Thanh Sutton – North Yorkshire, England

In May 1979, my mother took all the savings we had and borrowed some more money from relatives to pay for my older brother, at the age of 21, to escape out of VietNam. His boat left Qui Nhon heading for Hong Kong. The boat was of moderate size, consisted of 179 people, sitting upright jam packed inside. It sailed for 3 days and 2 nights then was hit by a storm. It had to seek shelter for about 7 hours in the bay of Hai Nam island of China. The islanders were neither hostile towards the boat, nor welcome the Vietnamese, they gave them some water and asked for dollars in return.

When the storm subsided, the boat continued its journey and eventually reached Hong Kong. The journey took a total 5 nights and 6 days.

In Hong Kong, the refugees were put in a big rented villa, it was very crowded. This was managed by the UN. The refugees were provided some money and allowed to go out to work. They took on mostly low pay jobs. My brother was hoping to be sponsored by my Mum's cousin in America but after several months waiting , he was not happy with the crowded conditions in the refugee camp and decided to register to go to the United Kingdom. At that time, there were also Vietnamese people from North VietNam seeking refuge in Hong Kong, as from the North Vietnam it would take as little as 2 hours to get to Hong Kong. Most of the Northerners chose to settle in the UK.

My brother and his fiance arrived in the UK in November 1979, firstly in a refugee camp in Lincoln, the place used to be an army barrack called Motohall. He stayed there for a year then moved to settle in Northampton to this day. He has always been working in a factory of one kind or another.

The British government allowed my family to come to join my brother under the family re-union program. My family consisted of my parents, then in their 50s, and 6 siblings (3 girls and 3 boys), me the oldest at 20, and the youngest at 7 years old. We came to England in May 1983, flying from Saigon to London via Bangkok. We stayed in a very small refugee centre in Derby, of which I can not recall the name.

We then moved out to settle nearby my brother in Northampton in September of the same year. The Vietnamese community then was not very big. There were Vietnamese people settling around big cities but it was quite hard for one to find people from Saigon like us.

My siblings and I all managed to get good education, integrated into the British society and eventually moved around the UK following our career.

I am now living in North Yorkshire together with my own family. One brother and sister settled in Australia, another in Spain.