Antoinette Lorraine speaks about volunteering in Cardiff & London

Description

Antoinette Lorraine speaks about her volunteer work with Charles Street Arts Foundation and Grass Roots. Interview recorded on 7 December 2016 at Glamorgan Archives.
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The Chronicle Project is a community heritage project supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund and run by VCS Cymru with the aims to document the history of volunteering in Cardiff, from 1914 to 2014. Visit our website at: http://chronicle.recueil.net/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chronicleVCS/Twitter: https://twitter.com/vcs_chronicle
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[Audio Header]
• We will now begin recording the interview with Antoinette Lorraine. 
• The recording takes place on the 7th December 2016 at Glamorgan Archives. 
• The volunteers present are Mike Hawkins and Conan Friel. And this recording is being collected as an oral history and will be part of the Chronicle Project, a project led by VCS Cymru and funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund. 
MH: Thanks Antionette. Could you just introduce yourself and just tell us how you first got involved in volunteering?
[Early experience at BIT in London - 0:05 to 6:35] 
AL: Well, my name is Antoinette Lorraine. Um, I live in Cardiff. I haven't been far out of Cardiff, I went to London for a few years when I was quite young, and I did live in Holland for nine years, um, and then I returned to Cardiff. So how did I get involved in volunteering. It’s oh, I was in London actually. I was, I was quite young yeah , I was about 18 and I went to live in London and I actually ended up having quite a good job in London, in Berkeley Square, at quite a young age.And in the evenings I went to help out at a project called BIT. Oh firstly, I remember now, firstly I went to help out at Simon Community for a little while, yeah I remember that now, that was a place for homeless people, alcoholics and, not that that equates necessarily but you know there were various types of people there.But I ended up somehow in BIT, I can't recall how I came to be in BIT. Um, I was quite impressed with BIT because it was a type of switchboard organisation, because you can imagine in London there were lots of people coming through from all over the world, and I remember it was in Ladbroke Grove, and how I helped is that I was quite good at administration, because that was my job during the day, and so I would sort of help the coordinator there, um, by typing up lots of reports that he had to do et cetera. So that's what I did, I, I don't recall why I got involved in volunteering, it’s quite a strange thing now that you ask me because I do know that at that age, like many people that age, I felt like I wanted to change the world and so it just seemed to be in my DNA. I think I was born, born wanting to do that and, yeah, and how I ended up in BIT I can't recall. But anyway I did that for the whole of the time I was in London. And um, so I met a lot of people there, saw a lot of things there. I remember that some of the, talking to some of the people there, and they were a little bit bitter about the way things were in society, and I remember being accused of, oh you're coming here, you just want to paper over the cracks. But anyway I was young, what could I, what could I do, what could I know, I just did a bit there. Um, and so that's how it started, and I actually did return to Cardiff. [Setting up RIB (Rights and Information Bureau) in Cardiff] And again I can't recall how I ended up being involved with RIB. I know that I went to the student union and I was thinking about this, I think I must have asked for a meeting with someone in the student union. Maybe I suggested that they be involved in something like BIT in Cardiff. And I think that's how it might have come, come to be because I've tried to think about it and I, I just can't think of any other way that would have happened. And there was a man called Dave Smith and he was, yeah he was involved with the student union and so I had meetings together with him and, um, he got this building in Charles Street, 58 Charles Street, at a peppercorn rent and actually installed me in it really. And that's how it started. And it was meant to be a project similar to, to BIT, but of course Cardiff, it was very different to London, absolutely, but never the less we were there and, um, we had, um, yeah I don't know it just all started once we were there and we had volunteers came to, to help. And we had like an open door policy. What I do remember is that over the years that RIB, which was Rights and Information Bureau, were in existence, we did various things, it depended on who came to volunteer, you know what we could do or what we could offer. But certainly it was an open door policy so we would get people who would come and sit in there, um, yeah sometimes it was people, you know, who were in really dire straits or just like somewhere to come and sit for a while. And we were an information service primarily so if people called to ask various information then we would do our best to give them the information. I think we saw it as a place where, for people who wouldn't go to the establishment, you know, to the council offices, that they could come to us, we were like an intermediary. Um, a lot of things went on there, you know, when I look back now it surprises me because I am thinking oh yeah, a lot of people came through the place, came in to, in to help and to offer help and yeah just volunteer and give time. 
[The cook at RIB - 6:37 to 7:10]
We ended up one-time there with a little, someone, actually I remember him well, someone who had sat there for days on end, weeks on end, months on end, you know, and then he ended up doing, because we had two rooms, he ended up doing a little kitchen in one of the rooms, just making soup, and then people from outside, I remember, people like Pete Raymond from the Welsh National Opera and other people like that came in and had lunch there. 
[RIB funding and activities - 7:13 to 10:35] 
Yeah, I know that the only way that we could fund ourselves was to have things like jumble sales and in those days jumble sales, they were very big, you know you could earn a lot of money having jumble sale in those days. And we also had benefit concerts, we had bands like Brinsley Schwarz and Black Sabbath and Hawkwind and Deep Purple and they actually came and did concerts for us to raise funds. I also know, remember that we did some placements, sometimes some social workers came to do some placements there because, you know, I can't totally pinpoint what it is we did, you know, but obviously for them it was very useful, for them to come to a place like that and to see what was happening on, you know, grassroots level, the type of things that people were going through, and you know some people who just can't, you know they just fall into a circumstance where it is really difficult for them to get out of it. I mean we gave advice on, well, whatever. I was thinking, I don't think we gave benefits advice, because we didn't have training sessions in things like that, but we would point people in the right direction to where they could get advice, you know. I'm trying to think of what else because we were very busy, we were open from I think 10 in the morning until 10 at night, so we had to have like a rota of volunteers who were there. We also set up like a, we called it a crash pad list, where people who were passing through Cardiff needed somewhere to stay, you know travellers or something, we could phone someone on the list and ask them if they would, um, put up someone for that night, and it was amazing how many people were on the list, you know, who were willing, and I remember we had people, some of them Americans who, you know, were very upset and a bit traumatised because they had been involved in Vietnam, things like that, you know. Yeah, and we had, I remember, I think some of the things that really stick in my mind is some of the characters who came in. And I'm sure that it was, what's the word, a foundation for some of the characters who just came in and sat there, I think it was like home to some of them, I mean we couldn't have loads of people coming in to sit there, it didn't work like that anyway but there were some regulars, you know, that came in and, yeah, just maybe it was a little bit of a haven for them, I don't know. [Laughs] 
[The cook again - 10:36 to 11:56] 
And I always remember one, I mean, it was really quite a funny occurrence because, I don't really know who he was and he just sat there, it was the one who set up the cafe in the end, but he sat there for months on end, he didn't say a word to anyone, and then I remember we needed some more volunteers and we’d advertised, and we had, we were like interviewing people to see if they would be…it would work for them to be there, because some people were coming from other cities as well, and I remember just talking, mentioning to my colleague about one person, and this man who had just sat there piped up and said , “Yes but would he have the personality”. [Laughs] And I just remember going into hysterical laughter because that was probably the only thing he said for the whole of the months, so he had been taking everything in, watching everything, and listening to everything. But anyway that was, yeah I mean I just look at this photograph, and you know I can see that there was plenty going on there but I can't remember it all, not all of it anyway. But…
MH: Can you tell me about the photograph, you know, how that came about? 
[Description of the photograph - 12:01 to 13:32]
AL: Yeah, the photograph was, this was taken by someone, actually it was Paul Harrison and he’d come, he was working for the Western Mail at the time, and he came to do an article about RIB for the paper, and he took the photograph. Actually, I had become friends with him and his wife, because they moved to live in London and he became an author and, um, and they were very interested in what we were doing there and I remember that we were about to do a, we were helping to go around Cardiff, you know counting, seeing how many homeless people there were and we were part of, helping with that project, and so I remember that he came with his wife, and he accompanied us all around Cardiff at that time, looking for homeless people to try to gauge how many people were , you know, sleeping rough in Cardiff. Yeah, so, but many people came through the doors, you know, in and out, yeah, and so it was a bit like a switchboard in a way, pointing people to appropriate places and um yeah. A lot of people…
[Break in recording] 
MH: Could you just clarify what was the role of volunteers here, and also how you survived during the time you were with RIB?
[Role of volunteers at RIB - 13:34 to 16:25]
AL: Yeah, if I remember rightly, I earned about five pounds a week, if that, mainly we had benefit concerts, people like Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Hawkwind, Brinsley Schwarz, they did benefit concerts for us, and also we had jumble sales, because in those days there were lots of jumble sales and there were queues to go to jumble sales, and we could earn, you know, money doing jumble sales. But, yeah, I suppose, when I think back it sounds ridiculous, but money didn't seem very important to me then, and people were very, very kind, generous and helpful to me because a lot of people knew I was there, working for not much at all, and for instance you can see on the photograph, this girl here Liz who was a volunteer, she came out of one of her, of her flat, sorry, and I moved into it, and it was absolutely cheap. I mean it just shows how times have changed, everything was so, so much, so different then. You could survive on not much money then. So I moved into her flat and it was really, really cheap, but a good flat. And, yeah, you know, you had the open air fruit market, you could go down there looking for cheap fruit and vegetables and things, we just lived differently then, and it was possible, I don't know if you could do it now really, but you know that was how I survived, but it didn't feel like surviving. I suppose I, yeah, wasn't someone who came out of school, I did work in an office, as I said I worked in an office in London when I was there, but I sort of started and stopped, gave it up quite quickly. In that moment I couldn't see myself doing that forever, being an office worker, but anyway. And volunteering, yeah we, there were always people who wanted to volunteer, who wanted to come in and help in some way or another, so it was, in a way it was quite a creative process because different volunteers had different ideas or different skills, and so lots of things went on there. 
[Stress - 16:28 to 17:52] 
I think, you know, for me eventually when I… I can only see the positive side of it now, but when I look back I can also see that it was quite trying to work in a place like that, because yes you are seeing everything on the grassroots level with people who couldn't manage or cope with their lives for what ever reason and, um, this was around us all day, evening, every day, and so there was, it was all so stressful. And sometimes the stress could come from the people who volunteered, because of group dynamics, you know, we had, you can imagine, we had meetings every week and meetings are not always easy. But our basic idea, the basic idea was there to, we were a switchboard basically, that was the basis of it, to give information to people who wouldn't otherwise have access to information and that's what we did and everything else around it, you know you're going to get in whatever organisation you’re in. 
MH: What impact do you think your volunteering, or the activity of you and your volunteers there, had on wider society?
[Impact of volunteering on the wider community - 18:03 to 20:27]
AL: Oh gosh, I don't know what impact we had on wider society. I like to think that some of the people who came in there, whether they came for help or whether they came to volunteer, or just came to see what was going on and hang around there to see if they could do anything, I would like to think that it stayed inside of them for all of their lives, you know, and also some of the social work placements who came there. I know that one of them, I heard that he heard a negative comment when he was in a training, and he was able to defend, you know, the project. Because you can imagine certain people in establishment had their own ideas about what we did there, you know, I couldn't help everyone who came in there, you know it was the day and age, but I know that this particular man, he stood up for us, he defended us, you know, he obviously, he had done a placement there, and he had obviously got a lot from it and saw that we were trying to do our best in the circumstances. Yeah, so and also I understand that at the very least, the project, there were different projects that continued in that building, so that was a good thing in itself, you know. I think these type of projects are difficult to quantify, you know, that it's sometimes difficult to put a worth or a value and an awareness on the number of people that benefited, in a way. But I think a lot of people who came in there did benefit, and I would say, I may be wrong, but my opinion is that, especially some of the people who came in and were regulars coming in there because I think they were respected, and valued and yeah, I think so. 
MH: What do you think volunteering gave you personally? 
[Volunteering on personal life - 20:33 to 23:18]
AL: Yeah, um, God, that's an interesting question isn't it. You asked me earlier, did I do any other volunteering work and, do you know what, I think I am almost still doing it, you won't believe this, the work I do now, when I went to live in Holland it was just like a miracle because I wanted to earn my living doing this work I do now which is stimulating potential through music and movement, and a group situation, and there what I do became my absolute full-time work, I mean I was doing it with the police academy, Genesis Consulting, weekly groups of 50 or 60 people. But I came back to UK, and it has taken ages to get it going again, you know my international work goes, but here you could say I go to groups and I do it basically free of cost because I don’t get enough people. But the point is, I love doing what I do and I say, if I get one person, it's worth it. So I was thinking that, to a certain extent, [laughs] some of my other work has to fund what I do here, because I’ve brought this thing here, there were not many teachers here, there still aren't many teachers here, but I believe in it and so I do it even though I don't get much money here doing it. So in that respect, you know, so what it leads me then to think is that obviously I get something from it, don't I. I get something from that, but, you know, I’d only, my only wish would be that every single person in the whole world would be in a similar situation, that they would get something, and feel something good, from doing something for someone else. That would be my desire because I don't think the world would be in the state it's in if everyone felt good when they helped someone else, you know, or when they did something for someone else, you know. So, but I'm only saying that maybe it was something in me that, clearly it was something in me that wanted to… I think that a lot of people feel that in the teenage years, isn’t it, they want to save the world, they think they can, but not everyone, maybe if everyone did it could happen, but a lot of people do I think, during that time, but it's in my DNA I think. [Laughs] 
MH: In a nutshell, what does volunteering mean for you? 
[Definitions of volunteering - 23:26 to 25:23]
AL: Right okay, I wish there was no need for anyone to volunteer, to do anything, okay that's the first thing. I feel quite radical in that I don't believe there should be the need for volunteers, because I think we have a government that should be the protectors and the safety net of the people and I know that in some countries that does exist, like in places like Denmark and Finland, the governments make sure that everyone, and the Netherlands too, make sure that people are happy and have the circumstances to flourish, safety nets. In our culture, we don't have that type of system, so it’s necessary then to have volunteers, we have to have volunteers. But I don't believe that in a really true, you know, good, proper working culture that there would be a need for volunteers, in my opinion, there should not be the need, nor for charities neither. I think why, when we have a government who is there to serve the people, protect the people, make safety nets for everyone. We should only really be in a situation in life of, well now how am I going to flourish my potentials, how am I going to grow myself as a human being, you shouldn't have to worry about all the ‘where I going to get the next thing to pay my rent, where am I going to get the next thing’, you know, people can’t flourish when they’re, so then we do need the…we have do the work that the government is supposed to be doing, because you can't just let people, you know, sort of suffer. 
MH: Thank you very much, Antoinette. Thank you. 
[Note: later that day the following was received in an email from Antoinette] 
"One more point: I don’t think it’s to feel good that I volunteered (it was stressful) it is more to do something that I feel is worthwhile (of course this is still for myself so that is what I meant). And this will be according to my own personal values for my life. -Antoinette

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