Exploring the rich multicultural history of Devon.

Karen Wright

Posted on

11th December 2024

Posted by

Wendy Milne

Posted in

Ilfracombe Community Stories, News

Karen discusses growing up in South Africa ‘in a very, very special part of the world across the road from a very beautiful beach. The Cape, where I came from, has a Mediterranean climate. It absolutely was a beautiful place to live and grow up.’

She grew up in apartheid South Africa. They had a nanny – a woman of colour – who looked after them. ‘And she was an incredibly special, special woman, who was my playmate when I was a very, young child. And she was with me for I think the first 12 years of my life, so she was very much, very much a part of it and made sure that I behaved myself and did things right and didn’t swear and didn’t do anything naughty.’ 

She remembers growing up at a time when there were separate doors for white and non-white people in post office, toilets and other places. She attended a girls’ school for the majority of her education.

Karen remembers growing up in what she calls ‘a liberal Jewish home’ and being part of a large family who frequently gathered together for celebrations. Her family were migrants from Latvia and Lithuania who moved to South Africa in the 1920s both for economic reasons and due to pogroms against Jewish people.

As an adult she trained as an architect and came to work in London in 1972. She met her husband Laurence, also an architect, at work.

Karen’s job was with a firm that was converting and renovating terraced housing into flats for a housing association which she enjoyed a great deal. Both Karen and her husband worked as architects for over 20 years before their lifestyle change moving to North Devon to start a sheep farm and cheesemaking. 

Since 1998 the couple has been taking volunteers to the farm and they come from all over the world. 

‘We’ve had some really wonderful, wonderful people that we’ve met who’ve become friends and who we see again, and who come back every now and again, first with their husband and then with their children, first child, second child and so on. It’s good.’

Click below to listen to highlights from Karen’s interview:

Highlight 1: Childhood || Early schooling: [00:00:00 – 00:04.29]

Highlight 2: Adjusting to the UK || Accents || Apartheid || Having a Nanny during Apartheid [00:04:30 – 00:11:52]

Highlight 3: Grandparents moving to South Africa, || Being Jewish at school [00:11:53 – 00:15:11]

Highlight 4: University || Learning to be an architect [00:15:12 – 00:18:52]

Highlight 5: Moving to London || Architecture in London || Living on the same street as eight architects [00:18:53 – 00:25:17]

Highlight 6: Farming || Bringing in helpers from Europe [WWOOF] || Brexit impact || Interview wrap up [00:25:18 – 00:36:24]

Listen to Karen’s full interview here:

Click below to read a full transcript of her interview

Click on the logo to see a summary of the interview