Homecoming

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Homecoming: Episode 5

Episode 5

BBC Radio 4 - Homecoming, Episode 5

Voices from the Windrush generation recall how they created their own social spaces.

West Indian migrants to Britain between the 1940s and 1960s took great pride in their homes, particularly the front room where they did most of their dancing and drinking.

Growing up in 1960s Luton, Colin Grant avoided asking his Jamaican parents why they had emigrated to Britain in the 1950s. But now, seventy years after many ships - including the Empire Windrush - anchored on British shores, he brings together over a hundred first-hand interviews, archival recordings and memoirs by the women and men who came to Britain from the West Indies between the late 1940s and early 1960s.

After the Second World War, Britain encouraged immigration from Commonwealth countries. To a large extent this was to help rebuild the country, as there was a shortage of labour at the time.

The migrants were coming to a country promising prosperity and employment. Their stories are of hope and regret, of triumphs and challenges, brimming with humour, anger and wisdom. Together, they reveal a rich tapestry of Caribbean British lives.


The institutions of Caribbean life were brought to Britain by those who arrived in the 40s, 50s and 60s, what was left behind was a place that many felt they could never return to, even if some still called it 'home' .

Introduction by Colin Grant
Readers: Burt Caesar, Don Warrington, Michelle Greenidge, Colin Salmon, Dona Croll
Abridged by Colin Grant, Jill Waters and Isobel Creed
Produced by Jill Waters 

A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4

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The people of the Windrush generation tell their stories in the new book by Colin Grant.

Book of the Week. First-hand interviews, archival recordings and memoirs by the women and men who came to Britain from the West Indies between the late 1940s and early 1960s.

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