Lane Chareunsy had to flee Laos in the 1970s
Lane Chareunsy moved to Liverpool with his family in 1978(Image: Colin Lane/Liverpool Echo)
A man who “had to fight” to build a life for his family in Liverpool has gone on to be a key figure in his community. Having grown up in the small south east Asian country of Laos during the 1950s, Lane Chareunsy, 78, and his wife saw their lives turned upside down in 1978 when the aftermath of the Vietnam war saw them forced to flee their home and live at a refugee camp.
After seeing their lives dismantled as they spent months living at the camp, they eventually found a place they could call home in Liverpool.
Casting his mind back to the worrying times that led to him becoming a refugee, Lane told the ECHO: “I already had a family at that time, I had three children and the communists took over and a lot of things changed and we just thought that we cannot live here anymore. We then stayed in the Ubon refugee camp for nine months.”
After spending nine months in the refugee camp, it was thanks to his sister-in-law that he was finally able to make the move to Liverpool with his wife Bounthom and four children, Anothai, Thatsany, Senglavy and Darouny.
Settling into his new surroundings was an initial struggle. He said: “The weather was even worse then than it is nowadays. When I came in 1978, it was very wet, windy and it was snowing.”
He was 27 when he had to leave Laos(Image: Colin Lane/Liverpool Echo)
He added: “I just kept thinking ‘why have I come to Liverpool?’, I’ve only got my family, I’ve got no friends and I don’t know anybody at all’. It was very lonely at that time, so I had to fight to stand on my own two feet.
“It was a totally different lifestyle [from Laos], so we had to adapt and understand how to get on with people. For me it was slightly better than it was for my wife, she was always homesick. But, because I was the leader of the family, I had to fight and learn how to survive and how I could make a living for my children.”
After studying to learn English at Millbrook College on Bankfield Road, Lane soon started to find his feet and eventually began working at a Chinese restaurant on Duke Street, just a short walk from their first home on Upper Frederick Street.
He lived on Upper Fredrick Street when he first moved to Liverpool(Image: Colin Lane/Liverpool Echo)
Lane said he and his family began to feel more settled on Merseyside and he soon started to play an important role within Liverpool’s approximately 100-strong Laotian community.
He said: “When Laos people came over to Liverpool, I was the one who organised for people to welcome them. I would help people settle, take them to the office to help with paperwork and I would share my experiences with them, I would also take them to hospital to see the doctor.”
He has played a key role in helping Laos people living in Liverpool feel at home (Image: Colin Lane/Liverpool Echo)
Meanwhile, he has also been a popular figure at the Wat Phra Singh Buddhist temple in Runcorn. He added: “It’s quite important for me, when I think about coming to settle in another country with our community in a small group, it’s very good to be able to get together and talk and have a party.”
After moving to Liverpool five decades ago, he looks back on his time with a real sense of pride. He said: “When I look at my children and grandchildren, it fills me with pride, seeing my grandchildren finishing their degrees, it makes me so proud of what I have done here in England.”
As he looks forward to the future, Lane said that he will soon be making a long-awaited return to Laos, where he will show his grandchildren where he grew up for the first time. He said: “At one time we had to leave but now we can come back and show them where I used to run around in the town and go to school.”