Windrush

• And wherever we are, people either see us as belonging, or they don’t.
• The question “Where are you from?”, an all-too-familiar and enduring trope, encapsulates a narrative of non-belonging.
• This article is part of our Windrush 75 series, which marks the 75th anniversary of the HMT Empire Windrush arriving in Britain.

Spending time together

• Irrespective of dominant narratives to the contrary, people and communities in Britain have always found ways to foster connection and belonging.
• For the last decade I have explored ideas of place-making and community-based knowledge through studies with older people of Caribbean descent in Britain.
• I have captured the ways they have found to belong in a place in which many have lived for decades, and in which they will die.
• For older church-going women who arrived in the UK during the Windrush era, luncheon clubs often played an important role in their lives.

Carving out one’s own space

• In another study, I looked at the leisure activities of Caribbean people over 85 years of age.
• One man I spoke to, Mr Bridgeman, was born on a small holding in Barbados 90 years ago.
• When I checked on Mr Bridgeman during the pandemic he was continuing with his daily routine, drawing on the old ways.
• His allotment remained his refuge, a place in which to grow vegetables like he did as a boy – and, importantly, to just “be”.

• As memoirist Nancy K Miller says, family stories are not just personal but an “aid or a spur to keep cultural memory alive”.
• Hazel Barrett’s grandfather came to England on the HMT Empire Windrush in 1948.
• This article is part of Quarter Life, a series about issues affecting those of us in our twenties and thirties.

1. Don’t delay

• Many of us wait too long to become interested in our family history.
• Deborah Cass, who has been studying family history for over 25 years, never knew her own great-grandfather.

2. Come equipped

• Not videoing your interviewee will allow you to concentrate on their voice, and might put your relative more at ease.
• They are likely to become a valued family resource, so consider uploading the files to a cloud server or a website.
• The British Library has one of the largest collections, including a section on migration, ethnicity and post-colonialism in Britain.

3. Research before you go

• Georgia Hennessy Jackson, who leads the storytelling programme for the Canadian Cancer Society, says that “identifying a moment of change can help get and shape a story”.
• Family history requires research in its broadest sense.

4. Consider your questions

• Colin Grant, author of Homecoming, an oral history of the Windrush generation, urges: “Don’t bring out a sheet of questions.
• “[It] doesn’t have to be a physical one; it can be you telling them something about yourself.
• That said, prepare your questions.
• Work towards asking more open questions and probing for sensory responses.

5. Be ethical and be ready to be transformed

• Share your typed transcript with your storyteller, allow them to make changes and ensure you get approval for how you plan to use their story and words.
• And be ready for their story to have an effect on you.
• You’re likely to be transformed by the experience – and your relative might be too.

• James and George Padmore had been educated in some of the Caribbean’s elite colonial schools.
• There, they were subject to a formal education of respect for English culture and, above all, the monarchy.
• This article is part of our Windrush 75 series, which marks the 75th anniversary of the HMT Empire Windrush arriving in Britain.
• The practice of self-publishing had long been undertaken in the Caribbean islands, often acting as a mouthpiece for debating societies.

From activists to publishers

• Out of this long Caribbean tradition of do-it-yourself publishing, two publishers emerged to change the face of the nascent Black British publishing scene.
• In many respects, the reasons for establishing Black publishers were made urgent due to the rejection of Caribbean people and their culture in Britain.
• They were subject to police harassment in the form of the Sus laws, which allowed police to arrest any “suspected person”.
• Although wholly self-reliant and deeply interpersonal like the smaller initiatives that preceded them, these publishers ushered in a new era of pan-African and Black British identity.

• In 1955, the pages of the Lancashire Evening Post hosted intense debates about whether a “colour bar” existed in the town.
• A great deal has been written about Windrush – but much of the information was southern-based and related to large conurbations.
• This article is part of our Windrush 75 series, which marks the 75th anniversary of the HMT Empire Windrush arriving in Britain.
• Church, carnival and cricket: the three pillars of this vibrant local community – built in Preston by proud members of its Windrush generation.

Sylius Toussaint

• My aunt said to me: “Sylius, why don’t you go to England?
• You could work, study and whatever it is.” So I paid my passage and came – and here I’ve been for the last 60-plus years.
• I left Dominica on May 29 and arrived in Barbados the following day.
• So we were sent on an aircraft from Barbados to Bermuda, Bermuda to Newfoundland, then Newfoundland to Ireland.
• My sister lives down in London with her children … and some (not all) of them say:
  Uncle Sylius, that’s the best thing you’ve done, sent for my mum, because I’m glad I’m here in England and life is so much better than if it was in the Caribbean.
• Uncle Sylius, that’s the best thing you’ve done, sent for my mum, because I’m glad I’m here in England and life is so much better than if it was in the Caribbean.

Joanett Hue

• Looking at the houses, I said: “My god, it’s no different.” At that time, we lived in Avenham [in central Preston], the flats.
• When I went in there, [my husband] Joe said: “This is where I’m living – this is the kitchen, this is the bathroom.” I couldn’t believe it.
• Honestly, when my husband said this is where we would be living … I went into the bathroom and I cried, I cried.
• I said: “Why did I leave my house to come here?” When I woke up in the morning, there were hailstones, it was raining.

Vincent Skerritt

• They couldn’t join the union and often it was much more physical work, like in the foundry, knocking iron and the engine blocks and the rest of it.
• It was purely nights, and I couldn’t handle the night work.
• So you walk in with a bottle knowing that if you’re attacked, you have something to defend yourself.
• Some people used to have a little piece of iron metal, wrapped up nicely in a newspaper and you carry it under your arm.

Glyne Greenidge

• My mum’s husband wasn’t a very nice man, and my mum suffered all the way.
• I’m the oldest of seven children, so my stepdad kind of forced me out to work as soon as he could.
• It was mainly in the cotton mills – that was the main work going in those days.
• You could walk the streets and see little firms here or there.
• You could go in and ask them if there were any jobs going.
• But then again, I never let that spoil our relationship because we were friends, you know.

Gladstone Afflick

• I left Jamaica on the July 28th and arrived in Preston on the 30th – a Sunday.
• To me, Preston has come a heck of a long way since the sixties.
• You could get into a fight seven days a week if you wanted, just by walking into town.
• For instance, we have the Jalgos Sports & Social Club – I was the person who dragged 11 fellows together to form a cricket team.
• And if we think that way, I think we will achieve together what is desired by all.

Cherry McDonald

• I mean, I’ve been living here all these years but Jamaica is home.
• Whatever I’ve achieved in life, I’ve achieved here in Britain.
• I go for long walks, tend to the pots, go to church on Sunday in Longton, and read my bible at home.
• If I was a smoker, I would not be going outside to smoke a cigarette – in winter, anyway.

Bridgette Toussaint

• When I speak nicely to them, they understand that this is a lady, she will respect me.
• For example, in one job I did, a woman said to me: “Bridgette, I don’t understand, why did you leave your nice place and come here?
• Why do you have to come to steal our jobs?” I said: “Steal your jobs?
• Because you’re lazy, that’s why they send for we black people to come to help to work.
• Because you’re lazy!” Then she said: “Why don’t you go and dance with the monkeys in the zoo?” And I said: “What?

David Coke

• But I won’t go back to live there, because I have become so acquainted with the lifestyle I have in England.
• But even before I married, I’d always said to my wife that I wouldn’t go back to Jamaica.
• Yes, America may be more modern and faster, and you can progress in life there much quicker than you can in England.
• Alan Rice receives funding from the Leverhulme Trust, the EU and the AHRC, and is co-chair of Lancaster Black History Group.
• England is My Home: Windrush Lives in Lancashire is available as an illustrated ebook at prestonblackhistorygroup.org.uk