.png){kind=small}
.png)
'Dola' Christiana Dawodu
Food Migration and the Entrepreneurial Heritage of Medway
TENS-2026-006 | 10 Black Voices of Medway 2026
Born in Britain and raised in Nigeria
Dola explains to me that she was born in Britain while her Nigerian parents were studying here. They returned to Nigeria when she was very young, so her childhood and upbringing took place there. Being born in Britain did not mean that returning later felt entirely familiar.
She remembers coming back at nineteen in March 1997. A relative by marriage met her at the airport with her name on a placard, and she initially lived in Woolwich.
The practical reassurance of having someone waiting did not remove the emotional difficulty of beginning again.
Loneliness is part of what she remembers.
She describes speaking to her mother frequently, sharing small details of what was happening, including the cold and unfamiliar weather. Those conversations maintained a relationship that distance could have made harder to sustain. Before new friendships developed, her mother remained an important point of connection.
The account gives migration a personal scale. Arrival involves arrangements for accommodation and study, but it also involves finding people to talk to and learning how everyday life works in a different setting. Dola's story allows those less visible experiences to remain part of the record.
Beginning married life in Medway
Her connection with Medway developed through her husband's studies at the University of Greenwich. Visits to the area helped them imagine it as somewhere to begin their married life. They married in June 2003 and established a home in Chatham.
A meal becomes a useful way of understanding what happened next. Dola recalls familiar combinations such as rice and plantain, and the inconvenience of travelling elsewhere to buy ingredients. Food was part of ordinary family life, yet obtaining it could require an additional journey.
That inconvenience suggested an opportunity. Rather than treating the absence of local provision as something that simply had to be accepted, she considered whether she could help meet the need herself. Her move towards business came from paying attention to what people around her were already trying to find.
The first shop
Dola's summary dates her first Gillingham shop to December 2004. Her background included accounting, but food retail opened another direction. The business responded to demand for ingredients familiar to African households, while gradually developing around the requirements of a changing local community.
A shop of this kind can become part of the practical infrastructure of settlement. Customers need ingredients for family meals, celebrations and the dishes they remember from childhood. Being able to find those foods locally changes how a place works for them.
The heritage value lies partly in this relationship between commerce and ordinary life. Recording a business name alone would not explain why it mattered or why someone decided to open it. Dola's account preserves the connection between a personal experience and a service that other residents could use.
Learning how to grow
Her summary describes direct negotiations with wholesalers and the development of cold storage in Chatham for meat and poultry. These details draw attention to the work behind the shopfront. Reliable supply and appropriate storage are part of making food available, even when customers never see the arrangements that support them.
She also recounts expansion into Maidstone and the use of premises in Newington for storage and wholesale activity. The pandemic appears within her account of this development. Rather than presenting growth as a simple success story, the record shows different parts of a business being organised to meet practical pressures and opportunities.
Catering runs alongside retail. Weddings, birthdays and other gatherings create another relationship between food and community life. Preparing food for an event involves responding to the meaning attached to it: people are celebrating, welcoming guests and carrying familiar tastes into important occasions.
The language of connection
Dola describes moving between English and Pidgin in conversations with customers. Language can help establish ease and recognition within a business setting. It offers a way of meeting someone where they are comfortable while remaining part of the ordinary interaction around shopping.
Her account presents cultural continuity through use rather than through a fixed display of tradition. Food is bought and cooked; language is spoken; knowledge is exchanged. These practices change as people move and as their circumstances change, while retaining connections that matter to them.
The shared photographs with Lady Lola place friendship alongside that working life. The two records belong to different women, with different roles, but they also show how personal relationships help people recognise and celebrate one another's contributions locally.
Sharing experience
Dola expresses an interest in mentoring and in stronger cooperation between small businesses. Her advice includes starting modestly, caring about the work and following a direction that fits one's own interests. She questions an approach that treats every other business only as a threat.
This perspective grows from experience rather than from an abstract model of enterprise. Supply, customers, family responsibilities and the decision to expand all require judgement. Her willingness to share knowledge becomes another form of contribution beyond selling a product.
Within TENS, Dola's story documents how food enterprise helps shape Medway's contemporary cultural landscape. It joins the memory of a young woman's return to Britain with the sustained work of meeting local needs. Her account preserves the decisions, relationships and everyday cultural practices behind a business that became part of community life.
Her story also gives future readers a reminder that local cultural change is made through sustained practical work. A familiar ingredient on a shelf depends on decisions about purchasing, storage and demand. Recording those decisions alongside memories of family life makes it possible to understand the business as both an economic activity and a place within a wider network of relationships.
About this collection
An edited account based on the supplied oral-history transcript extract and interview summary. Personal recollections are attributed to the narrator; this article is not a verbatim transcript.
Supported by the Medway Heritage Place Project, with funding from Medway Council and the National Lottery Heritage Fund. With thanks to National Lottery players.
Interview, editorial adaptation and project direction by Michi Masumi — Anthropology, Art & AI. Published through the Benjamin Zephaniah Digital Archives & Library, an initiative led by Michi Masumi. Portrait photography by Michi Masumi unless otherwise credited; Leslie Haynes family photographs supplied through Russell Haynes, with original photographers credited where known.
Copyright © Michi Masumi 2026. All rights reserved. Copyright in individual contributions and third-party material remains with the respective rights holders.
Comments