Over the course of time, religious institutions responded to the arrival and needs of new communities and played a key role in bringing people together, either providing a safe space and welcoming migrants into ever changing congregations, and providing a wide range of social activities – from Youth Clubs to dances. Nowadays, temples and mosques, not established in the area in the 1950s, are alongside synagogues and churches.
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I think the changes mostly started in the sixties, which is when the general area changed quite a bit. We had more people from West Indies coming in, and you were more aware of different people. Not so much different faiths, because most of them were Christians, so they would come to the same churches. Just be part of the community.
Patricia
There was no actually Temple, there was one in Shepherd’s Bush organised by the Sikh Student but… once or twice we went there but otherwise, when we got married there was no Temple or anything, I got married… we went to the Town Hall for my registration but then, the Indian ceremony… we did in the house. But then, of course, Temples (are) everywhere now.
Sushil
No, there… there was a samaj (a Hindu religious society or movement), like… you know, the samaj they have opposite our library here… the Tamu Samaj… There was a samaj there where… they used to have gatherings and prayers for the Indians. But we didn’t associate, in that part of the world till much much later. By that time then there was a temple in Southall.
Rajni
(In 1972 I) got married in… you know… at the Hindu Centre (in Kentish Town). That was the only kind of place where people would have these occasions like. Our registry wedding was at Burnt Oak Registry Office. And the next day we got married in this little hall. There were only about thirty or forty guests. And the marriage was done by a priest. My parents were over. And on, from his side, his elder brothers were here. His parents didn’t travel. And that was it. There was no reception, no big parties. (Laughing) So a hundred pounds did us, both!
Rajni
I go in Ealing Road, in Kinsbury, in Kenton. I go there for worship now, but that time no, we didn’t go anywhere for worship, no. At home. Roughly… ’75… Yes, first (Temple) was in ’75, yes. It was very small, now is going bigger and bigger, now good Temple we can go. There was one in Kenton Lane, a Swaminarayan Temple, and one on Ealing Road, a Hindu Temple. There I go.
Ramila
No, no, I don’t think there was anything there, I think. The Hindu Temple was built fairly recently I think, the Mosque I think similar, probably in the last twenty years I guess. Nearly all the worship places were churches. Synagogue… there’s a quite strong Jewish community around Preston Manor school, behind or around Wembley Park, strong Jewish community and about a third of the kids who went to Preston Manor School were Jewish, and they used to walk to the Synagogue. The Synagogue sort of pulled them off school. They used to walk to the Synagogue down, and walk back to school. Yes, about one in five were Jewish but very few when I was at school, very few Asian or West Indians, very few Pols or Romanians, very few of that.
John
I went to the Synagogue. It’s in Harrow, where St George’s Centre is. You know the big roundabout? It’s just down the road from there. I’ve been there for forty years, I go every Friday and every Saturday. (When I moved here), apart from myself and my sister and one other gentleman, there were no Jewish people in the area, funnily enough, but it didn’t matter because we had our circle of friends, so we never felt out of it, and I have to admit that, personally, I haven’t actually experienced any antisemitism.
Viv
Church was very important. We also had great festivals. Every, probably every two years we ran an arts festival in the whole circuit. They always took place here at Sudbury (Methodist) Church, because it was the biggest church in the area. And we’d have singing competitions, duets for men and women, choir competitions, verse speaking, but most of all arts and crafts, you’d have wonderful needle craft. And always an outside adjudicator to come and award the prizes. So it was a really big event. And also we had a really big youth organisation called MAYC, which was Methodist Association of Youth Clubs.
Shirley
We belonged to the Guides and Scout groups attached to Sudbury (Methodist) Church here, and we were the third Sudbury Guides, and the boys for some reason were the Second Sudbury, but we were strongly attached to the Church, which I think a lot of the Scouts troops were – I’m not sure about that, but they seemed to be because they had things like church parade once a month, and if you were a sort of senior in the company you’d carry the flag down the aisle. And your promise of course was to serve God and the King, so we were quite linked to the Church.
Patricia
The community changed from when we first came, it was a very middle-class English congregation. When they built the school (St George’s Catholic School), it attracted an awful lot of young families who wanted their children to go to the school. The little estate that we live on, just opposite the Church, three little roads cul-de-sacs, were practically all St. George’s parishioners who had children but, again, that has changed and there are very few of us left. (…) I suppose these things change without you even realising, as the kids get older and move, start their own lives, and of course, the immigrant population changed from the Irish, as it was in those early years, to being Asian and West Indian. At the present moment our congregation at St. George’s, which is very big – we have an average congregation of 1600 on a Sunday – they are mainly Asian, Goan, Filipino.
Kathleen
(The Irish community in Sudbury was) growing, and over the following years it became very active in the church. A lot of the activities, both religious and social, were centred around the Irish community, and the indigenous English population either moved away or the older ones obviously died off, and for a number of years we had… well, for quite few years, we had an Irish Parish Priest, so it was a very Irish Parish for a good number of years. (…) I still feel very part of it actually, although its changed, but I’m still very much part of it. I’ve been to mass this morning. (….) It’s the one thing that holds me to Sudbury actually.
Kathleen
I was very much part of the Catholic community of Sudbury, St George’s parish, that’s sort of my and still is – 95% of my contacts in Sudbury are through the church. So we are strong members of the community in that area. Signor Purney (Wilfred Purney, the Parish Priest at the time) was a good man but he was absolutely dated and a million miles away from what I was doing in school teaching RE (Religious Education). But when he went, a new man came in who I knew well and we worked together, and from then on I’ve been worked off my socks because, I mean , I’d got gifts they could use all the time. So we were very immersed in the parish, I mean, really very immersed and especially my wife, because she’ got musical skills, they used her an enormous amount… for something like thirty years she ran the liturgies on Sunday for children, twenty-five certainly. I did all sorts of talks and things, presentations, and other things.
Mike
We had a club, now close down, at the back of the church in St George’s in the road here, run by an Irish couple, and that was their job, they run that club on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and they made money on it, they run it. There were two Irish priests there, (…) the whole parish seemed to be Irish and I was always helping out (…). And St George’s school invited me to help out with the communion, and, again, a lot of the parents were Irish, you know, that was the way. The headteacher was from Irish parents (…), and the Irish were huge, I couldn’t believe the amount of Irish people here!
Seamus
I’m a Baptist. (I went to church) down Alperton. There’s a Baptist Church down there. (There) was a mixed crowd: English, Indian… Yes, a mixed crowd. They welcomed us, we didn’t have any problem in the church. It was different from work.
Norma
I used to go to Sudbury Baptist. When I started to look for a church, I went down to Sudbury Baptist because it was probably closer to what I was used to in the West Indies. I went there for a period of time. I came to this church here (Sudbury Methodist) for a period of time, and I think that was it. But working as a nurse, I didn’t get the chance to go to church too much. You know I wasn’t in the habit of saying ‘I go to church on a Sunday’ and see that I get the Sunday off. (…) You didn’t get the Sunday off very much, because all the students and younger people had to work the weekends, while the older ones with children, or families, they got the weekends off. So, I didn’t get many weekends off. And so, for that reason I wouldn’t go to church a lot.
Peggy
On the Harrow Road, at St Andrew’s Church. And the old Scout Hut is still there. It’s in the car park at the back of St Andrew’s and the hut is now used by, well I know on a Tuesday, it’s used by the Brent Punjabi Association. But at that time, it was a very very busy Scout group. They had Beavers, they had Brownies, they had Cub Scouts, and Venture Scouts – a great team of volunteers and I just thought they’re such a wonderful group of people, so I trained to be a scout Leader and we got involved in all sorts of things. We used to go camping with the kids, we used to take them up Horsenden Hill, I mean it was a really, really great time.
Eva
I did go to church (St John’s Church) very regularly when I was a kid, and I used to go to Sunday School, and when I got fifteen or sixteen, I somehow was persuaded to be a Sunday School teacher, so for about two or three years before I went to University I used to try teach Christianity. I enjoyed but did it for a couple of years. We had a sort of Youth Club attached to the church, run by a chap who was the organist of the church, John Miley, and we used to go away once or twice a year, probably for little trips, Youth Hostel some times. We went to Wales, we went to the West country, so, yes, we had a little bit of activities, we used to meet once a week.
John
