Shiyan

Audio from Shiyan Walcott

Location - Hair at Honey Hive in Dalston

Date July 24 

"I grew up in Jamaica, St Andrews and Kingston, St Catherines and then I migrated here. The experience of growing up in the Caribbean is good. All Jamaicans come from a humble beginning. It does not matter if they are rich, poor, middle class, they come humble beginnings. We know how to take a pound and turn it into ten pounds as all Jamaicans are entrepreneurs. They are good with their hands, talented, creative and well-dressed and there is nothing impossible for them. I grew up in a community where each influenced each other. There is always someone who is doing better than the other and you learn from their experience. What causes error and what causes downfall. So things like these you learn in your community growing up. You know nothing lasts forever. We brought up to know the health is wealth. I have my siblings in Jamaica and one, my brother lives here with me. My mum Jacienth got five kids. She is still alive and kicking and my dad Winston passed away recently. He’s been deceased since 2020.”

“I have always lived a fantastic life. I came here at the age of 22 and I am 47 now. My grandparents came here first. They came here as nurses and teachers. One of my great aunts used to live in Kilburn, Doris Hall, she was a schoolteacher and the rest of the family, they do nursing. Some of my dad’s relatives were English and plantation owners in the Caribbean. So I am born British to be frank. My mum was born before Jamaica got independence, so I am British by law. I can come here easily now because I have sorted myself out. But all Jamaicans are British. What they have done to Jamaicans is treacherous and discriminating, because we made this society what it is. We came here and let people know they need to wash daily. We taught them to take the bread from the newspaper and not to have your kitchen next door to your toilet. And it was the Jamaicans that made it, that every race can walk freely in Britain. They do not respect us, and they talk down to us. It’s Jamaicans that made Africans, Indians and Asians and all-other race can move freely in this country. Because there was this time when there was this protesting and rioting in Brixton and across London, when we fought for everybody to be able to move freely and have rights.”  

“I believe in respect. Growing up, a community raise all kids. Here we don’t have a community since they moved out black people of inner-city areas, being gentrified. Now we have these postcode wars. In general, you hear people complaining about when they have been arrested. Police try to abuse them, and the law does not uphold or stand to its words. We try and trust the police but what do they do. I know people who are mentally disturbed because of what happened to them in Stoke Newington police station. So, it’s like there are no police here, they are all gangs. But we need Hackney to be like it used to be. Hackney used to be a place of joy but it’s no longer a place of joy. There is nothing for the elderly. They have taken away their social clubs and things for young people. We now have too many homeless people. It feels like there is only one race here now and we need a mixture because that is what we are used to a mixture of everybody. If I am applying for things online, I don’t tell them I am black. I say I am white. Because if you are black, you get nowhere and if you are from Jamaica. It’s another stereotype. There is too much prejudice for my people.”

“I have always lived in Hackney and always a Hackney girl. I am a hairdresser by trade and that is what I have done here since I arrived all those years ago. I used to work in one or two different shops renting the space until I got my own place here at ‘Hair at Honey Hive’ but some people just call it Shiyan’s. I have been here in Dalston in my own shop for fourteen years. Here used to be a shopping village in this little alley next to Ridley Road. There was a record man selling records on his stall, a lady selling shoes and many others. I have seen it change. They have taken away our culture to fit their culture in. They are trying to take it from us, and I don’t see where it is going for the younger generation. There is nothing much for them. It’s so expensive to rent or buy in Hackney now. When I first came to this country people were saying they did not want to live in Hackney because it’s a ghetto. We now have different backgrounds of rich people coming here to the borough who are dictating what happens here. They are closing schools like Colvesten. Why would you want to close a school which is a landmark. They want to take our landmarks, our markets and all the things that make Hackney what it is. The great Ridley Market. Everybody internationally knows that market. Why do they want to take it from us?”

“How many things are they going to take from poor people to put on their own plate when they already have everything on their own plates. They are already billionaires. We need jet black people to be prime minister and more black people in parliament. Same with schools. We need more professional black teachers. Otherwise, black children do not see themselves represented and they develop mental health. Now they are threatening to check poor peoples bank accounts. There are so many checks on the poor and no checks on the rich. Rishi Sunak and David Cameron have so many bank accounts and all tax free. And there they are watching people with nothing. We need to change things.”

“As a Jamaican woman with my own salon in Dalston, I am proud of myself, and I am my own cheerleader. It’s not been easy. Back in the day plenty older people will come to the salon on a Tuesday as that would be the day for pensioners. But they no longer come to the salon because there is no money for them here because they can’t even eat well anymore. Poverty has a knock-on effect on small businesses. Also, black people have been pushed out of the area because of hight rents so I don’t have all the customers I used to. I still get the African community who come here for braiding. Other customers come for bush wave, cut and tong and ponytails. I have a lot of the African community who come here, especially the Congolese. But not like before when you had a lot of black people living here. New people who move a lot and landlords who charge high rents. Years ago, people would say good morning and would check on you. Now our social housing has been neglected and feels transient.”

“But I still love it. I not going nowhere. I am a happy Londoner. It’s rich in culture and even if you are poor there are things to do here. This city moulds you, teaches you and educates you in a lot of ways. It gives you ideas on how to live. Dalston is somewhere you want to be. It teaches you how to live and survive. That’s exactly what the government are trying to take from people. They want to make us miserable. But I am more than happy today that I am a Hackney girl and a Londoner. I have raised my twin boys up here too. Thyreece and Thyreek who are 22 going on 23 now and they are boys with class and standards. They did well in school, and one wrote a poem that was published in the young writers and the other is always in the Hackney Gazette. I brought them up on my own and I would do it all over again because I am a strong black woman. I don’t need nobody to make me. I can make myself. So when people say single parents can’t do this or that, you’re talking bollocks.”