"I always imagined poetry is supposed to be beauty, about beauty and ... and pleasant things. Well I sat in a train one day and I saw ... I came from – where did I go? I went out somewhere and I sat in a train. And I saw this lorry full of furniture going coming here. And I wr- I still got a very original thing that I done. And I wrote a poem about a Group Areas. ‘Fall tomorrow.’ And then the last stanza I’ll write, that this gov- that the government a- of that time is going to fall. ‘Your mould you that remade us your mould will break and tomorrow you are going to fall’. That type of thing. And then I sent the poem. I didn’t want to show Albert. I was too embarrassed to show Albert. But it’s worked on my nerves. This is was – it’s about the anger. Bringing out all the anger of moving and seeing this people moving and seeing people breaking up their wardrobes andtheir cupboards and – because it can’t go into the doors here."
Gladys Thomas
Interviewed by Sean Field
Between December 2009 - January 2010
At her home in Oceanview
Lau78 Life Histories