dad used an old squeaky sounding bike, which he would use daily to get to the factory in Pontefract lane. It would clutter up the hallway and both me and my brother would knock into it whenever we came from school or after playing in the backstreet.

However, what brightened up our home was the lodgers who shared the house with us. We grew up with these colourful English characters who we saw as aunties and uncles. There was Ronny in the attic, a massive animal lover, who had several cats, which always drove mum crazy. He always had a story to share and often wed be left with him, if mum needed to go out during the day.

George was a dustbin cleaner, who lived in the room next t our family bedroom. He was a lady’s man, who was always complaining he spent too much of his wage on taking attractive women out for a meal and coming back with his wages all spent up. He made us giggle and would take us out to the local corner shop, insistent that we each had a bottle of coke and sweets. That was a big thing to do but mum would always worry hat he was spoiling us. We loved uncle George and neither he nor Ronny saw us as anything less than their own kids. It didn’t matter that we were Pakistani and they were English. I always grateful to hi for buying me my first doll, the Jamima Rag doll, a girl’s dream in the early 7os.He’d even take us to the fish and chip shop on a Friday and insisted we never paid.

We will never forget the two middle aged sisters, who lived in what was essentially the second living room, Aunty Morgreen and Kathleen. I remember they always had their hair in big grey curlers and a net over their fine hair. They wore short dresses and big high heels, and always had a cigarette in their hands. when wed be going to school, they’d be stood in the downstairs hallway, smoking and gossiping, leaving a horrible after smell which never really left a bad smell in the hallway, all day.

Even after they left us, mum and dad would call me and my sister mini Morgreen and mini Kathleen, as we shared their initials.

Mum didn’t speak much English, so often we’d have to pass on messages or politely remind the aunties to smoke outside or come use the kitchen when it was not being used. The kitchen smelt of fried Bacon and sausage, which we hated the smell of. The kitchen was always busy, where we and the lodgers would meet and each day without fail. Mum would wait till the lodgers were out and the smell had reduced, before preparing the daily handee which we would eat together in our room.

It was a normal house, but when we entered our family bedroom, we spoke Punjabi, ate roti and felt really Pakistani, but in the rest of the house, we felt English surrounded by our cheerful and friendly extended family of lodgers.