The Parochial Church Council for All Saints Church in Edmonton, commissioned me as their Oral Historian for their community oral history project ‘All Saints Memories.’ My brief was to conduct oral history interviews with members of the local Windrush Church community and train Year 6 students from the local Latymer Primary School in how to do this.
Oral History Training
I was so excited to jump into this project with the pupils who were just as eager to learn about the importance of oral history, the history of their local church which is a Grade II listed building and how to construct and conduct interviews with elders from their community.
"I came from Barbados to do nursing"
I held classroom workshops and introduced them to the topic with audio clips from the Oral History Society
We discussed the history and legacy of the Windrush Generation – who migrated from across The Caribbean to Britain between 1948 and 1971 and I read them excerpts of oral history accounts from my book: Caribbean Folktales, Stories from the Islands and the Windrush Generation.
Many of the students were of African and Caribbean heritage, and one student had recently migrated from the Caribbean island of Martinique. They were shocked to hear some of the first-hand accounts of discrimination and harship that people from the Windrush Generation endured and survived.
Students loved being able to discuss their culture and share what they already knew about their parents’ generation. Over the course of each workshop, classroom teachers also joined in with their memories of their Caribbean islands and of coming to the UK. It was incredible for everyone to hear these stories and share memories before we’d even begun our interviews.
"We were told that England was Milk and Honey... it was the promised land."
After spending time thinking about how to structure questions in a way that would tell the life story of someone’s journey, students came up with lots of questions that they wanted to ask like: “What was it like growing up in your island country?” and “how did you feel about leaving your home?”
During the interviews, students had the opportunity to hear first-hand accounts of migrating to the UK, see wonderful memorabilia that people brought and shared of photos, flight tickets, Nursing badges and uniforms which were also displayed on the Community Day which was held to share the interviews and celebrate with steel pan musicians and members of Edmonton community.
