Jenny Cook talking with Natasha (Tash) Goswami
Recording for Asian Connections Project. Total length 51 minutes, 46 seconds.Track 1 Born 26/07/1970 in London, moved to Bristol aged about 5. Family lived in Italy, Germany and Bristol on and off. Mother Italian and Roman Catholic, father Indian and Hindu. Description of attending Roman Catholic school in Bristol. At 14 went to private Steiner Waldorf School. Dyslexic, felt like outsider at school. Fell out with parents, she wanted to study art. Parents art not a career. Left home at 17, stayed in young women’s Catholic refuge. Description of making up with parents on condition of doing a business course. Not suited to work in tax office asked to leave. Parents got divorced. Father refused to sign grant form. Left home. Work as volunteer on deaf information project. Evening class in ceramics, then course at school of Art and Design in Bristol. Went on to Bristol University, qualified as a ceramicist, own studio for three years, still doing youth work. Needed operation on hands. Could not use hands for a year. Comment: dogged by ill health, mix of Indian and western conditions. Job as Arts Development Officer for large youth charity. Based in London, events across UK, responsible for 20,000 young people and 4,000 volunteers. Charity lost £8m in stock market crash, Tash made redundant. Got job as Arts Development Officer, Adam Smith College, Kirkcaldy. Moved from Bristol to Dunfermline. Comment: first time in her life been watched to such extent in community. After few days realised not racism, in smaller place somebody new is noticed. Huge cultural difference, first year had to get used to the way Scots spoke. Now feels it is home. Gets asked to be a representative for entire group. But she is not English, not Italian, not Indian. She is a mixture. Reaction from Hindu community, father’s name indicated he is high caste, unusual to marry an Italian and to be divorced. Comment on youth work in Bradford. Young people fixated on a Pakistan their parents remember that has not existed for 30 years.As teenager pretending to parents to be good girl but smoking, drinking, boyfriends. Decided to tell her parents, not going to lie to them any more. Did not want to get married. Job at Adam Smith finished. Has her own company. Parents retired. Mother from village in Sardinia. She worked for Italian consulate as shopper buy presents for dignitaries in France, then London. Asked to move to Switzerland did not want to leave London. Became a Nurse, her family horrified. She became Night Sister Frenchay Hospital and Neuro Specialist Nurse. Tash’s father an accountant. Did not enjoy his work. He never talks about her Indian/Hindu culture. Tash feels able to tap into best bits of different cultures.
