“Hi my name is Josephine, would you like to come to my house? I’m cooking African food on Saturday.”
Josephine in Meadowell © Hazel Plater
I’m a qualified nurse; I’d been working in Zimbabwe and then I did midwifery. So, I’m general nursing with midwifery and then moved to London. And then from London, that was 2000, I ended up in Meadowell and I was pregnant. I remember being in a house, I did the washing of the baby clothes and then tried to put the clothes outside on the wash line. While I was in the middle of putting the clothes on the wash line, a lady came with a pair of scissors and she cut my wash line letting my baby clothes fall on the ground on the grass. It was my worst nightmare. I was shocked and I was looking at this lady and I’m thinking, “Oh my God what just happened?” I couldn’t say, “What are you doing?” I looked at her and she walked away. I think because I was looking so African maybe she thought I couldn’t speak English or something. That was the first welcome. I didn’t know my rights at that particular moment, and I was really scared. I would call the police about the harassment, and they would come but they would come two hours later. I said well, I’m not going to stay here. I packed my stuff and went to the police, and I said I’m not going to stay, that is it. So, I refused to go back until they find me somewhere else to stay and so they put me in sheltered accommodation for that night and then they moved me to Wallsend.
Then when my indefinite leave to remain came the shock of my life came again. I was told that we have a house that is empty and it’s in Meadowell. Like no way, I’m not going. But they gave me a choice either you take the house, or you don’t. So, I had to make up my mind I just said, “Well I can’t be running the rest of my life from Zimbabwe to Meadowell, from Meadowell to somewhere else, what am I going to do?” My whole life is going to be like drama of running and so I said well I’m going to go to the house and I was like, what is going to happen now? So, I had to think really quickly on my feet and that is when my activism started.
I went to people’s houses, knocked on doors, “Hi my name is Josephine, would you like to come to my house? I’m cooking African food on Saturday,” and I think I visited most of the houses in Meadowell. I was like, I have to do something because otherwise how can I live in a place where I am so terrified of everybody.
So, I cooked and surprisingly, the people came and in no time we had about 11 families and they were women and their kids, and we started talking. I wanted to know why people are like this and is everybody and they were saying like we are not like that, not everybody’s like that. And we say okay, next weekend we are going to have the same, I will be cooking. So, I was teaching them my culture and then I was teaching them African dancing in my house, and then my son started teaching the kids break dancing. So, we already had African dancing group and break dancing group and then that week it was a refugee week celebration, and we were told if you want you can actually put your name down so people can perform or do whatever. I put my name down and say, “Josephine three acts.”
Josephine at Cedarwood © Hazel Plater
One was African dance, one break dancing and other one was play on Africa. After that the mayor said Josephine how did you do that where do you dance? Well, fortunately that was like my breakthrough. The Mayor said, “You can’t be doing things like this in the house you need a place,” and I was moved to The Avenues where the Cedarwood is now. I had to take a teaching course. Then we did a film which was The Queen of North Shields and Josephine became the Queen of North Shields. Everybody knew who I was because of the dance classes and we could do them and have a show after that and when we had the show we would invite the Mayor to come and it was so, so amazing.
It was a very good turn round, that’s when I was thinking well, I need to take this further. The reason why I wanted to become a councillor, I wanted the voices of the North Shields people to be heard. I was thinking as a councillor you could have a voice and a voice is more in the chamber rather than in the street and I thought that was remarkable.
I got accepted in Benton so I became the first black councillor in North Tyneside in 49 years. I did my 2 years in Benton and then came back to North Shields when there was another vacancy. I’m so passionate about North Shields.
My favourite place is Meadowell, that’s a surprise because all the things that I went through it was a very worst place, but with the effort and the work that we have done so far I can say I’m super, super proud about things that I have done and things I’m still doing.
We have people who are passionate about North Shields. We have people who are campaigning for I Love North Shields and they are doing so much. I think the way people looked at North Shields 30 years ago is going to be quite different.
My legacy is already talking for itself. If God willing the mayor is where I’m heading to, we want the first black mayor in North Tyneside. People should think that the world is changing and accepting people for who they are is what is going to make us progress. I just know that something great is going to happen, whatever it is, it is in Gods hand.
Josephine was interviewed as part of the North Shields Voices project.