New Documentary Podcast Series Uncovers Untold Stories from
the Windrush Generation
By Features Desk
Wednesday, April 1, 2020.
A new podcast series is being launched that
will reveal some of the untold stories and unsung heroes of the Windrush
generation
The
series, which starts this month, is the brainchild of Broccoli Content, and it
launches as a two-part podcast documentary series.
‘Generation
Windrush’ will be hosted and produced by Jaja Muhammad, a second
generation Black Briton with Jamaican roots. Ms Muhammad is a radio and podcast
producer, who formerly worked for the BBC. The podcast will take a deep dive into the fate and feelings of
the Windrush Generation, then and now. Guest contributors to the series are
Patrick Vernon OBE, Allyson Williams MBE and Colin Grant, who will be sharing
their insights, stories and reflections on what we can learn from the
generation, the impact of losing their identity and the systems that played
their part in the subsequent scandal.
Each
participant in the series has a strong connection to the Windrush era: Mr
Vernon is a social commentator and political activist of Jamaican
heritage and was the leading campaigner for a national Windrush Day for the
last 10 years; Ms Williams MBE, is of the Windrush generation, who originally
came from Trinidad. She moved to Britain in the 1969 and served in the National
Health Service for 35 years. Ms Williams was honoured with an MBE as a
recognition for her services to the midwifery profession in London. Her late
husband Vernon "Fellows" Williams was a founding member of the
Notting Hill Carnival in 1964; Mr Grant is a historian and author, whose
parents originally emigrated from Jamaica. In his book ‘Homecoming’ Mr Grant
collected nearly 200 voices from the Windrush Generation to tell their
essential life stories through first-hand interviews and testimonies.
The Windrush era is an
important moment in the history of modern Britain. In 1948, the merchant vessel
Windrush docked at Tilbury, in Essex, carrying almost 500 Caribbean men and
women. This heralded the arrival of thousands of men and women from the West
Indies to Britain. They had all responded to the call of the “Mother Country”
to help rebuild what was left of the nation, after the devastation of the
Second World War. In more recent times they were dubbed the ‘Windrush
Generation’, a generation who contributed their lives to a country that it
thought would honour their contributions.
In the Spring of 2018, British
mainstream media uncovered a scandal that rocked the nation. The scandal
detailed the fact that scores of the Windrush Generation, who had contributed
to the building of the nation’s health service, transport networks and added so
much to the nation’s cultural mix, were being deported from the country they
called home. The UK Government has decided that because many were unable to
provide the authorities with the right paperwork and proof of UK citizenship,
they were therefore deemed to be on UK soil illegally and had to return to the
countries of their birth. The scandal uncovered the depths of the hostile
environment in the UK, and in March 2020, Windrush Lessons Learned Review found that the Home Office had “institutionally failed” the
Windrush Generation.
With episodes due to be
released on April 5 and April 12, the Generation Windrush podcast series highlights the lessons from the Windrush
scandal and the legacies and stories from a Generation that deserves to remain
visible and unforgotten