Bolton was a very rough area, everything seemed to happen to us. We were burgled thrice (to my immediate recollection), had our car stolen and generally bad attitudes from the public. They never seemed to respect our being there. Our main window was broken so many times we eventually had a grate installed in front of it which looked horrendous but saved a lot of money in the long run. We had cctv installed eventually, though the police weren't helpful at all when we reported something. They never seemed to be throughout my experiences.
When we moved to Levenshulme things were much better! There was still the occasions where the police had to be called but it wasn‘t as bad as Bolton. I was older around this time, just turned teenager in fact. I began helping around myself for pocket money: cooking, serving customers, peeling potatoes and onions. There was always something to do.
I got on well with customers but I have perfect English having lived in England my whole life. I discovered my mother really couldn't talk to customers - her understanding of English was so limited despite having lived here for so many years! She would get a jist of what they were saying but couldn't reply and quite often then not there were misunderstandings.
Mid teens I truly understood how bad the language barrier was. They decided my English was pretty good when I mentioned that my letter was selected out of my whole year to send to the local council. It was f**king ridiculous. Whenever possible I did the talking. She'd get me to talk with the bank, suppliers, doctors… my dad would get me to write letters to the council on his behalf. My parents encouraged me to talk to customers so they won't get to bored watching them work. Strangely not many people want to talk to a 14 year old about rock music.
There was one occasion two fat chav was being rude to my mother, I went to defend her and was spat at twice and called a ‘chink‘.
We called the police and was told officers would arrive within an hour as it was racial harassment and deemed extremely severe. They arrived a week later and only to answer to fat chavs' call not ours. It seemed she had called the police the same time we did to say we were harassing her.
That was very interesting.
We got the occasional drug dealer who'd come in and offer us drugs, one was a regular customer and whenever he'd come in and no one was around she'd refer to him as ‘drug dealer‘. People in Levenshulme would generally like my mum and her laid back humorous banter. She'd pick up gangster talk and throw it in every now and then to take the piss. They just taught her more slang. My dad never speaks to customers, whenever people complemented his dishes he's just smile and nod.
Well, to conclude I have different ideas with what I want to do with my life, none of which has anything to do with opening my own take away in Bolton. Bad memories man.
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