• It was an unexploded bomb I was playing with

No.1 JULY 2006
STOCKWELL SPECIAL
www.unwritten.org.uk
FREE
If I had the chance I’d like
to say... • This is a person who
deserves good food • I wouldn’t
mind being mummified • It
was very nice to find a bird inside my room
every day • You wear Portuguese top,
I wear Portuguese top. You wear
English top, I wear English top • An
Algerian man taught an Italian recipe to
a Galician in Scotland • He chopped off
his wives’ heads, but I like him anyway
• It was an unexploded bomb I was
playing with! • the same policeman,
the same time and always the same place!
• I am proud of my country,
but I refused to go to war and
fight against another people...
2
UNWRITTEN•NÃO ESCRITOS
UNWRITTEN•NÃO ESCRITOS
UN
Editorial
If I Had the Chance
I’d Like to Say...
It’s the notorious Iraq issue.
Personally, I am hugely disappointed
by the stance and involvement of
the government, and especially the
backlash that I fear might happen in
the future. To have set a precedent,
especially Britain! Other countries
might do things out of the norm and
then go to that example.
Politicians have been making a lot
of noise about making poverty history
but there is very little trickling down
to these places. Given the current
climate, these areas could be fertile
ground for terrorism to thrive. So I
think our collective security has been
compromised by the stance they take
and they don’t seem to care at all.
When I say ‘they,’ I mean the policy
makers who flirt with the rhetoric but
fail to do the job properly.
I think it’s the twin factor of
prejudice, arrogance and perhaps
the inability to come up with an
International Rule of Law that will
govern everyone so we can feel safe
and people in other places can have
access to basic things, which we take
for granted here. I think there has to
be a regulatory body who decides who
will be involved in someone else’s
business. Bush did succeed in showing
us what we suspected all along, that
the UN was just there to rubber-stamp
America’s views and when the UN
chose not to, it was just shoved to one
side.
Whether Blair genuinely believed
in it or whether it was personal
ambition, it’s difficult to say. But he’s
now got himself into a fine mess. The
continued occupation is costing lives.
If you pull out, you have taken the
cowardly way out and that’s not going
to resolve anything at all. You would
have thought it would have been
common-sensical that if you remove
the centre of authority, you have to
replace it with another authority or
there will be anarchy. So how the
hell they went into Iraq and removed
Saddam without any thought of an
immediate or provisional replacement
really beats me!
The world has changed so much
in the last four or five years. There
was a time when no one would think
much of me carrying a full rucksack
but now we have been practised to
become suspicious of almost anything and everyone. And there are
places wherein you can’t feel safe just
because of who you are or where you
come from or again, who you choose
to associate with.
You can’t really divorce yourself
from what’s going on. I think I would
like to write something the average
man on the streets can identify with
– something that those who do not
want to get involved with politics can
also identify with, something that
they feel reflects their experience.
I don’t know what the collective
thinking about the shooting of Menezes
is now but at the time it was a huge
topic. Giving the police the power to
shoot-to-kill on sight is far too much,
especially for a force that has been
accused of institutionalised racism.
It can be abused and the police force
themselves have admitted they made
mistakes. I mean, someone carrying
a lighter that looks like a gun – shot
on sight! Another carrying a wooden
table leg – shot on sight! Seen against
this background, innocent lives were
bound to be sacrificed.
Sometimes you can be very rational
if you are not involved. I don’t know
how I would have felt if it had been
someone close to me, but when you
are involved in the emotional bit,
the terrible loss, the circumstances,
the pain... It was a tough period. Plus
there were sirens all the time so you
were constantly being reminded of it.
And there were talks of people venting out their anger and frustration
– which again was scary.
As much as we tried to limit the
impact, I was worried. I was also
angry at the fact that people outside
had succeeded in creating a collective
hysteria and all of a sudden we felt
unsafe. What was most annoying for
me was that those with hostile intentions seemed to have won in disrupting people’s lives. But I suppose it’s
something we will have to put up
with for a long time to come.
I am West African from Sierra
Leone. Here, people are beginning to
believe that understanding and difference is important to progress whereas
in Sierra Leone if someone has a different view, you are mortal enemies.
It’s that bad! I think the advantage I
have is that I’m sitting on the borderline looking at both systems. I can see
why/how that one is doing badly and
how another is sliding down.
A fellow wrote in a novel about
Sierra Leone: ‘It was far too tamed, it
was everything I was running away
from.’ And that society, as tamed as
it was, allowed itself to slide into the
position it’s in now and it was really
shocking. It had the best judiciary,
it had the first university in West
Africa, Nigerians used to come to
Sierra Leone to be educated, and not
so long ago, whenever the Gambia
had a military coup and needed to
try people they used to come to Sierra
Leone to get judges and lawyers. There
was competitive politics and the trade
union movement was the leading
light in Africa.
It just got taken down the drain by
twenty-seven years of misrule by one
particular leader who just destroyed
everything – or people allowed him
to. It makes me feel really sad because
I know talented people who have been
denied the chance and have been
left on the margins to waste and rot.
For example, if you’re the manager
of a particular department, whether
you have the right qualifications or
not, I’ll take you because you are my
cousin, or from the same ethnic group
or same region. When you allow this
to happen, you encourage a system we
used to call ‘connectocracy’ – that’s
what we dubbed government by connections in uni – and you’re bound
to cause growing disgust.
I try to follow the politics of Sierra
Leone when I get the chance but it can
be really depressing. You just can’t be-
3
lieve it is happening in 2006! The state
of the country! The rubbish is piling
up on the streets, people working and
not being paid, prostitution rising, no
jobs, no money to spend, bad roads
and just loads and loads of four-wheel
drives. Instead of making the roads
better, they go out and get four-wheel
drives!
I think politics affects everything.
It was an eye-opener for me to see how
different things are interrelated, how
you form views about other people,
from books, movies, photographs, the
Bible, religion, or the media. I realised
that most of what I know about others,
has been second-hand from other
people informing me. And some of us
go through our lives without checking, how come I feel this way about...?
Anon.
With thanks to:
Everyone who contributed stories and
photographs to this edition:
Ana
Jorge Andrade
Paulo Andrade
Miguel Angelo
Eulalia Branco
Calo
Collective Vibes
Laura Donohoe
Bianca Duarte
Sara Raquel Calisto Fernandes
Sonia Fernandes & Elsa Ramos
Eileen Finch
Roger Griffiths
R Hamlin
Jasmin Silva Hossain
Megan Jenkins
Keiron
Margaret
Brenda Osborne
Catrina Pereira
Potty Dotty
Michelle Morais Ramos
RE
Richard
Ricardo Rocha
Michael Santos
Clive Seymour
Carlos Silva
Stephanie
Xelis de Toro
Project assistants:
Susie Clark
Sarah Sonner
Carolyn Thompson
Project hosts:
Hyde Housing, Lambeth Libraries,
Portugal Day Festival, Portuguese
Reading Group, Stockwell Community
Resource Centre,
Published by:
Library of Unwritten Books
www.unwritten.org.uk
Produced by:
www.quotemeprint.com
0845 1300 667
© The Authors & Library of
Unwritten Books 2006
Any opinions expressed in this
publication belong to the author(s)
and do not necessarily ref lect the
opinions of the editors.
Welcome to the first edition of
Unwritten, a new publication by Library
of Unwritten Books.
Since March of this year, we have
recorded random conversations with
people in Stockwell as part of an
ongoing project to collect 1000 imaginary or unrealised titles. We asked all
the people we encountered a simple
question: ‘If you were to write a book,
what would it be about?’
This prompted varied and unpredictable responses: children invented
tales on the spot, elders reminisced,
some outlined unrealised novels, and
others divulged secret obsessions. For
some, it was an opportunity to unburden themselves from everyday gripes
to personal tragedies. People often
wished to record something about
their own lives, express a belief, or
recall an important experience.
These spontaneous responses to
our literary survey were all recorded
and then transcribed. As such they
are summaries and snippets of bigger
stories as yet unwritten.
Unwritten is about possibility.
Although many of these titles will
never be written or published because
of lack of time, money and motivation, we believe that they embody the
author’s creative potential. Novels
may be left unwritten and memoirs
incomplete, but perhaps the unwritten
book should be viewed as a literary
form in itself, one that captures the
exciting stage between an individual’s
idea and the written word.
Everyone who recorded his or
her ideas and experiences has been
included in the publication without
selection or censorship. Although the
recordings featured in this publication are edited extracts of interviews,
we have aimed to retain the intention
and words of the interviewee. For
the enjoyment of the community in
Stockwell, where many of these stories
originated, this edition has been translated into Portuguese.
We welcome your comments and
feedback.
Bem-vindo à primeira edição de
Obras não Escritas, a nova publicação da Biblioteca de Livros não
Escritos.
Desde Março deste ano registámos conversas casuais com habitantes de Stockwell no âmbito de um
projecto contínuo cujo objectivo é
recolher 1000 títulos imaginários ou
nunca concretizados. Colocámos a
todas as pessoas que entrevistámos
uma questão muito simples: “Se
escrevesse um livro, qual seria o
tema?”.
Esta questão obteve respostas
imprevisíveis e variadas: as crianças
inventaram histórias imediatamente,
os mais velhos recorreram a lembranças, alguns esboçaram romances
nunca realizados e outros divulgaram obsessões secretas.
Para alguns esta foi uma oportunidade para se libertarem das pressões do quotidiano e até de tragédias
pessoais. Muitas vezes as pessoas
demonstraram vontade em registar
algum aspecto das suas próprias
vidas, exprimir uma crença ou recordar uma experiência importante.
Estas respostas espontâneas à
nossa pesquisa literária foram todas
gravadas e posteriormente transcritas. Por isso, são resumos e fragmentos de histórias mais extensas que
nunca foram escritas.
Unwritten consiste na possibilidade. Embora alguns destes títulos
nunca venham a ser publicados por
falta de tempo, dinheiro e motivação, acreditamos que personificam o
potencial criativo de cada autor. Os
romances podem ficar por escrever e
as memórias incompletas, mas talvez
o livro nunca escrito devesse ser visto
como uma forma literária por si
mesma, uma forma que capta a fase
excitante entre a ideia individual e a
palavra escrita.
Todos aqueles que registaram
as suas ideias e experiências foram
incluídos nesta publicação sem selecção nem censura. Embora os relatos
aqui existentes sejam extractos editados das entrevistas, tentámos reter
a intenção e as palavras utilizadas
pelos entrevistados. Esta edição foi
traduzida em português, para gáudio
da comunidade de Stockwell, de
onde provêm muitas destas histórias.
Estamos receptivos aos vossos
comentários e reacções.
Sam Brown
Caroline Jupp
Jean Charles de Menezes memorial, Stockwell
Photograph: LUB
4
UNWRITTEN•NÃO ESCRITOS
The
Proper
Ingredients
Os
Ingredientes
Certos
5
Livro de Receitas para Artistas Magros
Recipe Book for Thin Artists
The book would be written in Galician and the title something like Recipe
Book for Thin Artists and it would consist of a collection of very cheap and
nutritious recipes. So it would allow
people who haven’t very much money
not only to be properly fed, but also
keep some sense of style so they could
still invite people for dinner.
It would be explained that there is
also a philosophy behind the recipes,
that the best way to look after your
own wellbeing – physical, emotional,
psychological, cultural – is actually
to cook and feed yourself properly.
Look into the mirror and repeat, ‘This
is a person who deserves proper food.’
Cooking should be a part of your life,
a way of being; you’re not a person
who deserves to be eating takeaways
or just a can of something.
I really started to cook back in
Galicia. I was teaching but after a year
I quit my job because I wanted to try
being a writer. I had a bit of money
from working and I had a little collaboration with a radio station so I
had some money a month, very little,
maybe £150 and I found a very cheap
flat that a friend of mine allowed me
to stay in. I had a motorbike as well
that I could sell if things got tight and
I checked that I had a pair of boots
and a coat for the year.
In Spain it’s normal that you live
in your parents’ house till quite late
and that mums don’t allow you to
cook, but that year I had to learn
to cook for myself quite cheaply. I
remember I started to acquire recipes
and I experimented a lot. The idea of
recipes for thin artists is because that
year I lost quite a lot of weight!
UNWRITTEN•NÃO ESCRITOS
UN
The idea is to always cook as fresh
or as close to the natural product as
possible. At the beginning of the book,
even before you have the recipes, you
could have some advice about how
to build a proper larder. That means
in a very logical and cheap way you
can have all the things that you need.
I try to always have rice, couscous,
bulgur wheat, pasta, chickpeas...
So it would be a collection of recipes picked up from friends and also
like a companion of culture. When
I came here on holiday twenty years
ago an old girlfriend gave me her
place in Glasgow and in the flat there
was an Algerian man and he taught
me this recipe. What I like is that an
Algerian taught an Italian recipe to a
Galician in Scotland!
It was pasta boiled and cooked
with milk and cheddar cheese. I used
this recipe many times in Glasgow
because I thought it was fantastic
but when I wanted to repeat it back
in Galicia it was difficult because we
don’t have cheddar. It was difficult
to find a cheese that you could melt
little by little like that. I tried to boil
pasta in milk but you cannot do
that, you have to boil it in water, so I
think what he did was boil it first and
then he put cheese in the milk. So I
thought, that’s a recipe to go in the
recipe book.
Sometimes these recipes appear
just out of a basic need by somebody
in a particular situation in time. This
is a recipe from a Basque pianist, a
friend of a friend who used to put me
up in London. He would say, ‘Now
I am going to prepare you dinner.’
And he just boiled the pasta and cut
the onion very thin, and put it in the
frying pan so it got a little cooked and
then he grated some cheddar cheese
all over the onion so it would create
like a two level thing – onion and
melted cheese – and then you put
that on top of the pasta. It was OK –
usually I like tastier things. I would
add raw red pepper cut in little pieces
on top or some capers to give it a vinegary taste. This recipe would pass the
test. It’s cheap and it’s healthy.
Another friend made me a recipe
that almost passed the test. I’m strict
in the sense that it should be cooked
from everything fresh or natural. For
instance, my friend had these bags of
Bombay mix so he made some rice,
put two or three spoonfuls of Bombay
mix in it and all the spices got mixed
into the rice. When I saw him do this
I thought, ‘this is not good!’ but I have
to admit in the end it was reasonably
OK. It didn’t pass the test just because
Bombay mix is processed.
Some recipes are about what I like
as well. As far as I can see our taste for
gastronomical things is changing constantly. For instance, weeds taste nice
because you get a lot of people telling
you weeds taste nice. It’s really about
who is able to impose their taste. For
many years salt cod was poor people’s
food and now it’s very, very expensive
and everybody thinks it’s a fantastic
thing. Portuguese people say they
have 365 recipes for salt cod, one for
each day of the year, but now they
have a lot of problems to get salt cod,
there’s not enough and it’s very expensive. I really like young wines but
it’s not really what you’re supposed to
like. You’re supposed to like very ma-
O livro seria escrito em galego,
provavelmente intitulado Livro de
Receitas para Artistas Magros e seria
uma colecção de receitas muito
baratas e nutritivas. Iria permitir às
pessoas que não têm muito dinheiro
não só ter uma alimentação cuidada,
mas também ter algum estilo gastronómico e ainda terem condições de
convidar outras pessoas para jantar.
Seria simultaneamente uma
maneira de explicar que também
há uma filosofia por detrás de cada
receita e que a melhor maneira de
assegurarmos o nosso bem-estar
– físico, emocional, psicológico e
cultural – é, de facto, cozinhar e
alimentarmo-nos em condições. Olhe
para o espelho e repita: - “Aqui está
uma pessoa que merece comida de
qualidade”. Cozinhar devia ser uma
parte integrante da sua vida, uma
maneira de estar; você não merece
comer apenas comida para fora ou
qualquer coisa enlatada.
Eu comecei a cozinhar quando
ainda estava na Galiza. Estava lá a
dar aulas, mas ao fim de um ano
despedi-me porque o que queria
mesmo fazer era tentar ser escritor.
Tinha algum dinheiro guardado, do
que tinha ganho durante o ano, e
tinha uma pequena colaboração com
a rádio local, que me rendia algum
dinheiro por mês, muito pouco, à
volta de 220€ e tinha encontrado um
apartamento muito barato, que uma
amiga me cedia enquanto não estava
I am Brazilian-born. I was born in
Rio but I grew up in Portugal. My parents are Portuguese and I went back to
Portugal when I was six years old, so
my biggest memories are of Portugal
but after that, I lived in Brazil for four
years. I like living in London but the
place I most enjoyed was Brazil.
I lived mostly in Minas – that’s
southeast Brazil between Rio and Sao
Paulo and Bahia. It’s beautiful, and
for carnival, the barbeques – very
nice! It’s like summer all the time and
the people are very friendly. Even if
they’ve got problems, you don’t see
unhappy expressions.
The barbeque is the trademark
of Brazil and it’s really, really good
food. I have many favourite Brazilian
dishes, like feijoada, a dish with black
beans and all kinds of pork meat and
they cook it all together. And what
else? They’ve got that we call moqueca,
a kind of stew with different kinds of
fish and that’s really good. And they
do a thing called vaca atolada, which
is brisket and they cook it with cassava
– that big root you normally see here
in Caribbean shops. After you cook
it, it looks like potato but with much
better qualities. If you boil it, it makes
a kind of cream and it’s very tasty
and good for your health. In Portugal,
when you finish your meal, you have
to go for espresso coffee – that’s basically 100% of the population. In Brazil,
they still have coffee, not espresso,
they do it in a special traditional way
– but they still drink a lot of coffee!
Actually, I went to Brazil just to get
away from a divorce. So I went there
and set up my own business making
copies of documents and Xerox presentations. When I came to England
I thought I’d better go for what I
already know how to do, and I used
to be a bricklayer in Portugal so that’s
what I’m doing now. It’s something I
like to do, it’s not hard work and the
money is still worth it.
The building that I most liked
working on was Imperial College and
after that I worked on the Shell building in the Strand and the BT tower as
well. Definitely, I get some satisfaction
from it. When you start you don’t see
anything and then, at some point, you
look and see the structure coming
up and you see something you’ve
done – it’s a good feeling, the same
as when you are a baby and you play
with Lego.
I like what I do and I don’t mind
keeping on the same track but we
have to try different things and see.
My new project is completely different. It’s more about business and
selling Portuguese and Brazilian stuff.
Maybe a shop or a bar or restaurant
– I don’t know. We like the proper
ingredients to make our food, and
the Portuguese and especially the
Brazilian communities are growing in
numbers. At this time the Brazilian
community is about 200,000 in London, and if you want to buy Brazilian
products, you have to travel far away,
so we need more shops. Stockwell is
already full-up with Portuguese shops
and bars so I think I will go more
towards the east of London. It’s one
of the cheapest parts of London so the
new arrivals all go there to live.
Lately I have been working
ture wines, but in Portugal they have
green wine, like very young wine, and
I think it’s fantastic.
lá a viver. Tinha também uma motorizada que podia vender se as coisas
começassem a apertar e certifiqueime que tinha um par de botas e um
casaco para aquele ano.
Em Espanha é normal um jovem
ficar a viver em casa dos pais até
muito tarde e as mães não nos deixarem cozinhar, mas naquele ano
tive de aprender a cozinhar a minha
própria comida e quanto mais barata
melhor. Recordo-me que comecei a
recolher receitas e que fazia bastantes experiências. A ideia de ter
receitas para artistas magros deve-se
aos muitos quilos que perdi naquele
ano!
A ideia é cozinhar os alimentos
tão frescos, ou tão próximos dos produtos naturais quanto possível. No
início do livro, mesmo antes de ter as
receitas propriamente ditas, haveria
alguns conselhos sobre como rechear
uma despensa convenientemente.
Isto significa que de uma maneira
muito lógica e pouco dispendiosa se
pode ter tudo aquilo de que necessitamos. Eu tento ter sempre arroz,
cuscuz, bulgur de trigo, massa, grão
de bico...
Seria uma colecção de receitas
recolhidas por entre os amigos e
também um registo cultural. Quando
cá cheguei há vinte anos para passar
umas férias, uma amiga cedeu-me
o seu apartamento em Glasgow e
nesse apartamento vivia um argelino
que me ensinou esta receita. O que
eu acho delicioso é que um argelino
ensinou uma receita italiana a um
galego na Escócia!
Era massa cozida preparada
com leite e queijo cheddar. Usei
esta receita muitas vezes enquanto
estive em Glasgow porque achei que
era realmente fantástica, mas senti
grandes dificuldades quando a tentei
confeccionar em Espanha porque cá
não temos cheddar. É difícil encontrar um queijo que derreta tão suavemente. Tentei cozer a massa em leite,
mas não se pode fazer isso, a massa
tem de ser cozida em água, por isso
acho que o que ele fez foi cozer a
massa em água e depois colocou o
queijo no leite. Por isso pensei que
era uma boa receita para constar do
livro.
Por vezes estas receitas surgem de
uma necessidade básica de alguém
numa situação específica em determinada altura. Esta é a receita que
um pianista basco me costumava
dar. Ele dizia: – “Agora vou prepararte o jantar.” E cozia simplesmente a
through weekends, but today I’m having a day off and I’m really enjoying it
because I’m having typical Portuguese
food, the weather is special – a good
day out.
boa comida. Tenho muitos pratos
favoritos da cozinha brasileira, como
feijoada, um prato com feijão preto e
todos os tipos de carne de porco cozinhados juntos. E que mais? Têm o
que chamamos moqueca, uma espécie
de refogado com diferentes tipos de
peixe e que também é muito bom.
E fazem uma coisa chamada “vaca
atolada”, que consiste em carne do
peito cozinhada com mandioca, uma
grande raiz que normalmente se
encontra nas lojas das Caraíbas e que
depois de cozinhada parece batata,
mas com muito melhores qualidades.
Se for cozida faz um tipo de creme
e é muito saboroso e bom para a
saúde. Em Portugal, depois das refeições, é costume tomar-se um café
curto – isto acontece com quase cem
por cento da população. No Brasil
ainda têm café, sem ser curto, mas
sim preparado de maneira tradicional especial, por isso os brasileiros
bebem muito café!
Na verdade fui para o Brasil só
para fugir de um divórcio. Fui para
lá e montei o meu próprio negócio
Eu sou de naturalidade brasileira.
Nasci no Brasil, mas cresci em Portugal. Os meus pais são portugueses
e voltei para Portugal quando tinha
seis anos, por isso a maior parte das
recordações que tenho são de Portugal, mas na verdade vivi no Brasil
durante quatro anos. Gosto de viver
em Londres, mas o local de que mais
gostei foi do Brasil.
Vivi sobretudo em Minas – um
estado do sul do Brasil entre o Rio,
São Paulo e a Baía. É um local muito
bonito e os churrascos no Carnaval...
uma maravilha! Lá é como se fosse Verão o ano inteiro e as pessoas
são muito simpáticas. Mesmo que
tenham problemas não as vemos com
expressões infelizes.
O churrasco é a marca registada
do Brasil e é mesmo muito bom, é
massa e cortava cebola muito fina,
colocava-a na frigideira para tostar
ligeiramente e depois ralava um
pouco de queijo cheddar por cima da
cebola, criando uma base com dois
níveis – cebola e queijo derretido – e
depois deitava a mistura por cima da
massa. Era bom, mas habitualmente
gosto de coisas mais saborosas. Eu
teria acrescentado pimentos vermelhos crus, cortados aos bocadinhos,
ou um punhado de alcaparras para
lhe dar um sabor mais avinagrado.
Esta receita passaria no teste. É económica e saudável.
Um outro amigo fez-me uma
receita que quase passou no teste. Eu
sou bastante rigoroso em relação aos
alimentos, que devem ser cozinhados
no seu estado mais fresco ou mesmo
natural. Por exemplo, o meu amigo tinha umas embalagens de uma
mistura de Bombaim, fez um arroz
e colocou-lhe duas ou três colheres
da mistura, de maneira que todas as
especiarias se misturaram no arroz.
Quando o vi a fazer isto pensei, “Isto
não é nada bom!”, mas devo admitir
que o resultado até era agradável.
Só não passou no teste porque a
mistura de Bombaim é um alimento
processado.
Algumas receitas são também
sobre coisas de que eu gosto. Tanto
quanto posso observar o nosso
gosto em termos gastronómicos
está sempre a mudar. Por exemplo,
as ervas daninhas comestíveis têm
um sabor agradável porque há uma
série de gente a dizer que as ervas
daninhas comestíveis sabem bem.
É uma questão de saber quem tem
a capacidade de impor o seu gosto.
Durante muitos anos o bacalhau
salgado foi considerado como a
comida dos pobres e agora é muito,
muito caro e toda a gente acha que é
uma iguaria. Os portugueses dizem
que têm 365 maneiras para cozinhar
bacalhau, uma para cada dia do
ano, mas o grande problema é que
agora em Portugal há uma grande
dificuldade em encontrar bacalhau
salgado, porque não há suficiente e o
que há é muito caro. Eu gosto muito
de vinhos jovens, mas não é o tipo de
coisas de que se deve gostar. Devemos gostar de vinhos amadurecidos,
mas em Portugal há vinho verde, que
é um vinho muito jovem, e eu acho
que isso é fantástico.
Xelis de Toro
Sea bream for thin artists
Photograph: Xelis de Toro
a fazer fotocópias de documentos
e apresentações. Quando vim para
Inglaterra pensei que talvez fosse
melhor fazer aquilo que já sabia e
como em Portugal era pedreiro é
isso que faço agora. Gosto do que
faço, o trabalho não é muito duro e o
dinheiro ainda compensa.
O edifício em que mais gostei de
trabalhar foi o Imperial College e
depois disso trabalhei no edifício
Shell em Strand e na torre BT. Sinto-me
definitivamente realizado com o que
faço. Quando começamos a trabalhar
não se consegue ver nada, mas depois
a certa altura, olhamos e vemos a
estrutura a crescer e é o resultado do
nosso trabalho – é um sentimento
bom, como quando somos crianças e
brincamos com Legos.
Gosto do que faço e não me importo de continuar neste ramo, mas
devemos sempre tentar fazer coisas
diferentes e ver no que dá. O meu
novo projecto é totalmente
diferente. Tem mais a ver com o
ramo empresarial e com a venda de
artigos portugueses e brasileiros. Tal-
vez uma loja, um bar ou restaurante
– ainda não sei. Gostamos de ter os
ingredientes certos para cozinhar a
nossa comida e as comunidades portuguesas e brasileiras são cada vez
maiores. Neste momento em Londres
a comunidade brasileira tem cerca de
duzentas mil pessoas, e se quisermos
comprar artigos brasileiros temos de
andar bastante, por isso precisamos
de mais lojas. Stockwell já está cheio
de lojas e bares portugueses por isso
acho que devo ir mais para a zona
oriental de Londres. Para uma das
zonas mais baratas da cidade, que é
para onde vão viver as pessoas que
acabaram de chegar.
Ultimamente tenho trabalhado
também ao fim-de-semana, mas hoje
estou de folga e estou a gostar muito,
porque temos comida tradicional
portuguesa, o tempo está bom – está
a ser um bom dia de folga.
Miguel Angelo
6
UNWRITTEN•NÃO ESCRITOS
Basketball Groovy
Basquetebol Groovy
There was a boy, well a twentyyear-old boy, called Gerald Groovy.
He was 6’5” and he was a basketball
star. He was an enormous hit with the
girls.
He played for Chicago Bulls in the
NBA, and he was playing in a match
against Miami Heat. He had the ball
and he got knocked over by Shaquille
O’Neal. He fractured his knee and
went to hospital for two months.
When he came back, the manager
of Miami Heat said he could play in
his team. Then he went to Miami
Heat. He was playing against Detroit
Pistons, and he scored all the points.
The other match was against Chicago
Bulls and they won.
Then there was like a basketball
world cup. America went to the finals
against New England and they won.
Then he went to Utah Jazz; he was
playing against Charlotte Hornets but
was doing absolute rubbish. He got
sent off for dirty play and the Jazz
manager was very upset.
That’s not the end of the story,
just a low point. I think there’ll be
a second part. There’s lots of teams
want him because he’s a fantastic
basketball player; he was gonna keep
on transfer, transfer, transfer...
Era uma vez um rapaz, bem um
rapaz de vinte anos, chamado Gerald
Groovy. Media quase dois metros
e era uma estrela do basquetebol.
Tinha imenso sucesso com as raparigas.
Jogava nos Chicago Bulls na NBA
e estava a jogar uma partida contra
os Miami Heat. Tinha a bola nas
mãos quando foi derrubado pelo
Shaquille O’Neil. Fracturou o joelho
e esteve no hospital durante dois
meses.
Quando regressou o director
dos Miami Heat disse-lhe que podia
jogar na sua equipa. E ele foi para os
Miami Heat. Estava a jogar contra os
Detroid Pistons e marcou todos os
pontos da partida. O jogo seguinte
foi contra os Chicago Bulls e ganharam.
Havia um tipo de campeonato
mundial de basquetebol. A América
foi jogar contra a Nova Inglaterra e
ganhou. Depois ele foi para os Utah
Jazz; estava a jogar contra os Charlote Hornets, mas estava a jogar mal.
Foi expulso por mau comportamento
e o director dos Jazz ficou muito
zangado.
A história não acaba aqui, este é
só um revés. Acho que vai haver uma
segunda parte. Há muitas equipas
que o querem contratar, porque ele é
um jogador fabuloso; ele vai continuar de transferência em transferência,
em transferência...
No More
Blair
Acabou-se
o Blair
7
The Swimming Pool
A Piscina
I am nine. I’m not really a big
swimmer but two or three weeks ago
I went swimming with my aunty and
my mum. It was at the Queen Mother
Sports Centre in Victoria.
My aunty threw me into the deep
end. I didn’t know she was going to
throw me in and I started getting
scared. I didn’t know how to swim
before then and my feet couldn’t
touch the bottom. I didn’t have any
floats or anything. I didn’t have goggles but sometimes I open my eyes
underwater, sometimes I just close
them. Some water got up my nose
and that was scary.
I was very upset but then started
swimming and I started swimming
really good. My aunty was there just
in case. To begin with I was cross with
her. I didn’t say anything, I just went,
‘rarrrhhh!’ But when I stopped being
upset I hugged her. It made me less
scared of the water.
I’m going with my class this
Wednesday. At school there are three
levels. Level one is the people who
are rubbish at swimming. The middle
one, level 2, is the people that are getting there. And level 3 is where people
have to go down to the deep end. I’m
in the middle. I have to swim from
the easy level to the middle of the
swimming pool.
I like swimming in the sea too. I’ve
already done it in Portugal.
Jorge Andrade
Age 11
Yesterday noon Prime Minister
Tony Blair was found dead with a
bullet in his head. Police are terribly
shocked. A boy, a witness, said that
he heard screams and a shot from
Tony Blair’s house.
‘I heard a scream from the house
and I heard shots coming out and I
saw a blonde man that looked German coming out of the house. And he
came out with Gordon. Gordon Brown
was near him.’
There is going to be an election
next month to know who the next
Prime Minister is and Gordon Brown,
despite being at the scene, is still
favourite to be the next Prime Minister.
A woman said, ‘I was totally shocked
when I heard the news. I hope Gordon
Brown gets to be the next Prime Minister.’ Police are going to find out who
the murderer is as fast as they can.
I was going to do another story saying they found who the murderer was.
Gordon Brown paid a German man
to do it. But when they both got out of
the house they never saw the witness,
UNWRITTEN•NÃO ESCRITOS
UN
Eu tenho nove anos. Não sou
grande nadador, mas há duas ou três
semanas fui nadar com a minha tia
e com a minha avó. Foi no Queen
Mother Sports Centre em Victoria.
A minha tia atirou-me para a
parte funda da piscina. Eu não sabia
que ela me ia atirar e comecei a ficar
assustado. Eu não sabia nadar e os
meus pés não chegavam ao fundo da
piscina. Não tinha bóias nem nada.
Não tinha óculos, mas às vezes abria
os olhos debaixo de água, outras vezes
fechava-os. Entrou-me água para o
nariz e isso é que foi assustador.
Fiquei muito atrapalhado, mas
depois comecei a nadar e comecei a
nadar mesmo bem. A minha tia estava lá se eu precisasse dela. No início
fiquei chateado com a minha tia. Eu
não disse nada, só fiz, – rarrrhhh!
– Mas depois deixei de estar aborrecido e abracei-a. Fez-me ter menos
medo da água.
Agora vou com a minha turma,
nesta quarta-feira. Na escola há três
níveis. O primeiro nível é para as
pessoas que não percebem nada de
natação. O nível do meio, o segundo,
é para as pessoas que estão a começar
a nadar bem. E o nível três é quando
as pessoas têm de ir para a parte
funda. Eu estou no meio. Tenho de
nadar da parte mais fácil até ao meio
da piscina.
Eu também gosto de nadar no
mar. Já nadei em Portugal.
Michael Santos
Age 9
so they just said, ‘OK then, no one
saw.’ But then they didn’t know there
was a camera in the house and the police got the film and the German and
Gordon Brown got sent to jail for their
whole lives. Even if they die, they’re
not going to have a funeral, their bodies are still going to be in prison.
Ontem ao meio-dia o Primeiroministro Tony Blair foi encontrado
morto com um tiro na cabeça. A
Polícia está terrivelmente chocada.
Um rapaz, uma testemunha, disse
ter ouvido gritos e o som de um tiro
vindos da casa de Tony Blair.
“Ouvi um grito vindo da casa e
ouvi tiros a serem disparados e vi
um homem louro, que parecia ser
alemão, a sair da casa. E saiu com o
Gordon. O Gordon Brown estava com
ele.”
No próximo mês vai haver uma
eleição para se apurar quem será o
próximo Primeiro-ministro e Gordon
Brown, apesar de estar implicado no
caso, continua a ser o favorito para
o cargo. Uma mulher disse, – Fiquei
completamente em choque quando
ouvi as notícias. Espero que Gordon
Brown seja eleito o próximo Primeiro-ministro –. A Polícia vai descobrir
o mais depressa possível quem foi o
assassino.
Eu ia escrever outra história que
contava que eles encontraram o
assassino.
Gordon Brown pagou ao alemão
para matar o Blair. Quando saíram
da casa não viram nenhuma testemunha, por isso disseram, – Pronto, ninguém viu. – O que eles não sabiam
é que havia uma câmara dentro da
casa e que a Polícia teve acesso às filmagens, por isso o alemão e Gordon
Brown foram condenados a prisão
perpétua. Mesmo que morram não
vão ter um funeral, os seus corpos
vão continuar na prisão.
Paulo Andrade
Age 11
Vauxhall Cross
Clive
Around
London
Photograph © Clive Seymour 2005
I photograph at night. I get on my
bike and cycle around London with
my camera; it’s for fitness and doing
something artistic at the same time.
I’m an architect and the photographs
I take are trying to look at buildings
in a different way – you get to see all
these buildings in pictures already in
the architectural press and it gives you
a good idea of what’s interesting. Then
when I go there I just try and find a
view that’s a bit different and quirky.
Sometimes it works and sometimes
it’s a bit of a waste of a bike ride.
I’m probably drawn to extraordinary buildings. There was one I
photographed recently, part of Queen
Mary’s University, a strange little
building for students that was the
loch-keeper’s cottage, which is all
angles. It’s between Stepney Green
and Mile End. And the Lord Mayor’s
building, More London, the Barbican...
I just like cycling around the City.
There’s a new building going up on
Southwark Street, a huge one, lots of
fin-like louvres, brise-soleil... Allies &
Morrison Architects have their offices
on the other side of the road. Again,
their buildings are quite quirky. It’s
interesting in September when it’s
Open House Weekend. I took a few
pictures inside the Institute of Molecular Biology, up near White City,
and that’s a very odd building. It’s got
really strange big blobs hanging in
space inside.
I’ve taken lots of Battersea Power
Station, from the Chelsea side looking
over and from the bridge next to the
Battersea Dogs Home. Again, this is
usually at night-time. It’s not possible
to get in there; it’s really well guarded
– not that I’ve tried!
There’s so much architecture in
London, even around here. I’ve got
some pictures that I’ve done at night
of the new Vauxhall Cross station. I
like it – in a weird way. It looks like
something you park your car on.
To start with I had my little tripod
and the photographs came out very
dark until I found out how to use
manual exposure and suddenly I got
really different effects. There’s one
I’ve taken of the Crystal Palace TV
mast and because of the streetlights
caught in it, it just looks like it’s exploding – really weird.
It’s usually just the building – no
people. Taking pictures at night-time
is probably due to time restraints with
working in the day, but also when all
these buildings are lit up – like the
pagoda in Battersea Park – it makes it
a little bit different. A book of my own
photographs – I’d love to do that.
Clive Seymour
8
UNWRITTEN•NÃO ESCRITOS
Save
Our
Squirrels
used to hunt rabbits so we always had
dogs as well. Sometimes we had ten or
fifteen dogs around the house. Actually, I have a very nice story about a
dog too.
Before the hunting season started
in October my father used to go to the
hills to practice with the dogs and the
gun. We had a new dog in our house
so my father took it to the hills just to
check what he could do.
But as soon as my father fired the
first shot, the dog started to run and
he always hid inside the house under
my bed. So I said to my father, ‘How
can you take this dog hunting to the
hills with you when there are loads of
hunters around and shots from everywhere, if he is afraid of the noise?’
But I thought that was very funny. It
was the first time I saw a dog running
because he was afraid of a shot.
So my bedroom was like a kind of
sanctuary for animals. We had one
dog that used to sleep under my bed
every day, but I didn’t like that. I used
to get very cross with my father, but
he loved his dogs and they would
move around our house freely.
Quando tinha mais ou menos
doze anos tinha uma gatinha. Chamava-se Kika e eu adorava aquela
gata; ela era muito especial. Gostava
This story is set in a small village
in America on the edge of a redwood
forest. It starts with a violent earthquake. With the first tremors all the
squirrels in the forest fall out of the
trees. This is something that actually
happened – not to me, I just read
about in a newspaper. Squirrels are so
light they can fall out of trees without
getting hurt, but for the sake of the
story the earthquake knocks them all
unconscious.
Local people bundle them up, take
them home and nurse them back to
health. The squirrels become really
tame and don’t want to return to the
forest. I like the idea of disasters bringing about situations that wouldn’t
normally happen.
So now the village is infested with
very tame squirrels. You know like
shoulder cats, the squirrels become
that domesticated – shoulder squirrels.
So then the State has to intervene
because they’re becoming a health
risk. Starbuck’s staff have squirrels
helping with service, that kind of
thing. It becomes illegal to associate
9
Someone Special
Alguém Especial
Amazing Animals
Animais Espantosos
When I was about twelve years old I
had a little cat. Her name was Kika and
I loved that cat; she was very special.
She liked to have breakfast with me
and she used to go on top of the table;
she liked yoghurt and biscuits and
ham. But the funniest thing was one
summer I started to find live birds
inside my bedroom, even when the
windows were closed.
We lived in the countryside and
there was a river and hills behind our
house. One day in the summer I was
sitting outside the house and I started
to see Kika crawling very slowly in
the dried grass and because she was
almost the same colour she caught a
bird. She had the bird in her mouth.
Then I followed her; she went inside
our house, inside my bedroom and
just let the bird go in there. And she
did that every day for a while.
It was probably like a gift to me
because I always treated her so nicely.
But the most amazing thing was that
she never killed the bird, she always
let it go inside my bedroom alive.
They were sparrows; there were
so many of them around my house.
Normally I opened the window and
the bird would fly out again, but it
was very nice to find a bird inside my
room every day. It’s the kind of thing
you never forget.
We always had cats and my father
UNWRITTEN•NÃO ESCRITOS
UN
de tomar pequeno-almoço comigo e
costumava ir para cima da mesa; gostava de iogurte, bolachas e fiambre.
O mais engraçado é que num certo
Verão comecei a encontrar pássaros
vivos no meu quarto, mesmo quando
as janelas estavam fechadas.
Vivíamos no campo e por trás da
nossa casa havia um rio e uns montes. Um certo dia estava eu sentada
na rua quando comecei a ver a Kika a
rastejar muito devagarinho na relva
seca e como era quase da mesma
cor da relva acabou por apanhar um
pássaro. Tinha um pássaro na boca.
Depois segui-a; foi para dentro de
casa, até ao meu quarto, e deixou o
pássaro voar lá para dentro. Durante
uns tempos fez aquilo todos os dias.
É provável que os pássaros fossem
um presente para mim, porque eu
sempre a tratei muito bem. O mais
espantoso é que ela nunca os matava,
deixava-os sempre no meu quarto
vivos.
Eram pardais; há tantos perto
da minha casa. Quando chegava ao
quarto era hábito abrir a janela e
o pássaro voltava a sair a voar, mas
era muito agradável a cada novo
dia encontrar um pássaro no meu
quarto. É o tipo de coisa que nunca
se esquece.
Sempre tivemos gatos e como
o meu pai caçava coelhos também
tínhamos cães. Às vezes havia dez ou
quinze cães lá por casa. Na verdade
também tenho uma história muito
bonita sobre um cão.
Antes de começar a época de caça
em Outubro, o meu pai costumava ir
para os montes treinar com os cães
e com as caçadeiras. Tínhamos um
cão novo em casa, por isso o meu pai
levou-o para o monte para ver como
ele se saía.
Mas mal o meu pai disparava
o primeiro tiro o cão começava a
correr e escondia-se em casa, sempre
debaixo da minha cama. Então disse
ao meu pai, – Como podes levar este
cão para caçar no monte onde há
tantos caçadores a disparar por todo
o lado, se o bicho tem tanto medo do
barulho? – Mas até achava bastante
engraçado. Era a primeira vez que
via um cão correr por ter medo dos
tiros.
Por isso o meu quarto era como
um santuário para os animais. Tínhamos um cão que gostava de dormir
todos os dias debaixo da minha
cama, mas eu não gostava muito.
Costumava ficar mesmo zangada
com o meu pai, mas ele adorava os
cães que eram livres para andar pela
casa à vontade.
with squirrels in a place of residence
or workplace. That’s when the Save
Our Squirrels campaign kicks off. I’m
not sure what happens next.
I guess it’s about my craving to
have more contact with animals but
I live on the 3rd floor so it’s not often
possible. When I was very little I used
to have ongoing fantasies about rescuing animals and becoming friends
for life. But I suppose it’s better to let
wild animals be.
I’ve got loads of plots for books,
but I’ll never write them. Last year
I was unemployed for a while and I
joined that NANOWRIMO thing where
you have to write a fifty-thousandword novel in November. Thousands
of people do it every year. I signed up
for it, got lots of motivational emails,
but I wrote one page, then got a job,
and that was the end of it.
Eulalia Branco
Anon.
Photograph: Library of Unwritten
Books
When I was about ten I used to
ask my mum, ‘Can you have another
baby? Can you have another baby?’
And my mum always said, ‘No, there
are already five of you.’ I was the
youngest one and I had two sisters
and two brothers older than me.
But one evening, my mum said,
‘What about if a baby is coming now?’
She was trying to prepare us, and I
said, ‘Is it true? Is it true?’ I got very
enthusiastic. And my mother said,
‘Yes it’s true, another baby is going to
arrive in a few months’ time.’
Elsa was so upset that she didn’t
sleep all night because she was thinking ‘no, another baby, no!’ But I was
so happy; I couldn’t wait for her to be
born.
Her name is Claudia. When she
was a baby everybody liked her very
much because she was like a doll
for us and we helped to take care of
her because my mother had to help
my father on the farm whenever she
could.
Claudia was spoilt; she had everything she wanted. But this didn’t
make her a bad person. She’s a wonderful girl. These days I have to say
you don’t find a girl or a boy the way
she is, because they just think about
naughty things, but she is a young
lady with her mind in the right place.
She’s got a boyfriend now but
when she was at college, the other
girls used to say to her, ‘You just think
about studying, why don’t you care
about boyfriends?’ And she used to
say, ‘I’ve got plenty of time for that,
all I want is to organise my life first.’
She got into a university down
in the Algarve, quite far away from
home and not what she wanted. So
she took a gap year and went into the
military.
The first month they suffer a lot.
It’s like you are sleeping and two
o’clock in the morning they go, ‘Wake
up everybody! You’ve got five minutes
to get dressed and be outside.’ They
make them go in mud and things like
that. She had to have a massage every
weekend she came home.
But she never gave up. She applied
for the academy again and she got
in, so she’s in Lisbon at the moment
studying to be a nurse but she wants
to be a paediatric doctor and everything she wants to do, she just puts
‘I’m going to do it’ in her mind and
she does it.
At twenty years old she’s a very
independent person; she’s got a salary
and she’s got her own car. We are
very, very proud of her. Since she was
born she’s been someone special for
us because we helped to take care
of her and she was so little when
we were already so big. It’s hard to
explain but it’s a nice feeling.
We call her and send text messages.
We are still really very close. We are
very lucky we had good parents. It’s
funny because if we have a problem
and we don’t want them to know,
when we call my mother is like, ‘Are
you all right? Your voice doesn’t seem
very well.’ I have to say I think that is
the reason why we are so close. And
even though we are all married with
children, our parents think we are
still kids.
Baby Story
Uma História de Bebé
This is a story from the past. When
I was just a little baby I used to sleep
a lot. One hot summer day my mum
put me to sleep as normal. But this
was not a normal day because a funny
thing happened.
I was asleep in my cot and my
brother and sister were playing outside
with their friends. My mum realised
that the milk and bread was nearly
finished so she had to go out to the
shop. In Portugal there’s no problem
doing that as your neighbours keep an
eye out for you.
When mum came back she realised
I was missing from my cot and she felt
very worried. I couldn’t have walked
out on my own, as I was so little.
Something really strange must have
happened. My mum called Adriano
and São, my brother and sister, to ask
them if they knew what had happened.
But no one could help – not even
the neighbours. They searched every-
Quando tinha mais ou menos dez
anos costumava perguntar à minha
mãe, – Podes ter mais um bebé?
Podes ter mais um bebé? – E a minha
mãe dizia sempre, – Não, vocês já são
cinco. – Eu era a mais nova, tinha
duas irmãs e dois irmãos mais velhos
que eu.
Mas uma certa noite a minha mãe
disse: - E se viesse um bebé agora?
– Ela estava a preparar-nos, eu disse
logo, – É verdade? É verdade? – Fiquei
muito entusiasmada. E a minha mãe
disse: - Sim é verdade, daqui a poucos
meses vai chegar mais um bebé.
A Elsa ficou tão aborrecida que
não dormiu a noite toda só a pensar
“oh não, outro bebé não!” Mas eu
estava tão feliz, mal podia esperar
que a bebé nascesse.
O nome dela é Cláudia. Quando
era bebé toda a gente gostava muito
dela, era como se fosse a nossa boneca, todos ajudávamos a tomar conta
dela porque a minha mãe, sempre
que podia, tinha de ajudar o meu pai
a trabalhar na quinta.
Ela era muito mimada; tinha tudo
o que queria. Mas isto não fez dela
uma má pessoa. Ela é uma rapariga
maravilhosa. Tenho que vos dizer
que, hoje em dia, é difícil encontrar
um rapaz ou uma rapariga como ela,
porque toda a gente pensa em fazer
disparates e ela é uma jovem mulher
com a cabeça no lugar.
Agora já tem namorado, mas
enquanto andava na escola secundária as outras raparigas costumavam
dizer-lhe: - Tu só pensas em estudar,
porque não arranjas um namorado?
– E ela costumava responder: - Tenho
where but no luck – until my brother
found me under my cot. I had fallen
and had kept on sleeping.
The story put a smile on everybody’s faces.
Esta é uma história do passado.
Quando eu era bebé costumava dormir muito. Num dia quente
de Verão a minha mãe deitou-me
como sempre fazia. Mas este não era
apenas mais um dia normal porque
aconteceu uma coisa muito engraçada.
Eu estava a dormir no meu berço
e o meu irmão e a minha irmã estavam a brincar com os amigos deles.
A minha mãe apercebeu-se que o pão
e leite estavam quase a acabar, por
isso teve de sair para ir à loja. Em
Portugal não há problema em fazer
muito tempo para isso, primeiro
quero organizar a minha vida.
Ela entrou para a universidade lá
para o Algarve, que fica muito longe
de casa e não é bem o que ela queria.
Então decidiu parar um ano e foi
para a tropa.
Durante o primeiro mês eles
sofrem muito. É do tipo, uma pessoa
está a dormir e às duas da manhã
entram-lhes pelo quarto adentro:
- Toca a acordar! Têm cinco minutos
para se vestirem e irem lá para fora
– e depois obrigam-nos a rastejar na
lama e coisas assim. Quando vinha
a casa, aos fins-de-semana, precisava
sempre de uma massagem.
Mas ela nunca desistiu. Candidatou-se novamente à universidade e
entrou, por isso de momento está em
Lisboa a estudar enfermagem, mas
o que ela quer mesmo é ser médica
pediatra e quando ela quer alguma
coisa, basta meter na cabeça que o
vai fazer e faz mesmo.
Ela tem vinte anos e é uma
pessoa muito independente; recebe
um ordenado e tem o seu próprio
carro. Nós temos muito, muito
orgulho nela. Desde que nasceu que
ela é uma pessoa especial para nós,
porque fomos nós que ajudámos a
tomar conta dela e ela era tão pequenina quando nós já éramos crescidos.
É difícil de explicar, mas é um sentimento muito bom.
Nós ligamos-lhe e mandamos-lhe
mensagens. Ainda somos muito chegados uns aos outros. Tivemos muita
sorte em ter bons pais. É engraçado
porque quando temos problemas
nunca queremos que os nossos pais
saibam, quando eu ligo à minha mãe
é do estilo: - Está tudo bem? Pela tua
voz não me pareces lá muito bem.
– Acho que é por isso que somos tão
chegados. Apesar de sermos todos
casados e termos filhos, os nossos
pais ainda pensam que nós somos
crianças.
Sonia Fernandes & Elsa Ramos
isto porque há sempre um vizinho
para tomar conta de nós.
Quando regressou apercebeu-se
que eu não estava no berço e ficou
muito preocupada. Eu não podia ter
saído pelo meu próprio pé, ainda era
muito pequenina. Devia ter acontecido algo mesmo muito estranho.
A minha mãe chamou o Adriano
e a São, os meus irmãos, para lhes
perguntar se sabiam o que tinha
acontecido.
Mas ninguém podia ajudar – nem
mesmo os vizinhos. Procuram por
todo o lado e não me encontraram
– até que o meu irmão foi dar comigo debaixo do berço. Eu tinha caído e
continuado a dormir.
Esta história deixou toda a gente
com um sorriso nos lábios.
Ana
10
UNWRITTEN•NÃO ESCRITOS
UNWRITTEN•NÃO ESCRITOS
UN
11
A Day in a Soldier’s Life
The Finch family on holiday, Canvey Island, 1937
Photograph: Courtesy of Eileen Finch
United Family
After the Blitz mum decided she’d
have us evacuated. So she got in touch
with the sister of a lady who had my
cousins. She lived in Harberton near
Totnes and she said she’d take the
three of us girls.
Mum and my aunty took us all the
way to Devon on a train. Mind you, it
took hours and hours because trains
were so slow then and we were frightened of the air raid warnings. Mum
stayed that night with us and then she
went home. We cried; we didn’t want
to stay. We was only there ten months
but we had a good time – oh, we
used to get up to all sorts!
My sisters, Jean and Joan, were
frightened of my aunty – we called
her aunty but her name was Mrs Coes
– she was very strict and could get
very, very cross. My mum used to
send packets of sweets in a parcel, but
we was only allowed two a day. We
wasn’t allowed to eat sweets like we
were in London, but she didn’t starve
us; we had lovely food. She made
lovely Cornish pasties and cooked us
rabbit.
We had a big forest at the back
on the edge of a river and we used
to go over this little bridge to get
in the water and muck about. My
sisters and me used to go to what we
called the ‘giggly-climb’ where you
used to climb down and go across a
little wooden bridge. One day we was
walking across this giggly-climb and
Jean’s socks got wet and dirty. She was
crying, so I said I’d swap socks, ’cause
I didn’t care. I got put to bed when we
got home. I was the older sister and
mum had said to me, ‘Look after the
twins.’
Iris, Mr and Mrs Coes’s daughter,
was a great big tall girl and they had
a crab-apple tree, and one day Iris
went in and picked the apples. Well,
somebody saw Iris giving them to
me, and I got blamed for picking the
apples. I could never have reached
that high. Evacuees got the blame for
everything.
Uncle used to call me his ‘chil’ and
he took me everywhere. I’d go and
help him on the farm; he’d be thrashing the corn and I’d have to kill the
rabbits as they run out with a stick.
To us, it was fun trying to hit a rabbit;
I didn’t like to see the dead ones but
you get used to it.
Totnes was miles away and you
used to have to get a bus there, but
aunty never did. We had to walk
through
the countryside,
through a
through the countryside,
through
a
wooded
wooded area and that
used toarea
leadand
youthat used to lead you
Totnes.
right into Totnes. Weright
usedinto
to carry
theWe used to carry the
bags
telegraph
pole to telegraph pole.
bags telegraph pole to
telegraph
pole.
Aunty
hadthe
asthma,
Aunty had asthma, and
when
bags and when the bags
bit heavy
were a bit heavy shewere
madea Iris,
Jean, she made Iris, Jean,
Joan and me carry them. When we
got to this path where there wasn’t
going to be a telegraph pole and it
carry the bag I just put
was my turn to carrywas
themy
bagturn
I justtoput
it down.
I said,
it down. I said, ‘I’m not
carrying
the‘I’m not carrying the
This would have been about ’79 so
bag. There’s
no telegraph pole!’ That I’d been in the army a couple of years,
bag. There’s no telegraph
pole!’ That
was defied
the first
time
was the first time I ever
her.
I I ever defied her. I done my basic training as a soldier
thought
thought I’m not carrying
thatI’m
bagnot
allcarrying that bag all and then got posted to Germany. The
the way for them and I put it down
battalion was in Ireland but I was
right at the end of the
lane.
right
at In
thethe
endend
of the lane. In the end under eighteen and too young to go,
Iris carried it – mind you, Iris was
so they taught me to drive a tank inbigger and stronger than
Again,
I than me. Again, I stead. Sounds quite a reasonable thing
biggerme.
and
stronger
got put to bed when I got home.
for a seventeen-year-old to do!
We used to practice quick deployWhen it all got quiet in London
mum decided to have
us home.
I was
mum
decided
to have us home. I was ment exercises in case the Russians
coming up nearly twelve
years
coming
up old.
nearly twelve years old.
came over the border. You get a call
The schools were open
butwere
whenopen then, but whenabout three o’clock in the morning,
Thethen,
schools
the doodlebugs really
did
get bad wereally did get bad we pitch black, you have all these arthe
doodlebugs
didn’t go because they could stop
moured vehicles trundling across the
anywhere and drop down.
countryside annoying all the Germans
It was the doodlebugs that did
to hell. Well, you can imagine what
most of the damage most
to us.of
When
we
the damage
to us. When we an armoured convoy is like deploying
came home from evacuation our
at three o’clock in the morning!
house, No. 36 Thorncroft Street,
I was driving a 432, an armoured
wasn’t there anymore. So we went
personnel carrier, what we would call
into No. 15 with ourinto
gran;
we15
had
theour gran; we had the a battle taxi. Basically, you’ve got a
No.
with
upstairs and gran had
the down.
upstairs
and Then
gran had the down. Then driver and a commander and a crew
during the doodlebugs
the whole
back
during
the doodlebugs
the whole back in the back, a small machine gun, but
of No. 15 got bombed.
moved
of So
No.they
15 got
bombed. So they moved no big gun. It carries from eight to ten
us into 18 ThorncroftusStreet
and
that’s
into 18
Thorncroft
Street and that’s men and stops just before the enemy
where we lived untilwhere
we moved
here,until we moved here, and that’s when everyone gets out. It’s
we lived
fifty years ago.
literally a big steel box.
We used to play on bombsites
when we came back from Devon
because we only had the streets to
play in. Gran and grandad used to
take us up the common
takesometimes.
us up the common sometimes.
They used to go and They
have used
a drink
in and have a drink in
to go
The Windmill and they’d
buy us great
The Windmill
and they’d buy us great
big arrowroot biscuits
a glass of
bigand
arrowroot
biscuits and a glass of
lemonade.
I was fourteen whenI Iwas
started
work when I started work
fourteen
at Brand’s; I used to at
doBrand’s;
all the filing
I used to do all the filing
and things like that.and
The things
war hadn’t
like that. The war hadn’t
ended then and I was
coming
through
ended
then
and I was coming through
Wheatsheaf Lane when a doodlebug when a doodlebug
came over and stopped. It was pouring with rain and I had on a brand
new green cape macnew
that green
my mother
cape mac that my mother
bought me. Then this
man pushed
methis man pushed me
bought
me. Then
down in all the mud;down
he lay
inon
alltop
theof
mud; he lay on top of
me to save me from me
the to
doodlebug.
I the doodlebug. I
save me from
remember I was quite annoyed
because I had this new mac on.
My aunt Lucy was a My
realaunt
comedian.
Lucy was a real comedian.
One day a doodlebug had stopped
just overhead and this
man, who
justbig
overhead
and this big man, who
was an army instructor,
rushing
was came
an army
instructor, came rushing
into the shelter, ‘Thisinto
is yours,
this is‘This is yours, this is
the shelter,
yours!’ and my aunt said, ‘Sod you!
You can have it!’
The war memories are strong in
my mind but I’ve gotmy
other
memories.
mind
but I’ve got other memories.
Lots of things have happened
sincehave happened since
Lots of things
– we had quite a family, what I
would call a united family.
War
Years
Eileen Finch
The first accident happened when
the commander decided that he’s
gone the wrong way down a narrow
country lane, so he swings his vehicle
around and goes and takes off my
exhaust. Now it was winter so it had
been snowing and we go onto the
location to deploy and I’m at the top
of the hill and they’re saying, ‘Come
on down.’ And I’m saying ‘No!’ ‘Come
on down! Do as you are told.’ So I
start going down. Of course, I’m on a
tracked vehicle and tracks are a little
bit like skis so I just slid down and
stopped when I hit the vehicle in front
of me – thump! That was the second
accident that night.
And then I hit a tree stump, which
upset the boys in the back because
they got thrown all over the place.
When the battalion decided it had
finished the exercise these German
kids started throwing snowballs at us.
I’m happily sitting there in this heavy
armoured vehicle, snowball in the
face – great!
Then we are on our way back to
camp and I hear a grinding noise and
all of a sudden I see these two wheels
go rolling past and the vehicle’s lurching. It was my rear eyelet. One of the
wheels hit a German’s door and went
into his living room, banging right
through.
We were sort of stuck there so I
get out and the REME, Royal Electrical Mechanical Engineers, come along
and decide as we’re only three miles
from camp they’ll tow me. So they
put me on a soft-tow, which is two
tow chains. And so we set off but the
German police promptly arrest me for
tearing up the road so the REME get
in trouble for doing that. So things
are not going too well, but OK, not too
bad.
As we get near camp the lead
vehicle slows down but because I’m
on soft tow chains I stopped by hitting
the vehicle in front of me. So you’ve
got two armoured vehicles on the road
now and the German traffic is going
into ditches to avoid us. So I continue
to go forward and the vehicle has big
metal sprockets that lock into the
track but because there is no track
they lock into the tow chain and cut
it like a pair of scissors. So this big
steel chain just twangs! By now I have
dropped the seat and I’ve crashed.
You can imagine the tension on one of
these when they split. If it hit you, it
would take your arm off.
I’m now on one tow chain and
they still decide it’s OK to tow me into
camp but the lead vehicle goes around
and I spin off into the guardroom
with my fifteen ton of vehicle. Smash!
Straight into the guardroom. I look
round and the commander is literally
crying – not with laughter. Tears are
rolling down his cheeks!
The irony was I actually got three
days off. For each accident I had to
do three reports, and they just didn’t
know what to do at the end of the day
because they couldn’t prove that any
one of them was my fault. It was just
a set of circumstances. I didn’t have a
car license for another fifteen years,
but obviously I was quite suitable to
take a tank on the road!
Most of my memories growing up
are of playing in the ruined houses
on the bombsites in Jeffrey’s Road,
and it was brilliant. I lived in Garden House on Clapham Road, near
where Hyde Office is now. There were
two blocks of flats left standing, and
everything around us was completely
demolished. My father would come
looking for me and one day he said
to me really gently, ‘Come on down,’
so I thought to myself, ‘I’m not going
to get told off.’ But when I got down I
got such a wallop; the stairs was hanging by a little thread and there’s me
running up the stairway!
I don’t ever remember being
scared in the war, even during the
air raids. One incident is vivid in my
memory. It was when we were evacuated to Inkerman Street in Blackburn.
I was playing in the street and I
thought it might have been a bit of an
earthquake or something because suddenly this shop window blew out and
my mother comes out crying, ‘Oh my
daughter, my daughter!’ But there I
am, very calmly picking up the sweets
in the street that had blown from the
shop window and putting them in my
dress – not a care.
Up where we live now on Irving
Grove, there was this big crater and it
had a bomb in it. Well, I didn’t know
see, I was only about nine then. I’d
just seen this thing sticking out the
ground and I was playing with it and
all of a sudden I got such a wallop
round my head. I saw stars and looked
up, it was a policeman. It was an unexploded bomb I was playing with!
There was a big factory at the side
of Garden House, and they used to
have grass so high, like long leaves.
My sister and I used to tie them on
like grass skirts and we used to think
we were Melanie, the Jungle Girl, and
we would walk up Stockwell Road
with all these leaves on us. We used to
have a laugh!
I must admit I was one of the very
luckiest ones in Stockwell; I had three
meals a day and I had spending money. But I did used to share what I had.
When I was about nine I got scalded
and all my skin was burnt off me, and
even in hospital I shared all my stuff.
They used to have ration books then
and the family, loads of friends, the
neighbourhood used to save all their
coupons for me; that’s how close knit
it used to be in them days. I used to
have a big bag of sweets and share
them around to people less fortunate
than myself, because I was always
brought up like that.
I was in hospital for a whole year.
What happened was I was having
these skin grafts every day, and then
one day the doctor said, ‘you’re getting a bit better, we’ll get the nurse to
change the dressings.’ I was a kid, and
I didn’t think anything more about
it but when the doctor came round
the next morning, and this is as true
as God is my witness, he saw she’d
literally wrapped me up in raw plaster
and it all had to be done all over
again. I was put out in the boiling hot
sun for a whole day to dry up where
the plasters had ripped all the skin
graft off me.
I can picture the accident today. I
could see this big saucepan with boiling water bubbling and bubbling and
I remember saying to myself, ‘I think
I’ll help mummy. I’ll take the pan and
I’ll put it in the sink.’ As I’ve done
it, my hip has hit the sink and it just
went all over me. The ambulance drivers said they’d never known a child so
hard, because I wouldn’t take anything for the pain. I don’t know why.
I think somewhere in my childhood
I was told I was never to cry. I always
had to be the strong one, always had
to stick up for myself, street-wise, you
know.
All I can remember is I’m in the
ambulance, and I’m fascinated ‘cause
I can see all these blisters coming up
on my chest but it didn’t bother me.
After the op I was more interested
in going round the back of Lambeth
Brook Drive Hospital, where they used
to keep rabbits. I had a rabbit as a pet;
I still won’t eat rabbit stew.
R Hamlin
Brenda Osborne
12
UNWRITTEN•NÃO ESCRITOS
Community Engagement
Um Compromisso
com a Comunidade
The Tudor
Kings &
Queens
Os Reis e
Rainhas
Tudor
Henry VIII with two of his wives
My favourite story that I like
reading is The Tudor Kings and Queens
because I’m doing Tudors in history in
school.
My favourite is Henry VIII because
he had a Spanish wife and a Portuguese wife. He couldn’t marry again
so he chopped off his wives’ heads.
But I like him anyway.
Henry VIII has a big hat with a
feather. He wears some big clothes
and he has some trousers, which are
a bit fat.
In Tudor times the poor, disabled,
blind and other people that had
problems could not work. So they
had to live in their houses. But they
got burnt down because the roof was
made out of straw. So the poor people
had to go and live in the forest in
some houses they made out of mud
and sticks. For a living they worked in
the forest cutting down trees to make
houses and boats.
The king and all the queens lived
in the castle. They ate posh food. They
had banquets of meat and fish.
A minha história preferida, a que
gosto mais de ler é The Tudor Kings
and Queens, porque estou a dar os
Illustrations: Sara Raquel Calisto Fernandes
Tudor em história.
O meu favorito é Henrique VIII
porque ele teve uma mulher espanhola e outra portuguesa. Como não
podia casar outra vez cortou a cabeça
às mulheres. Mas mesmo assim eu
gosto dele.
O Henrique VIII tem um grande
chapéu com uma pena. Usa roupas
muito grandes e tem umas calças
que são um bocado gordas.
No tempo dos Tudor os pobres,
aleijados, cegos e outras pessoas com
problemas não podiam trabalhar.
Por isso tinham de viver dentro das
suas casas. Mas acabavam por ser
queimados porque os telhados eram
feitos de palha. Por isso os pobres
eram obrigados a ir viver para a floresta para umas casas feitas de lama
e paus. Para se sustentarem trabalhavam na floresta a cortar árvores para
fazer casas e barcos.
O rei e as rainhas viviam todos no
castelo. Comiam coisas finas. Tinham
banquetes de peixe e carne.
Sara Raquel Calisto Fernandes
Age 8
The Egyptian Life
A Vida Egípcia
The main thing I know about the
Egyptians is the Rosetta Stone. It’s this
stone that had different languages
on it: Egyptian, Greek, and I think,
Latin. It was discovered in a desert by
Champollion.
I like it when they mummify
people. When you were dead they’d
lay you down and take out all your
organs, except for your heart, for the
next life, because the Egyptian says
that when you die, a few years later
you have the next life. And when they
take you down to the underground
life – that’s what they called it
– they take you by boat into a tunnel
and they take some statues with you
as your servants.
I’ve seen mummies and they look
interesting, not scary; you can’t see
the skeleton underneath. It’s just all
bandages. They were buried in the
pyramids. The pyramids were made as
their tombs as well.
They had weird names for different kinds of powers. There was one
that was fire and there was another
one that if someone had been naughty,
UNWRITTEN•NÃO ESCRITOS
UN
they would make some big storm.
Their writing was quite strange.
Most of them were animal shapes and
human pieces. They were kind of like
the Chinese because the Chinese also
have signs. I can’t read it. I might be
able to read it in Latin because Portuguese is like Latin.
I would have liked to live in ancient Egypt. I’d like being rich and a
princess, and I wouldn’t mind being
mummified.
A coisa mais importante que eu
sei sobre os egípcios é a Pedra de
Roseta. É uma pedra que tem coisas
escritas em várias línguas: egípcio,
grego e, acho eu, latim. Foi descoberta no deserto por Champollion.
Eu gosto quando eles mumificam
as pessoas. Quando se está morto
eles deitam-nos e retiram todos os
órgãos, excepto o coração, que é
preciso para a próxima vida. Isto
porque os egípcios dizem que uns
anos depois de se morrer se tem
uma outra vida. E quando levam as
The Rosetta Stone and Egyptian mummy Illustration: Michelle Morais Ramos
pessoas para o sub mundo – é assim
que eles lhe chamam – levam-nas de
barco por um túnel e levam também
algumas estátuas para servirem de
criados.
Eu já vi múmias e até parecem
interessantes, não são assustadoras;
não se consegue ver o esqueleto por
baixo. São só ligaduras. Elas são enterradas nas pirâmides. As pirâmides
foram feitas para lhes servirem de
túmulos.
Eles tinham nomes esquisitos
para os diferentes tipos de poderes.
Havia um que era fogo e outro que
se uma pessoa tivesse sido malandra
fazia surgir uma grande tempestade.
A escrita deles era muito estranha.
A maior parte das letras era em
forma de animal ou partes do corpo
humano. Eram mais ou menos como
os chineses, porque os chineses também têm símbolos. Eu não os consigo
ler. Sou capaz de conseguir ler latim,
porque o português é parecido com
latim.
Eu gostava de ter vivido no
Antigo Egipto. Gostava de ser rica e
princesa. E não me importava de ser
mumificada.
Michelle Morais Ramos
Age 9
I came here five years ago from
Portugal. I am Mozambique born but
my nationality is Portuguese. I lived
in Portugal for ten years, went back
to Mozambique and then I came to
England. There are a lot of good opportunities for studying and working
in this country that we don’t have in
Portugal. People just have to know
how to take advantage of them. I
was a bartender in Portugal for ten
years but I could see no future. In five
years here, I can see something – not
much, but something.
What comes into my mind right
now is about the Portuguese community. Most of the people live in the
same area but we are not united how
we should be. OK, in the evening we
are having coffees together and chatting but really helping each other, I
don’t see it very much.
I love serving people; that’s what I
love most. I cannot work in four walls
on my own. I need to see people,
work with people, talk with people
and I think it is a beautiful thing to
do – dealing with problems straight
away. I try to direct people to the
Embassy or the girl on the corner at
Stockwell Partnership or if I can help,
I will. It’s my small way to do my part.
The cafés are really friendly places;
you can sit and watch Portuguese
TV and chat with each other about
everything. This is Portuguese culture;
if you go to Portugal it’s exactly the
same. Like we have the pubs here, the
Portuguese have cafés everywhere.
Many people drink alcohol but not
in the same way as in the pubs. The
pubs don’t allow you to have food and
you can keep on drinking, drinking,
drinking, whereas in Portugal you can
drink and eat. It’s different; just to get
drunk is not very easy. I’m not a coffee
addict like the Portuguese people are
– four, five, six, sometimes ten cups a
day. And we have very nice cakes like
the famous Pastéis de Nata.
In Mozambique there is not so
much of a café culture but people
like to sit down and chat with their
friends in people’s houses or in a bar;
it’s a bit similar but not so much coffee as the people in Portugal! People
in Mozambique cultivate friendship
between each other. For example, the
Portuguese and Angolans go straight
to the disco at the weekends to dance
all night but in Mozambique they
go to a bar and sit with friends and
then, ‘OK, let’s go at one o’clock to the
disco.’ Then they sit there until five
in the morning just chatting, which is
cultivating friendship a lot more.
I would like to see more organisation by Portuguese people, more
events to bring us together in a social
way. I see some people trying to do
something and then they quit very
easily. It’s a big city but it’s a little Portugal here. It’s the biggest Portuguese
community but I don’t see much
togetherness. The only thing that I can
see that we do a lot together is play
football. Helping people, that’s what
really matters; play is playing – you
can do it anywhere. Maybe I’m wrong
but that is what I see.
I get that community spirit from
my parents. My mother and father
were not from Mozambique and every
weekend they tried to be with people
from their own country, Cape Verde.
Every weekend they had meetings in
the afternoon with all the community
to see what the problems are, see how
they can solve them and then at night
– let’s party! They found a house,
which the council bought for them
and every weekend they would be
there just to chat about the problems
in the community. That’s what I think
we should do here to bring the community together.
Estou aqui há cinco anos e vim
de Portugal. Nasci em Moçambique,
mas sou de nacionalidade portuguesa. Vivi em Portugal durante
13
dez anos, voltei para Moçambique
e depois vim para a Inglaterra.
Aqui há muitas oportunidades para
se estudar e trabalhar, o que não
acontece em Portugal. As pessoas só
precisam de saber tirar partido delas.
Fui empregado de balcão durante os
dez anos em que estive em Portugal e
não via grande futuro à minha frente. Nestes cinco anos que passei cá já
consigo ver algum futuro, ainda não
é fabuloso, mas já é alguma coisa.
Neste momento o que me vem à
cabeça é a maneira como a comunidade portuguesa funciona. A maior
parte das pessoas vive concentrada
na mesma área, mas não somos
unidos como deveríamos. Tudo
bem, à noite tomamos café juntos e
conversamos, mas aquele sentimento
de ajudar o próximo, não o encontro
muito.
Eu adoro servir as pessoas; é o
que gosto mais de fazer. Não conseguiria trabalhar sozinho entre quatro paredes. Preciso de ver gente, trabalhar e falar com as pessoas e acho
que é um trabalho muito bonito
– lidar com os problemas de imediato. Eu tento direccionar as pessoas
para a Embaixada, ou enviar aquela
rapariga da esquina para a Stockwell
Partnership, ou se conseguir ajudar,
ajudo. É a maneira que encontrei de
fazer a minha parte.
Os cafés são locais realmente
simpáticos; podemos ficar sentados a ver televisão portuguesa e a
conversar com os amigos sobre tudo
e mais alguma coisa. É esta a cultura portuguesa, se forem a Portugal
vão ver que se passa exactamente a
mesma coisa. Como nós temos pubs
na Inglaterra, em Portugal há cafés
por todo o lado. Há muita gente
que bebe álcool, mas não da mesma
forma que se bebe nos pubs. Os pubs
não deixam que se coma e a pessoa
pode continuar a beber, beber, só
beber, enquanto que em Portugal
podemos beber e comer. É diferente;
não é muito fácil uma pessoa se embebedar. Eu gosto de café com leite,
mas pouco. Não sou muito viciado
no café, como o povo português – bebem quatro, cinco, seis, às vezes dez
cafés por dia. E também temos bolos
muito bons, como os famosos Pastéis
de Nata.
Em Moçambique não há tanto
esta cultura do café, mas as pessoas
gostam de ficar sentadas a conversar
com os amigos nas casas uns dos outros ou no bar; é parecido, mas com
menos café do que em Portugal! As
pessoas em Moçambique cultivam a
amizade entre elas. Posso dar-vos um
exemplo: ao fim-de-semana os portugueses e os angolanos vão direitinhos
para a discoteca dançar a noite inteira, mas em Moçambique as pessoas
vão a um bar, sentam-se a conversar com os amigos e depois é que
combinam: - OK, quando for uma
da manhã vamos para a discoteca.
Quando lá chegam ficam sentados
até às cinco da manhã a conversar
todos juntos, o que é muito melhor
para cultivar as amizades.
Gostava de ver mais organização por parte do povo português,
mais eventos para juntar as pessoas
num ambiente social. Vejo algumas
pessoas a tentar fazer alguma coisa,
mas desistem muito facilmente. Esta
cidade é muito grande, mas há aqui
um bocadinho de Portugal. É aqui
que reside a maior comunidade portuguesa, mas não vejo muita união
entre as pessoas.
A única coisa que fazemos juntos
com bastante frequência é jogar
futebol. Ajudar as pessoas é o que
realmente importa, jogar é apenas
jogar, pode fazer-se em qualquer
lado. Sei de outras pessoas que ajudam; por exemplo, o município de
Lambeth tem gente a trabalhar para
os portugueses. Não vejo o Consulado Português ou a Embaixada fazer
grande coisa pelos portugueses.
Estão demasiado ocupados a resolver
a sua própria burocracia interna!
Talvez esteja enganado, mas é assim
que vejo as coisas.
Eu herdei este espírito de comunidade dos meus pais. Eles não eram
de Moçambique e todos os fins-desemana tentavam estar com pessoas
do seu país, Cabo Verde. Todos os
fins-de-semana à tarde se encontravam com todos os membros da
comunidade para conversar sobre os
problemas e ver se os podiam resolver, depois à noite tínhamos festa!
Tinham uma casa, que a câmara
municipal lhes arranjou e todos os
fins-de-semana se reuniam lá para
conversar acerca dos problemas da
comunidade. É isto que eu acho que
devíamos fazer aqui para manter a
comunidade unida.
Calo
Calo at Lisboa Deli, South Lambeth Road
Photograph: LUB
14
UNWRITTEN•NÃO ESCRITOS
Freedom
Liberdade
I’m proud of the history of my
country, but I refused to go to war and
fight against another people in their
country, of which Portugal was the
occupier – Angola. So I was put in
prison because of my beliefs. When
I swore under my flag I said, ‘I will
defend my country’ – but my country
is that small thing in the south of
Europe. I was in prison for one year
– one year because after the revolution they released me. This was in
1973 and the revolution was in 1974.
I am very, very political and when
I was a student in the 70s I fought to
release my people from the dictatorship but after the revolution I just
can’t see it; my country is still the
same, the police are still corrupt and
the politics are still corrupt – even
now. I want to stay here with my
family for good; I don’t want to go
back. I still miss the sunshine of my
country, the blue skies, the blue waters,
but there is nothing else connecting
me to my country anymore.
I’m sad that I had to move to
England but I didn’t want to raise my
kids in Portugal because of the environment, because of the corruption,
the politics, the economy; it’s still
bad. And so I had to apply for British
citizenship and now I am half Portuguese and half British. I’m proud to be
in this country because they opened
their arms to me and my family, and
they helped me. I am very divided between the two cultures; I am proud to
be Portuguese and proud to be British.
Some things about my country
make me ashamed. When I watch the
Portuguese news I see the old people
who work all their life and they have
to pay for their medication and they
get no care. You get your income from
the government, like £50 a week, but
at that age you have to spend all that
money on medication, so I’m not
very proud because the old people
must have everything free like in this
country.
I think that most Portuguese
people who come to England want
to have some money and build up
the house and then go back when
they retire. They don’t have the same
intention as me. You don’t see so
many Portuguese people apply for
British citizenship. I’ve got three kids,
they live in this country and they are
British citizens as well. I’m very proud
to be British. I know everything about
the British history from the South
to the North. For all of my life even
when I was a kid, I was always dreaming to move to England. It didn’t just
happen because it was casual; it happened because I wanted to move here.
It was a peaceful revolution in
1974, it wasn’t violent; I’m not a
violent person anyway. When I was a
student I fought with my colleagues
and fellow mates to release my country
because we were oppressed in the
70s. There were demonstrations and
strikes. Of course, the police they used
to come and beat me up, even if it
was a peaceful demonstration. I had
so many marks on my body – from
their sticks.
But I still believe the same and I
still feel the same. I believe in freedom
and multicultural countries. I don’t
believe in borders. The world should
have no borders. We should be free to
walk across the borders.
I say, ‘You are my brother,’ but it’s
very, very confusing because when
people ask me, ‘Are you a communist?’
I say ‘No, I’m not a communist. I
believe in freedom and I believe in
God.’ Most people, if they believe in
freedom, are communists and don’t
believe in God, but I’m a very mixedup person because I believe in God,
in multicultural countries and at
the same time I believe in freedom.
We should be free, you know. There
should only be one language and one
country in the world – I know, I am
a dreamer!
When I was just a kid I used to
listen to John Lennon songs and it
was like I was drunk; I used to be
drunk with his songs, with his phrases
– ‘I am a dreamer.’ ‘Imagine all the
people...’
I wish good luck to everyone from
my soul, from the bottom of my heart.
Tenho orgulho da história do
meu país, mas recusei-me a ir para a
guerra e combater as pessoas do país
que Portugal estava a ocupar – Angola. Por isso prenderam-me por causa
UNWRITTEN•NÃO ESCRITOS
UN
15
Portuguese
Spur of the Moment Speech
Discurso Improvisado
em Português
daquilo em que acreditava. Quando
fiz o juramento de bandeira disse
– “Juro defender o meu país” – mas o
meu país é aquele cantinho minúsculo no sul da Europa. Estive um ano
na prisão – um ano porque depois
da revolução fui libertado. Isto foi
em 1973 e a revolução aconteceu em
1974.
Eu sou uma pessoa muito política
e quando era estudante, na década
de 70, lutei para libertar o meu povo
da ditadura, mas depois da revolução não consigo ver o resultado da
luta; o meu país ainda é o mesmo, a
polícia ainda é corrupta e os políticos ainda são corruptos – mesmo
nos dias de hoje. Quero ficar aqui de
vez com a minha família; não quero
regressar. Ainda tenho saudades do
sol do meu país, do céu azul e das
águas azuis, mas já não há mais nada
que me ligue ao meu país.
Tenho alguma pena por me ter
mudado para Inglaterra, mas não
queria educar os meus filhos em
Portugal por causa do ambiente, da
corrupção, da política, da economia;
ainda é tudo muito mau. Por isso
candidatei-me à cidadania britânica
e agora sou meio português e meio
britânico. Tenho orgulho em estar
neste país porque ele abriu os braços
para acolher a minha família, e ajudou-me. Estou muito dividido entre
as duas culturas; tenho orgulho em
ser português e tenho orgulho em
ser britânico.
Há algumas coisas no meu país
que me envergonham. Quando vejo
os noticiários portugueses vejo os
idosos que trabalharam durante toda
a vida a serem obrigados a pagar
os medicamentos e sem seguros de
saúde. Recebem um subsídio do
Governo, mais ou menos 75€ por
semana, mas têm de gastar tudo
em medicamentos, por isso não fico
muito orgulhoso porque os idosos
deviam ter tudo gratuito, como cá
em Inglaterra.
Acho que a maior parte dos
portugueses que vêm para Inglaterra
quer juntar algum dinheiro e construir uma casa para regressar para
Portugal quando se reformarem. Não
têm a mesma intenção do que eu.
Não se vêem muitos portugueses a
pedir a cidadania britânica. Eu tenho
três filhos, vivem todos cá e também são cidadãos britânicos. Tenho
muito orgulho em ser britânico. Sei
tudo acerca da história da Grã-Bretanha, de norte a sul. Durante toda
a minha vida, mesmo quando era
miúdo, sonhava em vir viver para cá.
Não aconteceu por acaso; aconteceu
porque eu sempre quis mudar-me
para cá.
A revolução de 1974 foi pacífica,
não foi uma revolução violenta. Eu
também não sou uma pessoa violenta. Quando era estudante lutei com
os meus colegas de escola e camaradas para libertar o meu país, porque
nos anos 70 éramos muito oprimidos. Havia muitas manifestações e
greves. É claro que a polícia aparecia
sempre e batia-nos imenso, mesmo
que a manifestação fosse pacífica.
Tinha o corpo cheio de marcas dos
cacetes deles.
Mas ainda acredito nas mesmas
coisas e sinto as mesmas coisas.
Acredito na liberdade e em países
multiculturais. Não acredito em
fronteiras. O mundo não devia ter
fronteiras. Devíamos ser livres para
atravessar todas as fronteiras.
Eu digo: - Tu és meu irmão –, mas
está muito pouco definido, porque
quando as pessoas me perguntam se
sou comunista, respondo: - Não, não
sou comunista. Acredito na liberdade e em Deus. – A maior parte das
pessoas, se acreditam na liberdade
são comunistas, logo não acreditam
em Deus, mas eu sou uma pessoa
muito confusa porque acredito em
Deus, nos países multiculturais e ao
mesmo tempo acredito na liberdade. Acho que devíamos ser livres,
sabem? Só devia haver uma língua e
um país no mundo – eu sei que sou
um sonhador!
Quando era miúdo gostava de ouvir as músicas do John Lennon e era
como se ficasse bêbado; as músicas
dele embebedavam-me, com aquelas
frases – ‘I am a dreamer’. ‘Imagine
all the people...’
Desejo sinceramente boa sorte
para todos, do fundo do coração.
Yeah man, this is Malakana from
the South London streets. What I am
thinking now is that I am having a
good day with my Portuguese connections and I’m just smoking and that.
I’m wishing everyone a nice day with
some whiskey, you hear me.
These are my brothers right
around me. We’re all human beings,
you get me. They are my brothers
even if I met them today or yesterday,
wherever you are from – Portugal,
Jamaica, Brixton. This what we do every
day; we’re building the community
within the community, something the
government can’t touch – the heart
of the community. Once the community is rocking, we are representing
it. You see the festival out here, this is
what we do to keep ourselves happy,
to meet everyone in the city. This is a
good day for us.
Listen man, this lot are always
out on the block. I’m not always with
them but when it is something like
this festival, why can’t we just come
together? I don’t care whether you are
Portuguese or not. You wear Portuguese top, I wear Portuguese top, you
feel me. You wear England top, I wear
England top. I support anyone that
wins, that plays hard.
My name is M, yeah, and I was
born in Kingston, Jamaica’s door. I
enjoy the party – nice, yeah. I’m a
security guard around here, I walk
around – it’s my job. That’s it. I get
the free food – and the free drink!
Aka Barbie, I am originally from
Portugal. Today, we are organising
the festival, remembering that we are
always with Portugal even though we
are in a different country. We always
have Portugal in our hearts.
I have been here about fifteen
years and left when I was really
young, but I always go back to Portugal in the holidays to visit my family
and friends. Don’t get me wrong, it’s
a beautiful place to be, but financial-
wise, it’s terrible. So I’d rather live
my life here. Maybe later in life, you
never know.
I just want to say we’re having a
good time today and this is a festival
for the community. You can see all the
beauty out here, and some traditional
Portuguese stuff. We are the youth,
the next generation, so we are going
to be doing something. We are going
to be supporting these festivals, trying
to work ourselves and striving for the
community. We’ve got a good community spirit going on. From all the
Portuguese community, three cheers!
Yeah man, aqui é o Malakana
das ruas de South London. O que
estou a pensar neste momento é
que estou a passar um bom bocado
juntamente com os meus conhecidos
portugueses, a fumar e a apanhar
uma pedrita e tal. Desejo que toda a
gente tenha um bom dia com algum
whisky, estão a ver.
À minha volta tenho os meus
irmãos. Somos todos seres humanos,
estão a ver. São meus irmãos mesmo que só os tenha conhecido hoje
ou ontem, seja lá de onde forem,
Portugal, Jamaica ou Brixton. É isto
que fazemos todos os dias; estamos
a construir uma comunidade dentro
da comunidade, algo em que o governo não possa tocar – é o coração da
comunidade. Desde que a comunidade esteja a rockar, nós representamo-la. Estão a ver o festival que para
aqui vai, é isto que fazemos para
sermos felizes, conhecemos toda a
gente da cidade. Este é um bom dia
para nós.
Ouçam meus, este pessoal está
sempre por aqui. Eu não estou
sempre aqui, mas quando há alguma coisa, tipo este festival, porque
não havemos de nos juntar? Não me
importo se vocês são portugueses ou
não. Vocês usam camisolas de Portugal, eu uso camisolas de Portugal,
estão a perceber? Vocês usam camisolas da Inglaterra, eu uso camisolas
da Inglaterra. Apoio quem estiver a
ganhar, quem jogar duro.
O meu nome é M, yeah, e nasci
em Kingston, a porta da Jamaica.
Estou a gostar do festival – fixe,
yeah. Estou aqui a trabalhar como
segurança, ando por aqui – é o meu
trabalho. É isso. Tenho comida de
graça – e bebida!
Conhecida por Barbie, eu sou natural de Portugal. Hoje estamos a organizar o festival, para nos lembrar
que estamos sempre com Portugal,
mesmo quando estamos num país
diferente. Temos sempre Portugal
nos nossos corações.
Estou aqui há mais ou menos
quinze anos, saí de Portugal quando era muito pequena, mas tenho
sempre de lá voltar nas férias para
visitar a minha família e os amigos.
Não me interpretem mal, é um país
lindo para se viver, mas no aspecto
económico é terrível. Por isso prefiro
viver aqui. Talvez um dia mais tarde,
nunca se sabe.
Só quero dizer que hoje estamos a
divertir-nos muito e que este festival
é para a comunidade. Podemos ver a
beleza que anda por aí e algumas
cenas tradicionais de Portugal. Nós
somos a juventude, a próxima geração,
por isso vamos fazer alguma coisa.
Vamos apoiar estes festivais e tentar
esforçar-nos, lutar pela comunidade.
Neste momento temos um bom
espírito de comunidade. Três vivas
de toda a comunidade portuguesa!
Collective Vibes
Carlos Silva
Collective Vibes celebrating at Portugal Day Festival, Kennington Park
Photograph: Library of Unwritten Books
16
UNWRITTEN•NÃO ESCRITOS
Portugal
Catrina’s Life
A Vida de Catrina
I’m eight and I go to St. John’s
Primary School. My favourite subjects
are numeracy and DT, which is a kind
of art section where you do art and
you make things. It stands for design
technology.
I want to be an artist. I like painting and making necklaces. When
it was Christmas my aunty bought
me this making set and I got used to
making necklaces and bracelets. And
my mum bought me another fashion
thing and I try and make belts as well.
Sometimes I just keep them to myself
and wear them but sometimes I give
them to people.
I like playing with my friends.
I’ve got friends at school and out of
school. Sometimes we play Hide and
Seek and sometimes we invent all
kinds of games like Mermaids and
Spies. We have lots of friends and
when it’s Mermaids there can be
loads of evil people and a load of good
people and that makes it really good.
There’s a boy called Azro at my school
and he likes being a bit wild so we try
and make him as wild as possible in
the game.
The other game is Spies where you
have a few people to play and you
choose someone to look on even if
they’re not playing and you look at
them and you can’t let them see you.
You all stick together and you all spy
on the same person. If you fail three
times, then you’re out and you can’t
play. We talk sometimes in the game
but mostly you just look at each other,
and if you’re really lucky and you spy
three times without the other person
seeing you, then you are the winner.
I don’t really like it when it’s too
sunny because I get a bit too hot. But
I like it too because when we see the
sun we get to play loads of games and
it’s fun in London.
Eu tenho oito anos e ando na St.
John’s Primary School. As minhas
disciplinas preferidas são competência matemática e DT, que é uma
espécie de disciplina de arte em que
se fazem coisas. Quer dizer design e
tecnologia.
Eu quero ser artista. Gosto de pintar e fazer colares. Quando foi Natal
a minha tia comprou-me um estojo
de peças e eu habituei-me a fazer
colares e pulseiras. E a minha mãe
comprou-me outra coisa sobre moda
e eu tentei fazer cintos também. Às
vezes fico com eles para mim e usoos, mas às vezes também os ofereço
às pessoas.
Gosto de brincar com os meus
amigos. Tenho amigos na escola
e amigos fora da escola. Às vezes
brincamos às Escondidas e às vezes
inventamos muitos jogos como as
Sereias e os Espiões. Temos muitos amigos e quando brincamos às
Sereias podem haver muitos maus e
muitos bons e assim o jogo fica mesmo bom. Há um menino na escola
chamado Azro e ele gosta de ser um
bocadinho mau, por isso tentamos
fazer com que nos jogos ele seja tão
mau quanto possível.
O outro jogo é os Espiões, que se
joga quando há poucas pessoas para
This item is unavailable for download in pdf format
The Mad Scientist
Book
I like playing PlayStation. I play
FIFA 2006 and Pro 5. They’re football
games. I want to learn how to do
computers and make computer games
because I’m really good at them.
If I invented a game, it would be
Street X Fighter. What would happen
is, people would be on the street walking around and other people would
accidentally bump into them and they
start having a row. You would score
points by beating them up. It’s like
martial arts.
I like electronic circuits, like how
to make a light bulb work, wires and
batteries and stuff. I like technical
things; I’m good at that.
When I grow up I might go to
Japan and invent some automatic
stuff like robots. I have seen it on TV
when the little doggies are playing
football. They’re robot dogs.
A robot that’s like a human would
be useful. I would get some colleagues
to help me. It would speak and be
voice-activated so whatever you tell
it to do, it does. You wouldn’t be able
to tell the difference because they’ll
be the same as humans. If they start
disobeying, then I will deactivate
them.
Keiron
UNWRITTEN•NÃO ESCRITOS
UN
Catrina at Portugal Day Festival
Photograph: Library of Unwritten Books
brincar e onde se escolhe uma pessoa para observar, mesmo que essa
pessoa não esteja a jogar, e ficamos
a olhar para ela, mas não podemos
deixar que nos veja. Ficamos todos
juntos a espiar a mesma pessoa. Se
falharmos três vezes, então somos
expulsos do jogo e não podemos
jogar mais. Às vezes quando estamos
a jogar falamos uns com os outros,
mas a maior parte das vezes ficamos
só a olhar, e se tivermos mesmo sorte
e espiarmos três vezes sem a outra
pessoa saber, então ganhamos o jogo.
Eu não gosto lá muito quando
há demasiado sol, porque fico um bocadinho quente demais. Mas também
gosto do sol porque quando se vê o
sol dá para jogar muitos jogos e isso
é muito divertido em Londres.
Athletics Dream
O Sonho
do Atletismo
Catrina Pereira
Age 8
Max,
the Daydreamer
Once upon a time there lived a
little boy called Max and he was a
daydreamer. He daydreamed Shark
Boy and Lava Girl and it became a real
story.
Shark Boy, he’s a boy and he’s a
shark as well, and there’s a girl made
of lava.
And then they went to planet
earth and there was a man called Mr
Electrical and he was supposed to be
rolling the roller coasters and there
was an ice age and he wanted to
destroy the earth. Then the girl
throwed ice at Mr Electrical after he
fell down and then he blowed up.
And in the middle of the story,
The first time I went to Portugal I
was like a really young baby. I went
last Christmas in 2005 and to be honest, I go nearly every year.
I visit my aunty. She lives in Lisbon
and I like it there except sometimes
my uncle is a bit scary. I don’t know
why. He’s a bit old, kind of half old,
half young. Actually, he’s a bit lazy.
He drinks just a little bit of whiskey
nearly every day and he watches TV.
My aunty cleans up the house – she
does everything. They’ve got a dog as
well. The other one died.
Portuguese food is exactly like here
at the festival – chicken and barbeque. I mostly like a bit of curry; I’m
used to it because my dad is Bangladeshi. My favourite is meat curry. I’m
half Portuguese, half English, and half
Bangladeshi. I think of myself as being
English because I am always in England to be honest. I only go to Portugal
for about a week or something and I
went to Bangladesh when I was very,
very young before I knew anything.
When I went to Portugal last
Christmas I got this Four in a Row.
It’s the same as Connect Four and I
would normally play with that, but
mostly we went out everywhere.
Sometimes I go out at night-time and
I find it quite enjoyable. My favourite
shop was Odivelas Park. It’s like a big
shopping centre, for example, like
Kingston.
I remember I went to this place
like a museum, but I don’t know
whether this was in Portugal or Bangladesh. It was as if it was a wedding
and it was in a cave and you go into
it and there’s water with lights under
it and it makes it enjoyable. There’s
a fountain that goes up and there are
some fishes as well.
One day when I was walking there
were poor people and one of the
ladies was with a baby, so my mummy
gave money to both of them. But it
had to be euros; it couldn’t be like
five pounds or anything like English
money. It did make me feel quite
sad but I got over it. I think there are
more poor people in Portugal than
here, but in Africa there are much
more poor people.
One thing definitely is that it’s
much more sunny in Portugal, even
when it’s winter. It’s warmer too and
by the time I come back to England
I’m freezing cold.
Shark Boy gets electrocuted by Mr
Electrical and Lava Girl went in to
save him and then she died and went
on the floor and then Shark Boy
wakes up and he ran as fast as he
could to the volcano and he dropped
her in there and she became light.
She wanted to find out what she was.
Richard
All day I am always training for
racing. I am always running. I was
training all day and in my home I
am jumping in my bed and I am still
training.
I want to be a sprinter. And I want
to do the marathon.
I like the feel of running; it makes
me feel happy. I like going fast. I can
run for ten minutes.
We have races at school and sometimes I win. A big boy, he’s nine and
he’s faster than everyone. He’s too
fast. I just won it one day.
Bananas are what you have to eat
to make you faster.
I would like to run in the Olympics. I’m six now, so I will be twelve
when the Olympics come to London.
Maybe I will run in the next Olympics
after that.
Durante todo o dia estou sempre
a treinar atletismo. Estou sempre a
correr. Andei a treinar todo o dia e
na minha casa ando aos saltos em
cima da cama e continuo a treinar.
Quero ser um atleta. E quero participar na maratona.
Gosto da sensação de correr;
faz-me sentir feliz. Gosto de correr
depressa. Consigo correr durante dez
minutos.
Lá na escola temos corridas e eu
às vezes ganho. Um rapaz grande, ele
tem nove anos e corre mais depressa
que toda a gente. É muito rápido.
Um dia vou ganhar-lhe.
Para se ser muito rápido tem de
se comer bananas.
Gostava de correr nos Jogos Olímpicos. Agora tenho seis anos, por isso
quando os Jogos Olímpicos forem em
Londres vou ter doze anos. Talvez
possa correr nos Jogos Olímpicos a
seguir.
Ricardo Rocha
Age 6
17
A primeira vez que fui a Portugal
ainda era uma bebé pequenina. A
última vez que lá fui foi no Natal de
2005 e para dizer a verdade, vou lá
quase todos os anos.
Vou visitar a minha tia. Ela vive
em Lisboa e eu gosto de lá ir mas às
vezes o meu tio é um bocado assustador. Não sei porquê. Ele é um bocado
velho, é mais ou menos velho e mais
ou menos novo. Na verdade, ele é
um bocado preguiçoso. Bebe um
bocadinho de whisky todos os dias e
vê televisão. A minha tia limpa a casa
– ela faz tudo. Eles também têm um
cão – o outro morreu.
A comida portuguesa é exactamente igual à comida aqui do festival – frango e churrasco. Eu gosto
muito de um bocadinho de caril;
estou habituada porque o meu pai
é do Bangladesh. A minha comida
favorita é carne com caril. Eu sou
metade portuguesa, metade inglesa
e metade bengali. Quando penso em
mim acho que sou inglesa, porque,
para dizer a verdade, estou sempre
na Inglaterra. Só vou a Portugal
durante mais ou menos uma semana
e só fui ao Bangladesh quando era
muito, muito pequenina, quando
ainda não sabia nada.
Quando fui a Portugal no último
Natal recebi um Quatro em Linha. É
um jogo igual ao Connect Four e eu
teria jogado com ele, mas estávamos
sempre a sair. Às vezes saio à noite
e acho muito agradável. A minha
loja favorita é o Odivelas Parque. É
um centro comercial muito grande
como, por exemplo, o Kingston.
Lembro-me que fui a um lugar
que era tipo um museu, mas já não
me lembro se era em Portugal ou no
Bangladesh. Era como se fosse um
casamento e era numa gruta e nós
entrávamos lá para dentro e tinha
água com luzes por baixo o que a
torna muito agradável. Tem um
repuxo que sobe e desce a alguns
peixes também.
Um dia quando ia pela rua havia
pessoas pobres e uma das senhoras
tinha um bebé, por isso a minha mãe
deu-lhe dinheiro para os dois. Mas
teve que lhe dar euros; não podia dar
cinco libras, ou outra coisa parecida
com o dinheiro inglês. Na altura
fiquei muito triste mas já me passou. Acho que em Portugal há mais
pessoas pobres do que aqui, mas em
África ainda há muito mais pessoas
pobres.
Uma coisa que é mesmo verdade é
que em Portugal há mais sol, mesmo
no Inverno. É muito mais quente e
quando volto para a Inglaterra faz
um frio de rachar.
Jasmin Silva Hossain
Age 9
When I Wanted
to Meet the Queen
Quando Eu Quis
Conhecer a Rainha
I love Queen Elizabeth. She’s a
kind person. She lives in a house – a
big house. She’s got a palace. She only
has one bedroom. She sits down on
her chair all day.
I want to meet the Queen. When I
went to her palace, I didn’t see her but
I wish I had. She can’t come outside.
If I met her I’d say hello. I’d give
her some sandwiches. I’d make them
myself. I like making sandwiches.
When I went to her palace I saw
soldiers. They were marching and they
were wearing suits. They had swords
and they had like a big hat on.
I would like to wear a crown; I’d
have a little one.
Eu adoro a Rainha Isabel,
Ela é uma pessoa bondosa. Ela
vive numa casa – uma casa grande.
Ela tem um palácio. Ela só tem um
quarto. Ela fica todo o dia sentada na
cadeira dela.
Eu quero conhecer a Rainha.
Quando fui ao palácio dela não a
vi, mas quem me dera que a tivesse
visto. Ela não pode sair à rua.
Se eu a conhecesse dizia-lhe olá.
E dava-lhe umas sandes. Fazia-as eu
mesma. Eu adoro fazer sandes.
Quando fui ao palácio dela vi soldados. Andavam a marchar e usavam
fato. Tinham espadas e tinham um
chapéu muito grande.
Eu gostava de usar uma coroa;
teria uma coroa pequenina.
Stephanie
Age 5
18
UNWRITTEN•NÃO ESCRITOS
UNWRITTEN•NÃO ESCRITOS
UN
Did it Really Happen?
Sister Jenkins (right) with colleague, Sully Chest Hospital, 1952
Photograph: Courtesy of Megan Jenkins
19
Pressure in England
in the 50s and 60s
The war was on and if I didn’t go
nursing, I would have to go into the
Forces. So I went to the Royal Gwent
Hospital at Newport Monmouth. I was
just eighteen.
We would go on duty at eight
o’clock in the morning and we had an
evening off once a week. Every night
the air raid warnings went. There was
only one time that a German plane
was hit by the ack-ack in Newport
and it came down on a Jewish household! The pilot was saved and he
was brought in to us and we were all
curious to know what he was like. The
nurse who was chosen to look after
him was the best nurse but also the
plainest nurse in the hospital!
We used to have lots of dances, and
of course, I met American soldiers. The
ships would come in and they would
ring up, ‘Have you got a few nurses
who would like to come and party?’
We did ballroom dancing, and jitterbugging with the Americans. Anyway,
I met quite a few chaps and they were
serious, but I was very good-looking,
and put it this way, Newport was an
area where a lot of troops came on
embarkation leave and I used to flirt
around. At breakfast you would have a
roll call and we’d dash in just in time.
If you weren’t in by 10 o’clock on your
nights off, you were reported, so
matron was sick and tired of me.
‘Nurse Jenkins! Matron’s office please.’
I had a friend called Pat and we
used to dance together, because she
was very good at taking like a man.
So she’d say, ‘Megan, let’s go out!’
And we used to go to the YMCA, even
when we had to be on duty at eight
for the night shift. The dances didn’t
start until later so it was just Pat and
I on our own dancing. One day, who
should turn up but two Americans
– they were the first Americans we
had ever seen. I became engaged to
one of them, but sadly he was killed
at Omaha Beach on the third day of
the D-Day landings.
After qualifying you could either
do your midwifery exam, go TB nursing in a sanatorium, go into ERS,
or go district nursing out on a bike
– definitely not me! I had an uncle
who died from TB and somehow I had
something about TB in my mind.
So I got a post at Sully Chest
Hospital, near Barry Docks, as a
staff-nurse. The treatment for TB was
fresh air, rest and good food. If you
had active TB and had one little patch
on your lung, they treated it surgically. They would remove a rib and
artificially collapse your lung, then it
would grow back after it had rested
and the disease died. Lots of people
did recover actually. The TB bacteria
is in your sputum, and by the side of
the bed you had an iron sputum mug,
which was sterilised every day.
One night I was doing my rounds
as night sister and I was in the kitchen
having a cuppa when the nurse and
myself heard banging and screaming
coming from the ward. It was a man
screaming with fright but we couldn’t
trace who it was because everyone
was quiet and asleep when we got
there. This went on for three or four
nights until we traced it to a patient
who was having terrible dreams. He
had been on a warship that had been
torpedoed and he was reliving his
experiences as nightmares.
What I liked was the sister’s uniform, a navy dress with a navy belt,
and I thought, that is what I am going
to be. I was bit ambitious, you see.
Nurses’ pay was terrible so I thought
I’d keep my eye out for jobs in The
Nursing Mirror: ‘Newstead Sanatorium,
sister wanted.’ Right, that’s it, up to
Nottingham I went and had an interview on Friday 13th for a male ward.
So that’s what I did; I became a sister.
I fell in love with a patient – but
not on my ward. He was a RAF officer
who had tuberculosis. I used to go
around and take patients’ pillows out
for complete rest for an hour and
there was this RAF Officer visiting
one of my patients, tall, good looking
– oh!
Every month you were x-rayed
in case you picked up TB. The penny
must have dropped with the matron
and she said, ‘Sister Jenkins, we have
a rule that no staff must have anything to do with the patients. They are
patients and they are infectious. Now
get out!’
My secret affair ended badly and
from there, I went to Harold Wood
Hospital near Romford. It was on the
road to Southend and on bank holidays the motorbikes would race down
there and we’d go to casualty waiting
for the accidents from the road. One
day this little baby fell out of the back
seat of a car. Door flew open and out
flew the baby onto the grass verge. It
survived – and no ill effects.
Life went on, I married a Russian
refugee and had three children, but
my marriage ended on the rocks and
I had to go back to work. Some time
ago I found myself in the position of
‘squatter’ when my landlord debunked to Scotland. When the bailiffs
came I had to go to the council and
I landed up at my present residence
where I have lived for fourteen years.
Sometimes I wonder did all this really
happen to me?
Megan Jenkins
I come to England from Barbados
on the Columbiain 1960. It took approximately two weeks. It was a big
ship, lots of people; it was popular in
those years.
I wanted to be a nurse. I was studying at home, but when I come here
I didn’t know it was like this. People
don’t know what we pass through.
Now they wouldn’t put up with things
like that. There were times I wished to
go back, but because my parents were
very strict I was glad to get away.
I arrived at the hospital in Brighton two days before Christmas. Two of
us used to be on one ward, so you’ve
got to clean up and get the patients
bathed and hair clean and everything
by Christmas time. I had to work
Christmas day, Boxing day – every
day. They used to work us longer
hours than they should. I used to get a
weekend off once a month.
Sometimes you have to work right
through; if you work mornings, you
usually go on the ward at six, and by
the time you finish at four or five,
they say somebody phoned in sick
and you have to stay there until next
morning. Sometimes we had to work
in the kitchen too; if nobody clock
in for work, you had to come off the
ward and wash the dishes. In those
days at the place I worked, no one
from this country used to work on the
wards.
After that, I come to London and
I start to make dresses. Then I went
to Canada and stayed there three
years; it was a little bit tough but not
like here. Then I went to America:
Brooklyn, South Orange, New Jersey.
After
Marriage
I used to work in a laundry. I started out on the calenders, big machines,
bigger than a room and they go round
and round and round with towels,
sheets, washing-up cloths, what have
you. Hotels would send in laundry,
and we had a public laundry too.
It could be a horrible job because
I would like to stay but then I don’t
feel that settled. Wherever you go to
get a job there’s always somebody
don’t want you to take it. So I come
back again. It’s so funny, every time I
leave I say I’m not coming back to this
country, it’s too cold!
I still go back to Barbados. I have
four sisters there and some more in
Canada; we’re split up all over the
place. I like Barbados, it’s very beautiful but expensive. There are lots of
millionaires moving in and they have
the prices fixed for millionaires. All
the big shots from abroad come in. I
could never purchase a house or pay
to build one – not with this money I
accumulate here.
We get blamed for coming here,
but we were invited and we paid the
fare; we had to send two pounds a
month to pay back the government.
People don’t know; they say we come
and took their jobs, but they used to
send people to ask if we would like
to go. Plus the radio used to come
through every day, ‘We need workers
in England,’ which was true.
Everybody had a good education in
Barbados. Some of us that come here
had a college education so when they
put in the papers, on the television
and radio, ‘Workers wanted in UK.
Double your money!’ and then they
said they need people for government service, these high school boys
were ready for good jobs. But when
they come they were conductors and
drivers on the buses and British Rail
– with all that education! Some went
mad, some of them gas themselves,
and some parents were able to send
for them to go back. There was a lot of
chaos in the 60s.
Enoch Powell went to Barbados;
he didn’t like blacks but he still liked
Barbadians. He said it was the only
place he found civilized people. So he
said as many people without criminal
records as you can find bring to
England. We had some other bad boys
come and spoil it and that is when
he turned against us. To be truth,
they were from other islands. Nobody
invited them over.
Barbadians tend to be more educated and they are more what you call
decent because their parents are very
strict. And if you don’t have education, you must have a trade. A boy
must choose before he leaves school.
So, many of them choose carpentry
because they like to build a big house
for themselves. Some, like the men in
my family, are mechanics and engineers and make wrought iron gates
and furniture.
There was no idling; during the
holidays every boy or girl, whatever
they wanted to do, they would go and
train to do it. Most girls liked dressmaking and home decorating and hat
making so during the holidays that’s
where you’d go and train. The boys
would go to a painter and he hands
you a brush and you have a look and
see how to paint. That’s how they
train people at home.
you didn’t know where the washing came from. And it was very hot.
In the winter they used to keep the
windows shut, but in the summer
they used to open them and we had a
garden, and so it used to waft through
air; that was quite nice. But I worked
up on the blanket section; folding
blankets was the worst job.
When I got married the laundry
gave me quite a lot of stuff: sheets,
crockery... It’s all gone now though.
I got married, must have been in the
70s. We were quite all right but later
on he started hitting me so I got out.
I left him. It was a hard time but I had
my mum and dad.
He’d got his own business, but it
wasn’t very good. He was in roofing,
and he used to go and black tar them,
stuff like that. My mum and dad were
alive then, and he used to go and borrow money off them. He wasn’t too
bad though.
I had a son called Eamond and a
son called William. One went to an
ordinary school and one went to a
backward school. William wasn’t as
clever as Eamond and he used to play
out and get into all sorts of trouble
with the police. He didn’t know he
was doing wrong; he was led on by
other boys trying keys in doors.
William is in a home called Snogland’s, and Eamond is with a woman
in Berkshire, and they’ve just bought
a house. I go to visit William, and it’s
nice there. He’s got his own little flat.
Someone looks after him and he has
care-workers and so he’s quite OK.
My days are boring now; I just sit
around. I used to go out but I can’t
go out now ‘cause of my knees. I miss
working.
RE
Margaret
20
UNWRITTEN•NÃO ESCRITOS
The
Lost Kings
of
Kilburn
I wanted to write a ‘day in the life’
book about Irish men who came over
to rebuild post-war Britain and about
the sort of displacement that they felt.
My dad was Irish and he came here
after the war. He passed away when I
was at uni. I was studying gender politics and when it came to writing my
thesis I wanted to do it on masculinity
and the only masculinity I thought
would be valid for me to write about
was Irish.
When I was researching it I discovered there wasn’t much information
about these characters. The nearest
thing I found that evoked what it was
all about was a photography book,
Hide that Can by Deirdre O’Callaghan.
It really stayed with me and the
pictures were just of men’s hands
– labouring hands, massive shovelling
hands.
I thought of trying to put words
to these images, keeping it short and
writing it in the first person, not based
on a specific character but just on an
idea I have of people of that generation and that circumstance. It was the
hands that conveyed more to me on a
personal level, more than any historic
analysis.
I have photos of my father’s
Photograph: Library of Unwritten Books
hands and maybe that’s why I was so
touched by that book. I have this one
picture, I must have only been about
three or four, and my hand is tiny in
his. Some of the Irish look Spanish
because of Spain invading Ireland and
my dad had been living in Africa and
he was really, really dark. I like the
picture because it shows the contrast
between our skin tones – and because
his looks dirty.
When my dad passed away I
thought a lot about the fact that his
whole generation weren’t really understood and that the complicatedness of
his life and character was so informed
by being in the construction industry
and the real sense of isolation they
felt. They didn’t integrate well into
life here and kept to their own enclaves
in north London. They weren’t an obvious ethnic minority and there’s not
a lot written about them as socially
marginalised people.
It was a way to find out more
about him as a person; he never really
told me much because the experience
of emigration was very distressing.
They had come from really poor parts
of Ireland and they were expected to
go back as self-made men. They came
over with this 18th century idea of
London being paved with gold, but
because of the social climate a lot of
them stayed as labourers. What I find
weird is that they were so near to Ireland, but the ones that didn’t succeed,
didn’t go back home. They felt like
they could only go back with loads
of money in their pocket. It was like
picking up a whole generation of men
and throwing them out of Ireland.
It’s so closely knit, that whole
community. Some of my interviewees
even knew my dad’s name, ‘Oh yeah,
Jim from Carlow.’ There was this
character that they talked about called
Elephant John. He was like the king of
the building sites in north London in
the 60s and he had this real mafia
notoriety. He was really violent towards
workers who didn’t work hard enough
and extorted a lot of money. I think
the story is that he got murdered by
one of his own men.
There was one specific incident
that sticks out in my mind that I
would use in my book. One interviewee was telling me a story about
when they had been working for
twelve hours for pennies. The subbie
kept coming around, watching them
and then started hitting one of the
labourers, who was really academic.
At the time the only way cleverness
was measured was on the building
site. He was quite a gentle, delicate
man so he was really failing in that
environment and the subbie was beating him up because he wasn’t labouring hard enough. My interviewee was
crying when he told me the story
because they were living together at
the time and he didn’t do anything
about it. He recognises that he was
also in the mindset of measuring men
by their strength but now a lot older
and wiser he could look back and feel
sad that he was part of the group that
had a go at this kind, gentle guy who
was just a bit lost.
I would want to write the book
in the language of the migrant,
especially the ones from the west of
Ireland who had a very particular way
of speaking. They would use a throwaway phrase to see if the other guy
recognised it. It was a way of checking
each other out. I would want the men
of that generation to be able to connect
with whatever I wrote and for it to be
really full of feeling.
Laura Donohoe
UNWRITTEN•NÃO ESCRITOS
UN
The Oyster Card
Farce
In January when all the bus fares
went up I had to find a cheaper way to
get around London. I looked into the
Oyster card and this year they made
it worth my while getting one. So I’ve
gone along and I’ve got a choice – a
registered or an unregistered Oyster
card. Just for my anonymity I decided
I wanted an unregistered Oyster card.
It has this £3.00 cap on it so you don’t
even have to get a bus travelcard,
which is £3.50 a day, and so you save
that 50 pence. All this means a lot to
me because I’m not working and I’ve
got to save all the pennies that I’ve
got.
So, no problems, I’ve had it since
January, and I went out on Wednesday
and decided to get everything done on
that day because I have the £3.00 cap.
So I went up and down, up and down
on the bus. First trip I made I had a
balance of £4.00 – it had already
deducted the 80 pence for that trip. I
had been on the bus about five times
when I happened to look at the reader
and it said I had 20 pence left!
The following day I called the 0845
number and I got this young man on
the line. I didn’t really take any notice
of his name – there is always a problem when you don’t take any notice
of the name – and he was like, ‘What
can I do for you?’ First thing he goes,
‘Madam, this is an unregistered card
and because of the Data Protection Act
I can’t give you any information on
that card.’ Can you believe it!
‘I’m sorry this card belongs to me,
I can tell you when I bought it, how
much I have put on the card through
the month, therefore it must belong
to me.’
‘I’m sorry madam, I can’t give you
any information.’
I told him I got on this bus, that
bus... He’s like, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m
sorry we can’t do anything.’
I thought I’m not having this! So,
‘Can I speak to the manager?’ Puts me
on hold for about ten minutes thinking I am going to hang up, but he
comes back, ‘Madam, you used your
card on Tuesday at 2 p.m.’
‘No I didn’t. I was indoors on Tuesday at 2 p.m. because I was watching
Madam X if you need to know. It’s one
of my favourite movies and I wanted
to stay in and watch it.’
‘Oh, so you have given your card to
someone else to use.’
‘No, I didn’t. My daughter was
indoors with me.’
‘Well, you have used your card on
A Work in Progress
People have suggested I write a
book, just based on the things that
have happened in my life – nothing
specific that I will bore you with.
I kept a diary from the age of eight
to twenty-eight. I never locked it because I didn’t really see there was an
issue with it. But one of my boyfriends
started to leaf his way through. I
didn’t know he was doing it but then
he started quizzing me and I’d think,
‘That’s a funny thing to ask.’ If he’d
just said, ‘Look, I read your diary and
I’d like to ask you about this...’ I’d be
like, ‘Fine and let’s talk about it.’ But
he was testing me.
So in the end I just tore the whole
lot up – two huge bin bags full of
paper. I find it amusing now, in a very
detached kind of way. Sometimes I
wish I had it still, just simply because
I could go back and see what my
mind-slant was like at the time. Now
I’m wary of putting things down. That
event made me realise that even if
you experience something in all innocence, someone else might not see
it that way.
Keeping a diary was for my sanity;
it was a really good way of processing
myself. I could burble away on paper
and not necessarily be aware of what
I was writing, just a flow of consciousness. I recommend it to anyone, but
just decide whether you’re going to
lock it or not!
It’s been about ten years since I
kept a diary so this book would have
to come from memory. I’d probably
base the beginning on my childhood.
I was born in Tooting, but when my
mum left my dad we went to live in
the Lake District. I spent a few years
rampaging around the countryside.
I would go out with a little troupe of
kids and just get lost in the fields.
My book would have a fictional
character, but I’d put them in real
21
Tuesday 28th and that’s why you have
£1.60 missing from your card and
there is nothing we can do.’
‘You know what, you can keep
your £1.60! I don’t care!’ And I put the
phone down.
Then I thought, I’m not having
that! So I went to Vauxhall tube station
and they gave me the rundown. They
said, ‘I can tell you now that your card
has not been used on the 28th.’ So the
man that I had been speaking to at
Transport for London had lied to me
just to get me off the phone.
Obviously, there’s a glitch in the
system. Maybe there’s a duplicate card
out there. At the end of the day where
do I go to get my £1.60 back? They
said to me on the phone if I go down
to the nearest office and register my
card they can do something for me. I
think that’s crap!
There’s no fallback because it’s
unregistered. Why? And why do we
have to use our names? If you have a
registered card, you have a password,
so why can’t you have an unregistered
card with a password and then you
don’t have to give your name? I like to
protect my privacy.
I don’t think we’re going to be a
free society for very long. I understand
that because of 9/11 we do need some
identification card. I lived in America
where you couldn’t go anywhere without carrying your ID, but silly things
like travelling on the bus, why do we
need to give our names? I think it’s
just getting ridiculous.
Easy Guide
to the
Regency
Period
events, a set of circumstances they
have no control over. But you can’t be
passive in such a situation. You’re
always trying to get out of it, but
you’re not even sure how you got in it.
The book could span the whole
of someone’s life. I would want it to
end happily, because why not? Things
often don’t! It would just be nice to be
lying on your deathbed going, ‘Yeah,
that was cool!’ So it would be great if
my character did grow old, but hey,
you don’t know sometimes, do you?
The author controls everything, but
the events you write about may not
be controlled – the random force of
nature. I wouldn’t just plot the whole
thing out; that’s not how life works,
so I wouldn’t write it like that. I’d
succumb to the events I was writing
about and see where it spins off.
It could be a lifetime’s work, but
I couldn’t write it now – too busy.
I think you need to have a little bit
of space to write so your mind can
wander. It would be nice if I was
somewhere like Hastings, up on the
cliffs looking at the sea, see what
comes into my head and just write it
down, not knowing where it’s going
to end up.
I enjoy finding out things – always
have done. If I write a book, it will be
on the Regency era. I’m interested in
the Prince Regent taking over from his
father, King George III, as featured in
the film, The Madness of King George. I
suppose the TV programme Blackadder
has something to do with my interest
too; one of that series was based on
the Regency. The Prince Regent was
King George’s eldest son and on two
occasions took over from him and
in the last ten years of his father’s
reign he was totally in charge. Regent
means ‘ruling instead of’ – he was
the Prince, but also the Regent. He
was somewhat large; I suppose you
could say, a latter-day Henry VIII – a
fine man when he was young but he
just grew and grew from good living.
Would I like to have lived then?
Only as long as I was in the top part
of society! There was a massive difference in the lifestyles of the rich
and poor. If you were bottom, you
stayed at the bottom and there was no
interlinking between the two classes.
It was pretty awful being poor then.
The majority of poorer people lived in
the country. The towns and cities still
hadn’t grown; that didn’t start until
the Victorian era when people moved
to places like the East End.
It was during the reign of George
IV that there was the Great Reform
Act of 1832, when voting changed to
include a few more people than the
odd one or two. It was a great turning
point in the history of the country.
You also had the Corn Laws and other
agricultural acts that gave more land
to the person who was actually farming it. So I’d probably write about the
farmer during the Regency period. It
was a time of change from agriculture
to industry. There was industrialisation up north, but not so much down
south; you don’t see so many factories
and mills down here. The whole
country was changing pretty rapidly,
and I suppose it was the start of the
north-south divide.
My father traced our family tree
and he discovered that during the
Regency period we were in the shipping business in Brixham in Devon
and on the Isle of Wight. Apparently,
we were on both sides – on the
smuggling and the excise side – so we
were hedging our bets. Sounds quite
typical of us! Keep it even-handed,
supporting both sides.
Anon.
Roger Griffiths
Potty Dotty
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for download in pdf format
22
UNWRITTEN•NÃO ESCRITOS
The Waterfall
A Queda de Água
We have travelled so many times
together, Milena and me, and so we
decided to go to a place called Chapada
Diamantina in the middle of Bahia
state in Brazil. It’s like a natural reserve and in my opinion it’s the most
beautiful place I have ever seen in my
life.
We had a friend who had this really
old Jeep and so we drove from Sao
Paulo City to Bahia. It was a twentyseven hour trip, almost non-stop.
Basically, we were planning to camp
but we pretty much didn’t have to
find anywhere because the people
from the villages were so polite with
us, offering their backyard, leaving
their house open for us to camp there
and offering toilets and food.
The people who live there have
really good hearts, and the nature is
unbelievable. They have this three or
four day trip; you just go with your
backpack, your tent and with a guide
you walk through the forest, find a
waterfall... One of the most beautiful
days that we had was when we got to
this town, everybody was sleeping, we
got a guide and drove at night until
the beginning of this trail to go to this
waterfall.
It was in a forest, but more like
open land and you could see the
mountains. We spent the night there
and we were pretty much the only
people. We were just walking from
seven o’clock in the morning to this
waterfall called Buracao, the Big Hole.
To reach it we had to jump into this
canyon and swim. It was about six
metres down to the river, which was
really black, not because of the deepness and it wasn’t dirty, but because of
all the minerals there. That was quite
scary, and Milena is afraid of heights
and she wouldn’t jump.
On the same trip we went to see
this other waterfall called Fumaga,
The Fog. It’s 500 metres high, the
highest waterfall in Brazil, so high
that the water doesn’t reach the bottom and just evaporates in the middle
– that’s why we call it The Fog. It
took us forever to get to the top and
it was really difficult to go up but you
arrive there and it’s unbelievable! It’s
so huge, you can see these landscapes
that are endless and I felt really small
in this place. I felt just like a little
mosquito in a big world.
It was, for me, a big transformation. It was the first time in my life
that I felt God. I am not quite religious
but I realised how small I was and
how beautiful that place was and it
was the most amazing experience
I ever had. My conception of God
now is nature – nothing to do with
religion. I feel alive, I feel happy, I feel
peace...
The sad thing about it was they
were burning all the trees. At night
I came to London thirteen years
ago. I didn’t finish college in Portugal;
I just wanted to start working, but it
was very difficult to find work there.
My sister was already here, so I came
and lived with her and started work as
a chambermaid in a hotel.
We are polite in Portugal, but it
was very difficult for me when I came
to London, because people use ‘sorry’
and ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ a lot. You
notice it, especially when you first
arrive in London. I was not used to
saying ‘please’ or ‘thank you’ every
time and people used to be rude to
me. I was walking in the street once
and there was a mother with a child
and I touched the child’s head with
my elbow. I didn’t have that thing of
saying sorry at the time, because I was
embarrassed that I didn’t speak any
English, and the mother just turned
to me and said, ‘Can you at least say
sorry?’ She was very rude.
And the English swear a lot as well.
When I first came here I thought,
blimey, this f word is for everything!
If people get excited they go, ‘the
f– train is late’ or ‘the f– bus is late.’
In Portugal I never used to swear as
much as here. But you get used to
swearing quite a lot. And there are
more frustrations here, for example,
when you make mistakes driving they
go, oh you f– this and f– that! In
Portugal you almost never hear that.
The roads are more dangerous in
Portugal than here. People drive really
fast and there are loads of accidents.
The problem is too much wine. I
know the English drink a lot but we
produce wine so there is wine to give
away. My father does wine, potatoes,
onions, garlic, tomatoes, carrots
– everything. We go home and we
don’t need to buy anything. My parents have chickens, rabbits and pigs.
And the food is completely different.
Tasty!
It’s a long time since I used the
tube. After our main jobs we used to
do a part-time job in Trafalgar Square
and the tube was always full like sardines. And people can be just so rude,
but after a while you have to learn to
be a bit like that yourself.
Some people take advantage as
well. There was a man behind me and
the tube was full, you couldn’t move.
I was in my little corner and this stu-
you could see people doing it because
they want a vast land to raise cattle.
I am definitely worried about that
place disappearing. Our country is so
huge the government cannot take care
of everything. People there were not
asking for help but they were telling
us the reality so we could go back and
talk to any ecological company, just
tell people what is happening.
Basically, tourism is focused on
people from abroad. The most beautiful places are full of other tourists and
that increases the prices for Brazilians.
People are coming with dollars, pounds
and euros but we are going there with
our currency and so all the flights,
hotels, the bed and breakfasts are
really expensive. People go there and
buy cheap places like from fishermen
and it doesn’t give the opportunity to
these people to develop. The fisherman will always be a fisherman and
he will have to buy a house really far
away because he has sold his house
on the front of the beach to a guy to
build a rich resort. This is what I am
concerned about with Brazil, that if
we have tourism, it should be developed in a sustainable way where you
teach the locals how to do tourism in
an ecological way and let them earn
the money for themselves and their
kids.
What I most like to do in my life
is travel. I am doing a big trip around
the world; when I leave London I will
spend three months in Asia and then
go back to Brazil again. I love to travel
on a low budget and I think it’s fun
when you don’t need to get a cab – I
prefer to take the bus, go to a small
village and meet natives. I like the
adventure and I think about writing
about it.
Eu e a Milena já tínhamos viajado muitas vezes juntas, por isso
decidimos visitar um local chamado
Chapada Diamantina no coração
do estado brasileiro da Baía. É um
tipo de reserva natural e, na minha
opinião, o sítio mais bonito que já vi
na vida.
Tínhamos um amigo que tinha
um jeep a cair de velho que nos levou de São Paulo até à Baía. Foi uma
viagem de vinte e sete horas, quase
sem paragens. Tínhamos pensado
simplesmente em acampar, mas quase não tivemos que nos preocupar
em encontrar locais para montar o
acampamento porque as pessoas das
aldeias eram muito simpáticas connosco, ofereciam-nos os pátios das
suas casas, deixando-as abertas para
que pudéssemos colocar lá as tendas,
deixavam-nos usar as suas casas de
banho e ofereciam-nos comida.
Os naturais daquele local têm
mesmo bom coração e a natureza é
inacreditável. Têm uns programas
de três ou quatro dias em que basta
levar a mochila e a tenda e com um
guia podemos caminhar pela floresta, encontrar cascatas... Um dos dias
mais bonitos que lá passámos foi
quando chegámos a uma cidade em
que as pessoas ainda estavam todas
a dormir, arranjámos um guia e conduzimos durante a noite até ao início
de um trilho que nos levaria a uma
queda de água.
Era no meio da floresta, mas um
pouco mais descampada e conseguíamos ver as montanhas, passámos lá
a noite e, além de nós, estava quase
deserta. Desde as sete da manhã que
andávamos em direcção a uma queda
de água chamada Buracão. Para lá
chegar foi necessário saltar para um
desfiladeiro e nadar. Era uma queda
Life in London
pid man was touching my bum. I was
thinking to myself, ‘I’m going to get
out at the next stop.’ And just after I
got out I kicked his leg. Then he said,
‘You bitch!’ and I said, ‘You bastard!
You’re taking advantage because the
tube is full.’
You become tougher. You have to
because you don’t have parents there
to protect you anymore.
Sometimes people are a bit picky
for no reason. I used to have a parttime job at the Old Bailey. It was in
the evening so I used to drive there.
One day I was stopped by a policeman.
The second day the same policeman
stopped me in the same place. Everyday he asked me the same questions:
‘Where do you come from? Where do
you live? Where do you work?’ On the
third day I thought, ‘For God’s sake,
this is too much!’ – the same policeman, the same time and always the
same place! I just asked him, ‘Look
what’s your problem? This is the third
day you’ve stopped me!’ And he was
looking at me, and I said, ‘You want
a date with me or something? Is that
why you’ve stopped me three times?’
I used to be a very shy person, but not
anymore.
The first day I didn’t say anything
to my husband because I thought
it was normal. The second day I got
home very upset; I said to my husband, ‘Yesterday, a policeman stopped
me. Today, the same.’ Then, on the
third day I told him I had asked the
policeman if he wanted a date with
me to let me go. My husband just
laughed and asked if I was mad or
something. I don’t care; you have to
be a bit mad in London.
Vim para Londres há treze anos.
Não acabei os estudos em Portugal;
queria começar a trabalhar depressa,
mas lá era muito difícil encontrar
trabalho. A minha irmã já vivia em
Londres, por isso vim para cá e comecei a trabalhar como empregada de
UNWRITTEN•NÃO ESCRITOS
UN
Buracao, Bahia, Brazil
23
Photograph: Bianca Duarte
A Vida em Londres
quartos num hotel.
Os portugueses são um povo
bem-educado, mas tive muitas dificuldades quando cá cheguei porque
as pessoas estão sempre a dizer
“desculpe”, “por favor” e “obrigado”. Repara-se mais nisto quando se
acaba de chegar a Londres. Eu não
estava habituada a dizer “por favor”
e “obrigada” por tudo e por nada
e as pessoas eram rudes para mim.
Uma vez ia a andar na rua e passei
por uma mãe com uma criança e
sem querer toquei com o cotovelo na
cabeça da criança. Na altura não tive
a intuição de pedir desculpa, porque fiquei atrapalhada e não falava
inglês, mas a mãe virou-se para mim
e disse: - Pelo menos peça desculpa!
– Foi muito mal educada.
Os ingleses também dizem muitos
palavrões. Quando cá cheguei pensei,
bem eles usam a palavra f para tudo
e mais alguma coisa! Se as pessoas
estão enervadas começas a ouvir: “f
lá para o comboio que está atrasado”
ou “ o autocarro está atrasado, f!”
Em Portugal não dizia tantas asneiras como digo agora. Mas vamo-nos
habituando a dizê-las. E há mais
motivos de frustração aqui, por
exemplo, quando se vai a conduzir e
se comete algum erro, começam logo
“oh minha isto e aquilo!” Em Portugal é raro isto acontecer.
As estradas em Portugal são mais
perigosas do que aqui. As pessoas
conduzem muito depressa e há muitos acidentes. O problema é o vinho
em excesso. Eu sei que os ingleses
bebem muito, mas nós produzimos
vinho por isso há vinho para dar
e para vender. O meu pai produz
vinho, batatas, cebolas, alho, tomate,
cenouras – enfim, tudo. Lá em casa
não precisamos de comprar nada. Os
meus pais têm galinhas, coelhos e
porcos. E a comida é completamente
diferente. Deliciosa!
Há muito tempo que não ando de
metro. Depois dos nossos trabalhos
principais tínhamos um part-time
de quase seis metros até à água, que
era muito escura, não porque fosse
profunda ou estivesse suja, mas devido aos minerais que continha. Era
bastante assustador e como a Milena
tem vertigens não queria saltar.
Na mesma viagem fomos ver outra queda de água chamada Fumaga.
Tem 500 metros de altura, é a queda
de água mais alta do Brasil, tão alta
que a água não chega ao fundo e evapora-se a meio da queda – por isso é
que se chama Fumaga. Demorámos
imenso tempo a chegar ao cimo, a
subida é muito difícil, mas uma vez
lá em cima é inacreditável! É gigantesca, vêem-se paisagens intermináveis e eu senti-me mesmo muito
pequena enquanto lá estive. Senti-me
como se fosse um mosquito neste
mundo enorme.
Para mim este foi um ponto de
viragem. Foi a primeira vez que
senti Deus. Eu não sou uma pessoa
especialmente religiosa, mas apercebi-me da minha pequenez e da beleza
daquele local e foi a experiência mais
incrível que vivi em toda a minha
vida. Agora a minha concepção de
Deus é relacionada com a natureza,
não tem nada a ver com religião.
Sinto-me viva, sinto-me feliz, sintome em paz...
A parte mais triste é que andavam a queimar as árvores todas.
À noite conseguimos ver pessoas
a atear incêndios porque querem
aumentar as pastagens para o gado.
Preocupa-me muito que aquele
sítio desapareça. O nosso país é tão
grande que o governo não consegue
tomar conta de tudo. As pessoas que
lá vivem não nos pedem ajuda, mas
falam-nos sobre o que realmente se
passa para que ao voltar às nossas
cidades possamos ir falar com alguma
daquelas organizações ecologistas,
ou apenas contar às pessoas o que
está a acontecer.
O turismo é quase inteiramente
direccionado para os estrangeiros.
Os locais mais bonitos estão cheios
de turistas e isso faz com que os
brasileiros também tenham de pagar
os preços mais altos. Chegam com
dólares, libras e euros, mas nós só
temos a nossa moeda, por isso os
voos, hotéis ou albergarias são
muito caros. As pessoas chegam lá e
compram por exemplo as casas dos
pescadores muito baratas, o que não
lhes dá a oportunidade de prosperarem. Um pescador será sempre
um pescador e vai ter de comprar
uma casa noutro sítio mais afastado
porque vendeu a sua casa em frente
ao mar a um tipo rico que agora vai
lá construir uma estância fina. É isto
que me preocupa no Brasil, já que
temos turismo este devia ser desenvolvido de uma forma sustentável,
ensinando às populações locais como
fazer turismo de forma ecológica
e deixá-los ganhar o seu próprio
dinheiro para que possam reparti-lo
com os seus filhos.
O que mais gosto de fazer na
vida é viajar. Neste momento estou a
fazer uma grande viagem à volta do
mundo; quando deixar Londres vou
passar três meses na Ásia e depois
volto para o Brasil. Gosto de viajar
com pouco dinheiro e acho engraçado quando não é necessário andar de
táxi – eu prefiro andar de autocarro,
ir às aldeias e conhecer os nativos.
Gosto muito de aventura e penso
escrever sobre este tema.
em Trafalgar Square e o metro estava
sempre à pinha. E as pessoas são
tão mal educadas que depois de um
tempo temos de aprender a ser um
bocadinho rudes também.
Também há aquelas pessoas que
se aproveitam. O metro estava muito
cheio, nem nos conseguíamos mexer,
e um homem estava mesmo por trás
de mim. Eu estava lá no meu canto
e o estúpido do homem começou a
apalpar-me o rabo. Estava a pensar
“na próxima paragem saio”. E assim
que me mexi dei-lhe um pontapé na
perna. Ele disse: - Grande cabra! – E
eu disse: - Grande filho da mãe! Estava a aproveitar-se só porque o metro
vai cheio.
Nós vamo-nos tornando mais rudes, tem de ser, porque já não temos
os nossos pais para nos proteger.
Às vezes as pessoas implicam sem
motivo nenhum. Eu tinha um emprego em part-time no Old Bailey. Era de
noite, por isso costumava conduzir
até lá. Um dia um polícia mandoume parar. No dia a seguir o mesmo
polícia mandou-me parar outra vez
no mesmo sítio. Todos os dias me
fazia as mesmas perguntas: - De onde
vem? Onde mora? Onde trabalha?
No terceiro dia pensei, “Pelo amor de
Deus, isto já é demais!” – o mesmo
polícia, sempre à mesma hora e no
mesmo sítio! Então perguntei-lhe,
– Olhe lá, qual é o seu problema? Já
é a terceira vez que me manda parar!
– Ele estava a olhar para mim e eu
disse: - Quer sair comigo ou qualquer
coisa do género? É por isso que já me
fez parar três vezes? – Eu era uma
pessoa muito tímida, mas agora já
não sou.
No primeiro dia não disse nada ao
meu marido, porque achei que era
uma coisa normal. No segundo dia
cheguei a casa muito aborrecida; disse para o meu marido: - Ontem um
polícia mandou-me parar, hoje fez
a mesma coisa. – Depois no terceiro
dia contei-lhe que tinha perguntado
ao polícia se era preciso eu sair com
ele para me deixar em paz de vez. O
meu marido limitou-se a rir e a perguntar se eu era doida ou quê. Não
me importa, temos de ser um pouco
doidos para viver em Londres.
Bianca Duarte
Sonia Fernandes & Elsa Ramos
Contents
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12
13
14
15
16
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19
20
21
22
If I Had the Chance I’d Like to Say...
The notorious Iraq issue
Editorial
Recipe Book for Thin Artists Livro de Receitas para Artistas Magros
An Algerian man taught an Italian recipe to a Galician in Scotland
The Proper Ingredients Os Ingredientes Certos
The barbeque is the trademark of Brazil
Basketball Groovy Basquetebol Groovy
There was a boy, well, a twenty-year-old boy, called Gerald Groovy
The Swimming Pool A Piscina
My feet couldn’t touch the bottom
No More Blair Acabou-se o Blair
He heard screams and a shot from Tony Blair’s house
Clive Around London
I photograph at night. I get on my bike and cycle around London with my camera
Amazing Animals Animais Espantosos
It was very nice to find a bird inside my room every day
Save Our Squirrels
Starbuck’s staff had squirrels helping with service
Someone Special Alguém Especial
I couldn’t wait for her to be born
Baby Story Uma História de Bebé
My mum put me to sleep as normal, but this was not a normal day
United Family
We used to carry the bags telegraph pole to telegraph pole
A Day in a Soldier’s Life
I was under eighteen and too young to go, so they taught me to drive a tank instead
War Years
It was an unexploded bomb I was playing with!
The Tudor Kings and Queens Os Reis e Rainhas Tudor
He chopped off his wives’ heads, but I like him anyway
The Egyptian Life A Vida Egípcia
I wouldn’t mind being mummified
Community Engagement Um Compromisso com a Comunidade
It’s a big city but it’s a little Portugal here
Freedom Liberdade
I am proud of my country, but I refused to go to war and fight against another people...
Portuguese Spur of the Moment Speech Discurso Improvisado em Português
You wear Portuguese top, I wear Portuguese top. You wear English top, I wear English top
Catrina’s Life A Vida de Catrina
We invent all kinds of games like Mermaids and Spies
The Mad Scientist Book
If they start disobeying, then I will deactivate them
Max, the Daydreamer
He ran as fast as he could to the volcano and dropped her in there
Portugal
It was as if it was a wedding and it was in a cave
Athletics Dream O Sonho do Atletismo
I am always running
When I Wanted to Meet the Queen Quando Eu Quis Conhecer a Rainha
When I went to her palace I didn’t see her, but I wish I had
Did it Really Happen?
We used to have a lot of dances and of course, I met American soldiers
Pressure in England in the 50s & 60s
We get blamed for coming here, but we were invited
After Marriage
Folding blankets was the worst job
The Lost Kings of Kilburn
It was like picking up a whole generation of men and throwing them out of Ireland
The Oyster Card Farce
There’s a glitch in the system. Maybe there’s a duplicate card out there
A Work in Progress
So in the end I just tore the whole lot up – two huge bin bags full of paper
Easy Guide to the Regency Period
We were on both sides – on the smuggling and the excise side
The Waterfall A Queda de Água
I felt just like a little mosquito in a big world
Life in London A Vida em Londres
...the same policeman, the same time and always the same place!