Marian Green

Marian Green was one of the people who helped Ugandan Asians in Loughborough

Transcript of her story

Marian Green was born in Quorn and moved to Loughborough in 1969.

My children are aged 34yrs and 32yrs. They attended Rosebery Primary School. I helped to run the playgroup community centre.

In the early 1970’s the town welcomed large numbers of Asian families who had suffered in Uganda. These families came to Loughborough with nothing. The children were welcomed into Rosebery, Cobden and Rendell schools and their younger siloliys were encouraged to come to St. Peters Community Centre

The vicar of St Peters centre welcomed these families with open arms and soon there were a number of families using St Peters Community Centre.

Both Geeta Bhavan and Sikh Temple used St Peters for their religious festivals and services until they were able, many years later, to purchase and create their own temples.

We have a long history of very good relationships with all the families as we use to host Navaratri and Diwali.

The playgroup found it very difficult to work with the Asian children at first because of the language barrier, but smiles and laughter and tales of love soon proved that the children trusted us and decided we were their friends. Over the years these relationships have grown and we at the playgroup and local schools are now welcoming grandchildren of the original families into our groups.

Throughout this time we at St Peters have supported the Asian families, and helped them to gain support from Charnwood Borough Council and Leicestershire County Council.

I was chair of Racial Equality Council (REC) for a time.

The local community found it very difficult to accept their very different neighbours mainly from ignorance, but within a very short space of time neighbours were helping each other out and slowly the language barriers disappeared. Many of our elderly community members began to rely ------ and ------ on their Asian neighbours so a good harmonious community was formed. We started a group to help the mothers and wives learn basic English. We had a lot of laughs and fun during these sessions.