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Interview with Kendasy (Daisy) Shortman nee Duggan on 12 Sept 2005 at 51 Peach Tree Court, West High Street, Salford by Rosalyn Livshin

I was born on 22 Sept 1929, in Jamaica in a little village called Springbank, the town is Port Antonio in the Parish of Portland. Jamaica has 14 parishes and Portland is one of them. In my family, now there were two sets of children, because my dad had 3 children before he married my mum. There were Donald, Edith and Ella. Then with my mum there were 10 children, 5 boys and 5 girls, so for my dad it will be13 children but for my mum and dad it is 10 and I was the first of those 10.

During the Second World War, in 1939, I was 10 years old and living in Springbank village. As far as I can remember the war had affected us, the family, very badly because with a family of 10 children and with most of the stuff being imported, we experienced a lot of difficulty. For the stuff to be imported, chiefly from Britain, there was difficulty there, we couldn鈥檛 get the stuff over. So there was rationing, rationing for food stuff, rationing for clothing material because my mum made our clothes and so for her to get these materials she couldn鈥檛. And then for the food stuff, which was chiefly rice, flour, cornmeal, sugar and lots of other stuff that were imported, we couldn鈥檛. So this rationing, with 10 children to feed, it was very, very bad. Very difficult. I think that鈥檚 a good description of during the war, it was very difficult.

Beside the imported foodstuff my dad was, in those days we say cultivator. He cultivated lots of food products, like tropical foods: yam, cocoa, banana, plantain, cassava and for vegetables, not quite sure if you鈥檝e heard this name, but culelo, that was a green vegetable, and then we had spinach and tomato and several other tropical vegetable, but that helped because of the food production that he produced in the fields, so we didn鈥檛 really have to rely on just the imported stuff, but still they played a vital part of our diet and with only a small amount, as I say it was rationed, it was difficult.

It was very hard in that region to get the material and I鈥檓 not quite sure exactly how mum managed but it was difficult. The boys wore short trousers at the time and the girls wore little printed frocks. It was difficult, you couldn鈥檛 get the amount of material but I wouldn鈥檛 describe it as we went naked. It wasn鈥檛 that serious but it was very limited, very scarce so things wasn鈥檛 as it should have been during the war.

I could remember school, I don鈥檛 know, if speaking of the present queen now, Queen Elizabeth II, and after she married Duke of Edinburgh I think they honeymooned in Africa somewhere when their dad died and they were told of his death and she had to return. Then at her coronation, as much as I can remember, I think it was during that period, the celebrations, the flags and each school child had a mug, we had pictures of the Queen on the mugs, I could remember at that time.

The war wasn鈥檛 there then. We experienced the difficulty it caused, the ships coming over, but the war wasn鈥檛 there. In Britain, here, the air raids and air shelters that were provided and children had to be sent in the country and so forth, that wasn鈥檛 in the West Indies then because the war wasn鈥檛 there but we experienced the difficulties that was caused through the war. Lots of stuff was imported, reading material, clothing as I鈥檝e mentioned, foodstuff and lots of things. Reading books came from Britain and so on, so we experienced lots of difficulty through that.

Quite a few men, I think women, joined the armed forces. You had the army, the navy, whatever, he (a local man) came to Jamaica, he told me he had been to Port Antonio, I think it was the navy. He didn鈥檛 only come on his ship to Port Antonio which was a seaside place, ships docked, he went to Suvlemar and Rockabessa, the names must have changed now, different ports in Jamaica. There were lots of men who took part, both in the airforce, in the army and so on. I wouldn鈥檛 say a great deal, as you read so many people from Britain go to Iraq and other places, it wouldn鈥檛 be hundreds but there were men and women who took part in the war.

None of my family took part as far as I know. It was rumoured that my mum鈥檚 dad did but he didn鈥檛. None of my relations but other people from my village and from the island did take part in the war.

I was able to go on a submarine, and beside airships called different names we saw about. I was coming from Sunday school, as I said my village was Springbank, and the Sunday school was in the town, Port Antonio and one Sunday evening we were returning home and I had to come through the town and to Boundbrook, that鈥檚 near the dock and the submarine was under but you see the bit at the top. So as teenagers we were inquisitive so we went over to the wharf and saw sailors there and then we enquired. We wanted to know about this submarine, what goes on, so they invited us on board and I was very pleased. And then it goes down, down below to show us their bunk beds, I think it was 6 on one side and 6 on the other. So they told us some of the information, I might have forgotten this time after all these years but anyway, what was good about it was that, my coming to Britain, which I did in 1954, where I slept I had a bunk bed and I remembered seeing them on the submarine the first time, I wouldn鈥檛 go up top, I slept on the lower deck. So it was a good experience, seeing the submarine and other ships.

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