Oral History Interviews A-Z

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M

N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

A

B

  • Bawdon, Fiona. Investigative Journalist, Independent
  • Black, Richard. Windrush Scandal Survivor. Download transcript here.
  • Brown, Grace. Immigration Lawyer
  • Burrowes, Marcia. Lecturer in Cultural Studies and Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Culture, Creative and Performing Arts, University of the West Indies Cave Hill, Barbados. Download transcript here.
  • Butler, Dawn. Member of Parliament.

C

D

  • Dean, Victoria. Former British High Commissioner to Barbados and non-resident High Commissioner to Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia and St Vincent and the Grenadines. Download transcript here.
  • Dietrich Jones, Natalie. Research Fellow, Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies (SALISES), University of the West Indies Mona Campus, Kingston, Jamaica. Download transcript here.

F

G

  • Gentleman, Amelia. Award-winning Investigative Journalist and author of ‘The Windrush Betrayal: Exposing the Hostile Environment’. Download transcript here.
  • Ghany, Hamid. Former Director, Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies (SALISES) and Former Dean Faculty of Social Sciences, University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus, Trinidad and Tobago. Download transcript here.
  • Grandison, Deborah. Caribbean Community, Barbados. Download transcript here.
  • Grant, Yvonne. Director, Open Arms Development Centre, Kingston, Jamaica. Download transcript here.
  • Gutzmore, Cecil. Historian and Activist

H

    I

    • Isaac, Kevin. Saint Kitts and Nevis High Commissioner to the United Kingdom. Download transcript here.

    L

    M

      N

      O

      P

      R

      S

      • Smith, Tony. Former Director General of UK Border Force and long-term Home Office employee. Download transcript here.
      • Snell, Arthur. Former British High Commissioner to Trinidad and Tobago. Download transcript here.

      T

      V

      W

      Oral History Interviews
      A-F

      Dr Joe Aldred

      Dr Joe Aldred is a retired Christian Ecumenist, writer, speaker and broadcaster.  He was a member of the Windrush cross-government working group. He resigned from the group in protest at the government’s failure to repeal its hostile environment legislation. This...
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      Patrick Ashworth

      Patrick Ashworth was the British High Commissioner to Belize from 2008 until 2013. He was also stationed in Saint Lucia working with the British High Commission to process visas.The problem seems to have been that the children of the people that came didn't know that...
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      Mary Atkinson

      Mary Atkinson is Campaigns and Networks Manager of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI).  The JCWI has a long history of supporting grassroots communities who status in the UK has been threatened and eroded by ever-changing immigration legislation. ...
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      Fiona Bawdon

      Fiona is a legal affairs journalist, researcher and campaigner against social injustice on issues covering legal aid, immigration, women, youth and crime.  She is the communication consultant to We Belong: Young Migrants Standing Up, the co-founder and director of...
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      Richard Black

      Richard Black was born in Saint Lucia and grew up in the UK. He found himself locked out and de facto stateless when he travelled with his then wife for an extended holiday in Trinidad. While overseas, his Home Office-issued passport expired. At around the same time,...
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      Grace Brown

      Grace Brown is a public law practitioner with a particular focus on human rights, immigration and refugee law.  She commenced practice in 1995 and was awarded the 2021 BSN Lawyer of the Year, in the Chambers category, at the UK Diversity Legal Awards.  She is joint...
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      Dr Marcia Burrowes

      Dr. Marcia Burrowes is Lecturer in Cultural Studies, founder of the Cultural Studies course and Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Culture, Creative and Performing Arts at the University of the West Indies Cave Hill campus in Barbados.[Speaking about the term 'Windrush']...
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      Dawn Butler

      Dawn Butler’s parents came to the UK from Jamaica in the 1950.  She is Labour MP for Brent Central and has been a MP continuously since 7 May 2015.  She recently launched the Windrush 100 Network in the House of Commons (December 2023).[coming soon].Transcript [coming...
      Read More

      Jerome Chew A Tow

      Jerome Chew A Tow was born in British Guiana in the late 1930s and came to the UK when he was 18 years old.  In this interview he talks about his life in the UK and how a trip to Ghana resulted in the confiscation of his passport.
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      David Comissiong

      David Comissiong is the Barbados Ambassador to CARICOM. He is the former head of the Barbadian government’s Commission for Pan-African Affairs and the founder of the Clement Payne Movement. A vocal critic of imperial hegemony in the region, Ambassador Comissiong is...
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      Alissandra Cummins

      Alissandra Cummins is Director of the Barbados Museum & Historical Society. An art historian, educator and scholar, she is also the former president of the International Council of Museums and is currently president of the International Coalition of Sites of...
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      Victoria Dean

      Victoria Dean was the British High Commissioner to Barbados, and non-resident High Commissioner to Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia and St Vincent and the Grenadines from 2013 until 2016. Formerly a career diplomat working in...
      Read More

      Dr Natalie Dietrich Jones

      Dr Dietrich Jones is a Research Fellow at the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies (SALISES) at the University of the West Indies Mona Campus in Kingston, Jamaica. She is an expert in migration, border politics and geographies with a specific...
      Read More

      Rev Clive Foster, MBE

      Rev Clive Foster is a senior pastor in the church, supporting the Local Superintendent and Ministry of the Pilgrim Church.  He is also a social justice campaigner, founder of Nottingham Windrush Support Forum and the Vice Chair of the Windrush National Organisation....
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      Dr Pamela Franklin

        Dr Pamela Franklin was born in the early 1960s in Brixton to parents of Barbadian heritage.  Her career as a IT trainer was interrupted in 2011/2012 when she took ill and ended up with a serious spinal disability.  The Caribbean Social Forum, of which she is...
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      David Fitton CMG

      David Fitton CMG was British High Commissioner to Jamaica from 2013 until 2017 where he was responsible for both UK-Jamaica and UK-Bahamas affairs.[T]he terminology is interesting. You say British nationals. In the eyes of the Home Office, they might not have been...
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      Oral History Interviews
      G-M

      Amelia Gentleman

      Amelia Gentleman is an award-winning Guardian journalist and author of 'The Windrush Betrayal: Exposing the Hostile Environment'. She is largely attributed with having broke the scandal after publishing a series of stories in The Guardian newspaper about people from...
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      Professor Hamid Ghany

      Hamid Ghany is Professor of Constitutional Affairs and Parliamentary Studies. He is former Director of the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies (SALISES) and former Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences (2003-2012) at the University of the West...
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      Deborah Grandison

      Deborah Grandison was born and registered in the United Kingdom in 1973, the year the Immigration Act 1971 came into force. She was issued with a birth certificate by the London Borough of Wandsworth. The Act restricted Commonwealth migration into the country and...
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      Yvonne Grant MBE

      Yvonne Grant MBE is the founder of the Open Arms Development Centre, a homeless shelter in Kingston, Jamaica which provides accommodation, training and support to persons deported by the Home Office to JamaicaA lot of them don’t think they’re Jamaican because,...
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      Cecil Gutzmore

      Cecil Gutzmore was born in Jamaica in the 1940s and moved to the UK to join his family in 1961. He is a veteran community activist, retired academic (historian) and independent researcher.Transcript [coming soon].
      Read More

      Kaye Hall

      Kaye Hall is the Education and Community Outreach Officer at the Barbados Museum & Historical Society (BMHS). With funding from EU-LAC Museums, in 2018 she was part of a team working with the University of the West Indies (UWI), the BMHS  and the University of...
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      Guy Hewitt

      Reverend Guy Hewitt was the High Commissioner of Barbados in London from 2014 until 2018. He is an outspoken critic of the Windrush scandal and has written numerous articles and opinion pieces about the issue.  I think that it's important for migrants in this...
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      Dawn Hill CBE

      Dawn Hill CBE played a leading role in setting up and running the governance of the Black Cultural Archives (BCA) when she worked alongside its founding chair: the community activist, photographer, historian, and educationalist, Len Garrison (1943-2003).  She became...
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      Jennifer Housen

      Jennifer Housen is barrister-at-law, England and Wales and attorney-at-law New York and Jamaica. For years, she warned about the problems that persons of Caribbean heritage were facing in the United Kingdom and toured the UK to advise persons with the right of abode...
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      Roland Houslin

      Roland Houslin was born in the UK in the late 1960s to parents of Jamaican heritage.  He served in the British army for eleven years.  His family were directly impacted by the ruling, which prevents the return to the UK of people with ‘Indefinite Leave to Remain’...
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      Kevin Isaac

      His Excellency Dr Kevin Isaac has been the High Commissioner of Saint Kitts and Nevis to the United Kingdom since January 12 2011....Brexit played a role because we started looking at the offers being made to Europeans. When Brexit happened, you [had] two years to...
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      David Lammy

      The Rt Hon David Lammy MP was born in the UK to parents of Guyanese heritage. He studied law at SOAS and became the first Black Briton to attend Harvard Law School, where he graduated with a Master of Laws degree in 1997.  In 2000 he was elected to the London Assembly...
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      Buddy Larrier

      Reverend Buddy Larrier has been an active mental health campaigner for decades. He was a bus driver but was detained in Bexley Mental Hospital and lost his job. His story is featured on the UK television programme Politics of Madness. Buddy, currently based in...
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      Charlton McFarlane

      Charlton McFarlane is the Chief Executive Officer at the Registrar General Department, the only repository in Jamaica responsible for birth, marriage and death records. The RGD was first established in Spanish Town in 1879. The building relocated in 1996 and now...
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      Neil Mukherjee

      Neil Mukherjee was born in Huddersfield in the early 1970s to parents of Indian heritage.  He became involved in community activist in 2018 and runs the Windrush Commonwealth Service Oxford CIC.Transcript [coming soon].
      Read More

      Deryck Murray

      His Excellency Deryck Lance Murray was the Trinidad and Tobago High Commissioner to Jamaica (2019-2023). Murray captained the Trinidad and Tobago cricket team from 1976 until 1981, twice winning the World Cup.Imagining what somebody may have got stamped in their...
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      Oral History Interviews
      N-R

      Nick Nason

      Nick Nason has worked as an immigration lawyer for over ten years.  In 2017 he founded his own practice, Edgewater Legal and is their Principal Lawyer.  He was previously a solicitor and in-house advocate at Luqmani Thompson (2010-2015) and worked with the...
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      Aloun Ndombet-Assamba

      Aloun Ndombet-Assamba served as Jamaica High Commissioner in London between 2012 and 2016. She is a politician, diplomat and lawyer who served as the Minister of Tourism, Entertainment and Culture for Jamaica. She is a former Member of Parliament representing Saint...
      Read More

      Rachel Okello

      Rachel Okello was born in Cardiff to parents of Grenadian heritage.  She is a solicitor of over 20 years and specialises in UK immigration, nationality and deportation law.  She is currently based in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter and works at Rogols...
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      Declan Owens

      Declan Owens was a solicitor at Thompsons Solicitors who specialized in labour law and human rights.  He is a co-chair of the Executive Committee of the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers and European Lawyers for Workers Network. Transcript [coming soon].
      Read More

      Sir Mark Trevor Phillips, OBE

      Sir Mark Trevor Phillips OBE is a journalist and business leader.  He was author of A Contemptuous Betrayal of the British Tradition of Fair for the Daily Mail This piece has been described by Professor Patrick Vernon as critically important in that it gained the...
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      Michael Russell Profitt, MBE

      Michael Russell Profitt MBE was born Russell D’Anjou in British Guiana (present-day Guyana) in the late 1940s.  In this interview he talks about migrating to Britain, aged 13, to join his mother and other siblings who were already resident in England.  He shares...
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      Alexander Prospere

      Alexander arrived in the UK in February 1961, aged 19. He obtained his British Passport in 1971 and it expired in 1981.  He paid £10 for the passport and £5 to register as British.  When it expired he was told he had to apply for a St Lucian passport and that was the...
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      Seth George Ramocan

      His Excellency Seth George Ramocan was Jamaica High Commissioner to the United Kingdom from 2016 until 2022. In addition to being a pastor and an active member of the church, he was Consul General to Toronto, Canada from 2009 until 2014. During the 1980s, Mr Ramocan...
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      Bell Ribeiro-Addy

      Bell Ribeiro-Addy was born in Streatham and is of Ghanaian descent.  She was Chief of Staff to Labour backbencher, Diane Abbott MP and elected to Labour MP for Streatham in 2019.  She is a staunch advocate of reparations and is currently chair of the All Party...
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      Oral History Interviews
      S-Z

      Tony Smith

      Tony Smith was Director General of the UK Border Force and retired in March 2013 after 40 years with the Home Office. He now works as a global border security consultant, Managing Director of Fortinus Global Ltd and chairman of the International Border Management and...
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      Arthur Snell

      Arthur Snell was the British High Commissioner to Trinidad and Tobago from 2011 until 2014. He currently works as a political commentator and writer. He is the author of "How Britain Broke the World: War, Greed and Blunders from Kosovo to Afghanistan,...
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      Roopa Tanna

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      Charlotte Tobierre

      Charlotte Tobierre was born in Essex to parents of Saint Lucian and English heritage. She became an active member of Windrush Lives as she came increasingly aware of the problems that faced member of the Caribbean-descended communities. Her father, Thomas Tobierre,...
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      Thomas Tobierre

      Without a passport or birth certificate he initially found it difficult to provide that he’d been living in the UK for decades and thus unable to obtain the required document. Around the stay time his mother passed away and his wife was diagnosed with stage four...
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      Arthur Torrington CBE

      Arthur Torrington CBE was born in British Guiana and moved to the UK in the 1960s as a teenager.  In 1996 he and Sam King MBE co-founded the registered charity Windrush Foundation, and The Equiano Society.  Arthur received an OBE for services to Community Relations in...
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      Professor Patrick Vernon

      Professor Patrick Vernon, OBE is a social commentator, campaigner and cultural historian.  He led the campaign for a national Windrush Day and as details of the Windrush Scandal became to emerge, he kick-started the campaign for an amnesty for the Windrush...
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      Rev Canon Christian Weaver, MA, CBE

      Rev Canon Christian Weaver, MA, CBE is the spiritual leader and National Superintendent for the Pilgrim Church, UK.  He was born in Antigua and moved to the UK in the 1960s to study art at Leicester College of Art.  He served for 20 years as a Magistrate on Nottingham...
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      June Elizabeth White Smith Gulley

      June-Elizabeth White-Smith-Gulley was born in the UK to parents of Jamaican Heritage.  She has been a strong advocate of Caribbean descended communities since the 1980s when she first realised that her status as a British citizen could easily have been removed from...
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      Glyn Williams

      Glyn Williams is former Director General for Policy and Strategy in the Border, Immigration and Citizenship system in the Home Office. He led on the design of the UK's immigration system post-Brexit and has worked on reforming the UK's non-EEA immigration system. From...
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      Anonymous Windrush Survivor

      Anonymous Windrush Survivor was born in the Eastern Caribbean and brought up by extended members of his family.  When he attempted to join his parents, both of whom were settled in the UK, his application was rejected.
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      Sonia Winifred

      Lambeth Cllr Sonia Winifred is a Cabinet Member for Equalities and Culture.  She talks in her interview about the activism in Brixton and her involvement in community outreach in the wake of the Windrush Scandal.Transcript [coming soon].
      Read More

      Andrew Wynter

      Andrew Wynter is the Chief Executive Officer for the Passport, Immigration and Citizenship Agency (PICA) in Jamaica.The other thing too is we have the Registrar General Department. They deal with marriage certificates, birth certificates, deed poll and other identity...
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