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Journeys Down My Street

Journeys Down My Street: Home Away From Home - The Somalis of Bute Street, Cardiff

Journeys down My Street

Home Away From Home - The Somalis of Bute Street, Cardiff

BBC Radio 4 - Journeys Down My Street, Home Away From Home - The Somalis of Bute Street, Cardiff

Older and younger generations of immigrants tell stories at the heart of their communities

Mike Berlin meets Somalis whose families have lived in Butetown, Cardiff for a century, and more recent arrivals too. From 2013.

Amidst all the coverage of contemporary migration to Britain, it is easy to forget the older generations of immigrants from across the world who have settled here and made Britain their home.

In this series, Mike Berlin, an urban historian from Birkbeck College, University of London, visits individual streets at the heart of such communities, to hear the stories of earlier immigrants - their arrival, their early lives and their observations on Britain today.

In this episode, Mike meets the Somalis of Bute Street, Cardiff.   

At the end of the 19th century many working on the steam ships of the British Empire was an attractive career choice for seamen from Somaliland. Many came to Cardiff, found work in the docks heaving the coal that powered those ships, and the first settled in Butetown in 1890.

A vibrant community grew, centred on the docks and the mosque. But the last coal was shipped out in the 1960s, Cardiff docks are not what they were and Butetown has been redeveloped - and work is scarce.

The older generation of Somalis has, in recent years, been joined by new immigrants, refugees from their war-torn homeland. Their experiences and expectations are very different, as 'De Gabay' recently made clear. This was a day-long production with National Theatre Wales, in which young poets from the Somali community performed all around Butetown.

The Somalis whose families have lived in Butetown for a century, and more recent arrivals tell their stories, too.

Producer: Julian May

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 2013.

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Immigrants to Britain share their stories from the heart of their communities

Immigrants to Britain share their stories from the heart of their communities with Mike Berlin

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