# data[].attributes.headline
Now available with English accessibility subtitles for d/deaf hard of hearing audiences 

# data[].attributes.subject
Now available with English accessibility subtitles for d/deaf hard of hearing audiences 

# data[].attributes.body
https://vimeo.com/874389789

# data[].attributes.headline
Screening for Betsi Cadwalladr Health Board Black History awareness training day at Ty Pawb - October 2023

# data[].attributes.subject
Screening for Betsi Cadwalladr Health Board Black History awareness training day at Ty Pawb - October 2023

# data[].attributes.body
Plus film-maker's Q&A with Lal Davies and Professor Robert Moore

# data[].attributes.headline
Selected for Best of the Fest Windrush Caribbean Film Festival 2023!

# data[].attributes.subject
Selected for Best of the Fest Windrush Caribbean Film Festival 2023!

# data[].attributes.body
So pleased to learn that we have been selected for Best of The Fest for WCFF23 in October! Watch this space for details 🤎

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
e're going to find it," says the leading shipwreck hunter, David Mearns. "My confidence level is as high as it's ever been for anything I've ever done." The mission to retrieve the HMT Empire Windrush's anchor so it can stand as a public monument isn't foolproof, but Mearns' experience and conviction leave little room for doubt.

"You always have a contingency for unforeseen events [but] there isn't a scenario here where this shipwreck could be a million miles away from where we're looking for it. We'd have to go out and have a total disaster," he adds. "I don't contemplate failure."

On 22 June - the 75th anniversary of the ship arriving at Tilbury Docks - the newly established Windrush Anchor Foundation outlined initial plans to recover the anchor from the wreck that is about 2,800 metres below the surface of the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Algeria, where it sank after catching fire in 1954.

Once recovered, the 1.5 tonne anchor will be conserved and displayed in the UK, though the exact location is not yet decided.

Mearns has led 26 successful deep sea recoveries, including the search for footballer Emiliano Sala, whose plane crashed in the Channel in 2019 and the recovery of the second world war ship HMS Hood's bell in 2015. The ship was restored and displayed in the National Museum of the Royal Navy in Portsmouth. More than 1,400 of the Hood's crew perished and the bell provided a tangible memorial - or "touchstone" - for family and friends.

The impact of having a physical object to connect to is unparalleled, Mearns says. "The anchor is a physical part of the ship that will bring people back to that photograph of the ship docking in Tilbury, that iconic photograph that everybody knows - it's seared into their brains.

"People will come and they will touch it, and it will connect them to that photograph, so it'll be more than just a symbol. It'll be a physical representation and that's why we call it a touchstone," he says.

Patrick Vernon, trustee of the Windrush Anchor Foundation, says the monument will serve as a permanent reminder of the contributions Black Britons have made to the country for centuries, and symbolise the mass migration of what has come to be known as the Windrush generation.

"Our history is almost invisible - if you look at all aspects of Black British history in Britain today, all of it is temporal," he says.

"You go to an exhibition, you go to events, but once it's done, it's tucked away and you have to wait months or years for the next project and exhibition. We need something that is permanent.

"The Windrush ship is part of British history. It is part and parcel of the DNA of British history."

The search and recovery is estimated to cost £1m, which will be raised entirely through public and corporate donations. Asked why the foundation is not seeking government funding, Vernon - whose parents came to the UK from Jamaica in the 1950s - put this down to the failures of the Home Office.

"Because of the ongoing issues surrounding the Windrush scandal and the compensation scheme, which has not yet been delivered, it would undermine the whole project if we accepted money from the government."

In 1954, after transporting hundreds of people from the Caribbean to the UK, the ship caught fire and sank, prompting a mass evacuation. Merchant vessels and naval vessels flocked to the area, sharing the Windrush's location.

Mearns says it was being towed to Gibraltar by a British naval ship in the hopes that it could be saved when it sank, "so we have that final position."

So, even before GPS was around, detailed records of the communications between the Windrush and the other ships discussing its whereabouts, radars and "excellent navigational queues" means the 120 nautical miles search area is likely accurate, he explains.

More than 60 people, including marine crew, a search and a recovery team led by Mearns, will be involved in the project to salvage the anchor, which is estimated to take 10 to 14 days to complete. A remotely operated vehicle will cut the anchor away, before it is pulled up to the surface.

Though not yet finalised, the monument's site will be "geographically sensitive", Mearns says. "It wouldn't make sense in Cornwall, but it would make sense in London, or in Birmingham or Manchester, for example."

"I'm determined to do this. We're all determined to get this done in our lifetimes, whatever it takes. You need to have that ambition to pull it off, and we certainly do."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
'We call it a touchstone': the mission to find the Windrush anchor

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The wreck of the ship that was key in Black migration to the UK lies off Algeria. A team is determined to bring its anchor home

# data[].attributes.body
At Windrush Caribbean Film Festival, Midland Arts Centre June 2023 with festival director Emmanuel Anyiam-Osigwe

# data[].attributes.headline
Decolonising Expressive Arts curriculum 

# data[].attributes.subject
Decolonising Expressive Arts curriculum 

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
On the day Empire Windrush arrived in Britain in June 1948, 11 Labour MPs sent a letter to the prime minister, Clement Attlee, proposing that there should be controls on black immigration.

The British people were "blest by the absence of a colour racial problem", they wrote, adding: "An influx of coloured people domiciled here is likely to impair the harmony, strength and cohesion of our people and social life and cause discord and unhappiness among all concerned."

The arrival of the ship, carrying about 500 people from the Caribbean, had already been the subject of an anxious debate in parliament. The Daily Express described its approach as "a shipload of worry".

But within a few years, for many of the passengers the huge significance of that journey had receded to such an extent that they did not tell even their children they had arrived in Britain on that ship.

Mel Gaynor, the musician best known as the drummer for Simple Minds, had no idea his father, George, was a passenger on Empire Windrush until long after his death. "My father didn't talk about it, which feels sad now," he says.

Sheine Peart, a university lecturer, only began to appreciate the importance of her father's journey when a teaching colleague was awestruck when she mentioned it in passing. "She said: 'He came over on Empire Windrush? That's like touching history.'"

During their childhoods, the huge cultural import of their parents' journey was not in the least obvious to many children of Windrush passengers.

"It wasn't seen as a particularly historic. It would have been like talking about a flight you've taken. They didn't realise it was such a momentous event," says Deyon Johnston, director of a recruitment company , whose father, Clinton Johnston, was on the ship.

It is only in later life that the children of the Windrush passengers have begun to appreciate the enormity of the decision made, usually by their fathers, to emigrate to the UK.

"I feel pride that he was one of those pioneers. My father had 10 shillings, a cardboard suitcase and a few bits of clothing to start forging his life here," Sheine's brother, Icah Peart, a criminal defence KC, says. "He wouldn't have had the money to go back if he hadn't liked it. They were really brave coming here, entering an unknown world."

'When he broke out into Jamaican patois, I knew it was serious'
- Mel Gaynor

In interviews with 12 children of eight Windrush passengers, it quickly becomes clear the Labour MPs' doom-mongering warnings of impending "discord and unhappiness" were misplaced. The descendants of the Windrush arrivals witnessed their parents experiencing huge challenges in building new lives here, but say there were few regrets.

The children have gone on to be barristers, headteachers, carers, civil servants, musicians, social workers, academics, hoteliers, shop workers, bankers, actors, surgeons, parents and grandparents.

Conversations about their fathers' decision to spend £28.10 on a ticket - the equivalent of six months' wages in Jamaica, or the proceeds of selling three cows - are mostly very cheerful appraisals of busy, complicated lives, filled with admiration, gratitude and pride. But despite a determination to celebrate their lives, memories of the deep hostility they encountered remain acute.

As young children, most began only gradually to realise their families were different. "My father was very gentrified, English during the weekdays - immaculately dressed, suited and booted - but at the weekends we'd all go to gatherings with his friends and there was more of a Jamaican spirit," says Gaynor.

His father's Jamaican accent only came out around his friends or when he was angry with his children. "I remember falling in the river in my brand new clothes which got destroyed. He broke out into Jamaican patois. I knew then: OK, this is serious."

Johnston and her brother Errol, a retired Church of England pensions board employee, knew their father was feeling homesick when he took them to Portobello Road in London to buy ackee and plantain.

"Avocado pears were very expensive then. He used to buy them and hide them on the top shelf in the pantry. We weren't allowed to touch them. He might give us a little slice, but he was desperate for a taste of home," Errol says.

They noticed how their father would talk to other black people on the tube and on buses when they rode around London with him. "We assumed he knew them but he was just glad to see a fellow stranger in this country," says Errol.

Clinton was very outgoing. "He was always making friends. It was embarrassing - he'd always be starting conversations. He was always the loudest in the room," says Deyon.

"He was quite confident, but as I get older I wonder if it was false bravado because he was in a foreign country," Errol says. "As if he wanted his personality to come out first before you saw the colour."

Gloria Brothwood says when her father, Andrew Mowlah-Baksh, was missing home he would complain about his chilblains and talk longingly about the heat in Trinidad; he would put on swing music and calypso, or take the children out to the park to fly kites he had made from the newspaper.

"You could tell from his demeanour. He used to type airmail letters to his sisters, he said you could fit more in that way than with handwriting. They were always sending photos to each other, they never lost touch. We didn't have a phone at the time so there was always a letter in the pipeline."

Howard Gardner remembers his grandmother sending rum cake in a parcel for her son Alford, who like many Windrush passengers had served in the RAF during the war and had travelled back to England after a brief return to the Caribbean. "He would have a slice of it. You couldn't eat much of it - it was very strong."

'Her mother was completely racist. She didn't accept our dad' - Errol Johnson

As they grew older, the children of the Windrush arrivals who had married white women noticed that some of their English relatives had initially not entirely welcomed their fathers into their families. Clinton, Errol and Deyon Johnston's father, met their mother, a white typist from west London, at the Paramount in Tottenham Court Road, a dancehall decorated with palm trees.

"Her mother was completely racist. She didn't accept our dad. I never saw the two of them together," Errol says.

"None of our mother's relatives attended her wedding," Sheine Peart remembers. "They were worried about what it would mean for her, being with a black man, because it was a complete break in the way things had happened. They would have been more comfortable if she'd married someone from the local printing works in Bath, not someone who had come thousands of miles and was unknown and unquantifiable. There was fear and trepidation. It took them a while to realise he wasn't a bad bloke."

Jean Thompson's grandfather on her mother's side was an Indonesian Muslim foundry owner in Liverpool. He and her grandmother were at first opposed to her mother's marriage to Wayne Armstrong, a double bass player from Jamaica. "My dad wasn't accepted by my nan's family whatsoever, so Mum cut herself off. But the minute the first daughter was born, her mum was straight up the hospital and it was all mended. We lived next door to each other and were in and out of each other's houses."

He went on to have seven daughters with his wife, children who have grown up to work for the NHS, become social workers and run their own businesses. "He taught us: if there are barriers in the way, leap over them," says Thompson, who was the first black civil servant in the Liverpool unemployment office. "He taught us ambition, that if there was an opportunity, you must take it. We always thought, if Dad could have travelled 2,000 miles from Jamaica, why should we be scared of a challenge?"

The family grew up in a white area of Liverpool, where it was common to see the words "blacks go home" scrawled on the walls. Thompson remembers her schoolfriends trying to shield her from it. "When I saw the N-word on the wall near my home, my friends put chalk over it to hide the word."

Sheine Peart says they were the first family of colour in Reading. Her father had found landlords were reluctant to rent to him, so he saved and bought a family house in a very white area.

"Growing up there were some bizarre assumptions made about us as a family. I remember the people across the road had some difficulties with the police, but the police would assume it was something to do with us. There was an assumption from the neighbours that we would go to the less academically able schools. When my mum said I'd be going to the grammar school, the neighbours asked: how did that happen?"

Icah Peart remembers the day when someone spat at Sheine in her pushchair. "I think my dad would have killed the person who did it if my mum hadn't stopped him. He was an extremely protective dad. He wasn't prepared to let anyone slight him."

Mowlah-Baksh met his Dublin-born wife, Theresa, at a dance in Birmingham when he was serving in the RAF during the second world war. He returned to England on Empire Windrush and they married in 1949. He worked for Rover as a clerk, and they had five children.

"Being a mixed couple in the 1950s, it must have been a lot, there must have been racism, but they didn't talk about it," Brothwood, a carer in Birmingham, says. "They wanted to make sure that we grew up in a happy home so they worked really hard to protect us from it, so we never saw the harsh side of things."

She remembers being vaguely aware of uncomfortable moments at school. "The home economics teacher made me feel one inch tall once," she says. "I wanted to do woodwork, but she told me: 'You have to do cooking and sewing.' I told her: I can already cook and I can sew. She said: 'Is there anything the natives can't do?'" She says she didn't have the language to classify it mentally it as racism, and only realised years later why it had upset her.

Her brother, also called Andrew Mowlah-Baksh,says: "I remember Enoch Powell's speech when I was 13 or 14, inciting people to have a bad attitude towards race. I remember wishing I could run faster, to get away from lads with an attitude."

But the family was happy, the children were popular and their parents taught them to shrug off the occasional bits of malice. "They told us it was a good thing: you're people of the world, you've got relations from every country, that's what matters, not the colour of skin," Brothwood says.

Gaynor remembers the sudden proliferation of National Front posters when he was a teenager in the 1970s. "I was attacked by sixth-formers when I was about 13. It wasn't serious enough to leave a scar, but it left a mental scar - making me less trusting, more aware of my surroundings, aware of the no-go areas."

Thompson realised quite early on that her father faced difficulties that her friends' parents did not encounter. "I can remember we had a TV that broke; he was good at fixing things, but he just couldn't do it. He had a friend who was an electrician so he put it in the pram and wheeled it around to him. Later he came home all flustered. He had been stopped by the police. To see my dad flustered was very sad."

There was a generational shift between how she and her father viewed being targeted by the police. "I can remember when I started to drive, the numbers of times I got pulled over by a policeman. My dad would say: 'Don't get angry, this will change in time.' For him, it was a minor inconvenience and his reasoning was: changes will come. But when you are a young angry black person who was born here, you just want the same as what your friends have and not to be harassed by the people who you thought were there to help you."

But she notes that her father was right - changes have come. "A few days ago someone asked me: 'Where were you born?' I said: 'Liverpool". They said: 'No, I mean where were you before that?' But it doesn't happen very often now, and it's usually the older generation," she says.

'He came over to ensure we would have a better chance than he did'
- Icah Peart

As they grew older they became more aware of the sacrifices their fathers had made in the hope of building better lives for their children, even if this was a subject they never spoke about. Many of them took jobs below the level they might have had in the Caribbean.

Armstrong, Thompson's father, was a qualified engineer and also a talented musician but was unable to work in either of those fields. "He went to a good school in Jamaica, he could speak Latin. I think he wasn't expecting to do the work that he ended up doing, but he was a modest man. He worked as a dock labourer in the Liverpool docks for 27 years," she says. "It was just sweeping to begin with but later they realised he had a brain."

In the evenings he played double bass in bands at local clubs. "His heart was in jazz. He always said there is no racial or social divide in music. He was hugely loved, a big part of the community. There were so many people at my father's funeral the crematorium didn't know what to do."

Clinton Johnston worked as a driver for Findus foods and delivered magazines for Fleet Street publishers in London. "He was far more educated than the jobs he was doing, but I think there were only so many knocks you could take, so in the end he said: I'll just be a driver then," Errol Johnston says.

They remember many of their father's friends being in much worse situations. "We were in a council flat, so we had heating and hot water, but whenever we went to visit them in Notting Hill Gate and Ladbroke Grove, they were living in squalid bedsits. We'd sometimes keep our coats on it was so cold," says Deyon Johnston.

Errol thinks his father and his friends coped by laughing at the slights they encountered. "They'd talk about the racism. We were kids, and listening, but not really paying attention. But I remember they would joke about it, they'd be killing themselves with laughter about it. It didn't seem to faze them."

Somehow their parents' ambitions - though thwarted for them - were nevertheless implanted into their children. Gaynor's father, George had been a respected trumpeter in Jamaica, but never spoke about it with his children and found a good job as an engineer in London. He taught his son trumpet from the age of about six, until Mel discovered a drum kit at school and switched.

"He played the trumpet at home and we listened to Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald - nothing Jamaican, mainly jazz - but at the start he didn't encourage me to become a musician.

"He said: 'It's not a sensible career. You need to get a career, son.' But when he saw that I was absolutely adamant about playing drums and wanting to become a musician, then he helped me enormously. I was spending six hours a day rehearsing in the garden shed driving the neighbours mad. He used to take me to a lot of concerts - that was life-changing."

On the Windrush manifest, Ralph Peart, passenger No 811, is described as a French polisher, but he worked in Britain as an electrician. and when he retired he was working at Heathrow airport. As a child in Jamaica he had to walk to Kingston to sell vegetables. "That was a challenge he didn't want for his children. He saw education as the passport out of that. He had huge ambitions for us," Sheine Peart says.

"He was very keen for me to be a lawyer. Very, very keen," Icah Peart adds, remembering the copious, unasked-for advice his father would give him about trials he was involved with. "It was pretty obvious that he would have liked to be a lawyer. He wanted his children to succeed. He came over to ensure that his descendants would have a better chance than he did." His father took huge pride in his children's achievements. "He was protective and supportive, always on your side. I couldn't have wanted for a better dad."

'They were the first step on the ladder, showing people difference is nothing to be scared of'
- Gloria Brothwood

For some of the children the government's pointed determination to celebrate the Windrush anniversary this year has left a slightly sour taste. Guilt over the Windrush scandal - in which thousands of people from the Caribbean were wrongly classified as illegal immigrants - prompted the announcement by the government of funding for annual Windrush day celebrations.

The scandal, which affected people from all over the Commonwealth, most of whom arrived in the 1950s and 60s, and which only acquired the Windrush name as a useful shorthand, complicated the lives of some of the families who arrived on the ship.

Until interviewed by the Guardian, Gloria and Andrew's brother, Joseph Mowlah-Baksh, had struggled for decades to be issued with a passport; the Home Office is now processing his papers.

Armstrong travelled abroad only once, when he went with his wife and the two youngest of their seven daughters on a bingo club coach trip to Spain in 1983, travelling on cheaper temporary British passports, which were available for short trips. On his way back he was taken off the coach at Calais and held in custody for several hours because the French border guards refused to accept he was British.

"My father felt anxiety about travelling after that. He never visited Jamaica again because he was worried about being unable to return home to his family. He was a devoted husband, and he wouldn't have taken the risk," Thompson says.

But, mostly, the Windrush arrivals' children want to put the anger and disappointments and challenges facing their parents to one side and focus on the positives.

Sheine Peart says her father rarely paused to reflect on the immense historical shift to which he contributed. "Of course there were black people in Britain 2,000 years ago, but this was the first big influx of Caribbean immigrants. He was aware that he was part of a significant change, but his direct experience of that change was sometimes quite negative and challenging. His way of managing was not to talk about it; you had to prise things out of him. I'm pleased this is not a forgotten, marginalised piece of history. It's good it has been pushed to the forefront. The Caribbean people have made such a significant contribution."

"It's important to celebrate this moment - which doesn't make us blind to the tragedy of people waiting to be acknowledged after being here for 50 years," says Lesley Ewen, a playwright, actor and tutor at Rada.

Her father, Sydney Mowatt, passenger No 791, became a research scientist with the Wellcome Foundation before returning to Jamaica. "It needs to be celebrated. They had epic courage."

Gloria Brothwood adds: "They were the first step on the ladder, in terms of changing minds, showing people that everyone has something to offer, that difference is nothing to be scared of."
Design by the Guardian editorial design team: Chris Clarke, Harry Fischer, Ellen Wishart, Alessia Amitrano, Tara Herman

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The children of Windrush: 'They told us: you're people of the world, that's what matters, not skin colour'

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
On the 75th anniversary of the arrival of Empire Windrush, the children of its passengers tell of an enduring legacy

# data[].attributes.headline
Fantastic publication from Windrush foundation

# data[].attributes.subject
Fantastic publication from Windrush foundation

# data[].attributes.headline
Windrush Caribbean film festival Newport

# data[].attributes.subject
Windrush Caribbean film festival Newport

# data[].attributes.headline
With Diana Webley festival director from Caribbean Tales media group

# data[].attributes.subject
With Diana Webley festival director from Caribbean Tales media group

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
Talking with Marva Jackson Lord and members of the audience - really important discussions around anti-racist work in Wales

# data[].attributes.headline
Filmmaker Q&A Windrush Caribbean Film Festival Riverfront Arts Newport

# data[].attributes.subject
Filmmaker Q&A Windrush Caribbean Film Festival Riverfront Arts Newport

# data[].attributes.headline
Anti-Racist Wales Action Plan Stakeholder bulletin mention

# data[].attributes.subject
Anti-Racist Wales Action Plan Stakeholder bulletin mention

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Among the challenges faced by the Windrush generation when they arrived to work in Britain in the 1940s, 50s and 60s was the refusal by many banks and building societies to allow them to open accounts, deposit savings or take out loans.

Instead, they set up their own community schemes, based on those that had existed for generations in the Caribbean and elsewhere, that relied on trust.

Now the Bank of England is hosting an exhibition in partnership with Museumand, the National Caribbean Heritage Museum, on "pardner hand" - a collective savings scheme that is still thriving 75 years after the Empire Windrush docked at Tilbury in Essex.

"Britain's banking system didn't welcome us as their clients," said Catherine Ross, who came to England as a seven-year-old in 1958. "The reason why we came was to make money, but we had nowhere to keep it safe. People were forced to keep cash under their mattresses."

The new arrivals turned to a centuries-old system whereby people banded together in groups for the purpose of saving, known as pardner hand. It was a type of Rosca (rotating savings and credit association), used by people around the world, especially when access to traditional banking services is limited.

Under the system, a group of people agree to save money together over a set period of time, with each individual handing their cash to one of their number for safekeeping. Each week, one "pardner" receives a lump sum made up of that week's total contributions.

"Trust was a huge factor," said Ross. "But most people set up pardner hands with people from their island, so you knew who you were involved with."

Her parents resented their exclusion from the banking system, she said. "We were invited to come to Britain, and we assumed we were wanted and there would be fair play. Instead, we had to work as a community to look after ourselves."

For her parents, the pardner hands was a lifeline, she said. "But they also used the under-the-bed system."

The exhibition includes interviews with and photographs of members of the Windrush generation that used pardner hands. Savings were used to fund businesses, buy homes and pay for weddings and funerals.

"Pardner hand is part of the extraordinary contribution that the Windrush generation and their descendants have made to life in the UK," said Jennifer Adam, the curator at the Bank of England museum.

It is the first in a series of planned exhibitions at the Bank relating to themes of financial exclusion.

skip past newsletter promotion
Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you through the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning
Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
after newsletter promotion

Pardner hand is still thriving in communities of Caribbean heritage in the UK, with many schemes run on apps. "It doesn't matter if it's only a small amount, it's good discipline and can make a difference, especially now," said Linda Burrell, Ross's daughter.

"It's good that the Bank of England is telling this story and acknowledging what happened. I hope people will reflect, and understand that financial exclusion is still happening today."
Pardner Hand: A Caribbean Answer to British Banking Exclusion opens on 22 June at the Bank of England Museum and runs until June 2024

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Windrush 'pardner hand' saving scheme celebrated at Bank of England Museum

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
When people came from the Caribbean last century and were turned away by banks, many relied on communal trust

# data[].attributes.headline
Filmmaker Q&A Windrush Film Festival Midlands Arts Centre 

# data[].attributes.subject
Filmmaker Q&A Windrush Film Festival Midlands Arts Centre 

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Windrush Caribbean Film festival Returns to The Riverfront Theatre | Arts Council of Wales

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Windrush Caribbean British Film festival is returning to The Riverfront Theatre in June. In 2023, festival will explore the complex relationship between the big screen and the Windrush migrants from the Commonwealth, through screening films from across the span of the 75 years of Black British C…

# data[].attributes.body
Screening at MAC Birmingham June 13 and Riverfront Newport June 18 - for TX https://www.windrushfilmfestival.com

# data[].attributes.body
Super-excited that Buckra Massa Pickney has been selected for this fantastic festival during the 75th anniversary of Windrush! Screening dates coming soon

# data[].attributes.body
https://vimeo.com/755759074

# data[].attributes.body
https://vimeo.com/777073470

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
Photo courtesy of Kirsty Garland/The Gogs International Film Festival

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
Photo courtesy of Kirsty Garland/The Gogs International Film Festival

# data[].attributes.body
‘We talked about the use of the N-word and the context/weight of how and when Enrico uses it. They worried about younger students throwing the word around. They’ve decided to make a video about racial slurs and the history that we can show KS3 at the start of the learning plan. They are going to put the slur on the screen rather than saying it aloud, and then provide the history’

# data[].attributes.body
‘My Year 12s enjoyed your two videos (1&2) about Enrico very much. They said they feel “a big sense of responsibility” to undergo this work but they really want to do it. I thought that was nice’

# data[].attributes.body
“..It was helpful for me and my daughters to confirm what we had been told by own father and see how Enrico’s story had strong similarities with his life…” (Martha Botros Windrush 2nd generation)

# data[].attributes.body
Buckra Massa Pickney - Life of Enrico Stennett Windrush Elder is a documentary commissioned by the North Wales Regional Equality Network in 2022 to commemorate the life of their former board member Enrico Stennett (1926 - 2011). Using Welsh Government Windrush Commemoration funds, NWREN turned to Lal Davies to make the film. Lal had met Enrico via NWREN years earlier, where he made a vivid impression on her, as he did with most people, but unfortunately Lal didn’t have the chance to make a film with him then. The original concept was to contextualise Enrico’s life via discussion with Professor Robert Moore, Emeritus Professor of Sociology (University of Liverpool) colleague and friend of Enrico and himself a giant of the anti-racist stuggle. However, as a result of some pre-production promotion on social media, a piece of film-making magic happened - film-maker Joanna Wright revealed that she had filmed Enrico in interview years previously and still had the tapes. She was unsure whether they might still be useable, but generously offered to digitise them and grant the use of them to the project.

# data[].attributes.body
Exciting discussions going forward on an intention to include Enrico Stennett on University of St.David’s  Diverse Ethnic Timeline Project and the possibility of using parts of the film as a supplementary resource to stimulate discussion. Looking forward to hearing and discussing further details!

# data[].attributes.headline
Second round selection Windrush Caribbean Film Festival

# data[].attributes.subject
Second round selection Windrush Caribbean Film Festival

# data[].attributes.body
Super-excited to hear that Buckra has made it to the second round of selection for the Windrush Caribbean Film Festival! 2023🤞🏽 - watch this space!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Windrush Caribbean Film Festival (WCCF) seeks to engage and educate audiences across the UK about the contributions of the Windrush generation and their descendants to the country through film screenings, talkbacks, interviews and workshops.

WCFF 2022 is excited to return to live screenings in 3 cities offering a vibrant programme of feature and short films, live and animated, panels and speakers.

WCFF successfully launched in 2020 with a mission to celebrate the contributions of the Windrush generation and their descendants through engaging film screenings, talkbacks and interviews. Originally conceived as a traditional multi-venue film festival - following the successful 40 venue nationwide tour of Festival predecessor film HERO: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Ulric Cross - WCFF 2020 and 2021 pivoted to virtual programming with live streaming and social media.

Each of the festival themes showcase the rich legacies that the Windrush generation have given to Britain. The theme for WCFF 2022 is From Empire to Commonwealth: Legacies of the Windrush Generation. The theme of 2021 was the History of Carnival Arts and the theme of WCFF 2020 was Justice, Race and Representation.

Against the backdrop of the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, WCFF 2022 will draw a red thread connecting the British Empire of past subjugation and oppression with the Commonwealth today as a family of independent and equal nations.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
About - Windrush Caribbean Film Festival

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Windrush Caribbean Film Festival (WCCF) seeks to engage and educate audiences across the UK about the contributions of the Windrush generation and their descendants to the country through film screenings, talkbacks, interviews and workshops. WCFF 2022 is excited to return to live screenings in 3 cities offering a vibrant programme of feature and short films, live and animated, panels and speakers.

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
Team Buckra receive their award from Celyn Jones

# data[].attributes.body
L-R Nicola Roberts NWREN; Lal Davies; Professor Robert Moore; Joanna Wright; Celyn Jones - missing from this line up was Mary Holmes NWREN and Alex Ashton sound-recordist

# data[].attributes.headline
Celyn Jones Actor founder of The Gogs presents...

# data[].attributes.subject
Celyn Jones Actor founder of The Gogs presents...

# data[].attributes.headline
Life of Enrico Stennett module - Year 12/Year 8 Ysgol Aberconwy

# data[].attributes.subject
Life of Enrico Stennett module - Year 12/Year 8 Ysgol Aberconwy

# data[].attributes.body
In the Autumn term of 2022 Year 12 Film Studies students got to hear about the pre-production processes of making Buckra from Lal Davies, and were inspired to make their own short film resources to go into a module planned for Year 8 students who will learn about the Windrush context via the life of Enrico who lived in their local area. This is part of Lal’s work to help schools embed Black histories in the new curriculum for Wales.

# data[].attributes.body
Award-winning documentary about Enrico Stennett and his lived experiences of life in Jamaica and Britain - his struggle for survival inspiring a lifelong commitment to the anti-racist cause.

Buckra Massa Pickney - Life of Enrico Stennett Windrush Elder is a compelling award-winning documentary with original archive footage of Enrico by Joanna Wright/Alex Ashton. Enrico (1926 -2011) was born in colonial Jamaica to a family of slave-owners and slaves. With contextual discussion from Professor Robert Moore, friend and colleague of Enrico, drawn from his 60 years as an anti-racist academic/activist.

# data[].attributes.body
Watch the piece on ITV Wales at Six here: https://vimeo.com/779696029

# data[].attributes.body
Buckra (Trailer) Official Selection for GYF 2023. This picture from GYF 2022

# data[].attributes.headline
Best Unrestricted Short - The Gogs International Film Festival 

# data[].attributes.subject
Best Unrestricted Short - The Gogs International Film Festival 