ABSTRACT: Written published works about postwar Black Britain have disproportionately centred Englishness and English major cities including media preoccupations with London. This PhD – through 100+ hours of oral testimonies, creative writing techniques (incl horror influences), and limited archival sources – centres Northamptonshire in attempt to draw the gaze away from the English city. Over the years, activists and researchers put their brains to this history but none combined the arts with academia illustrated in chapters 1-5. Part 1 tells stories of Northants using arts to give a fuller picture to a story where there is no Black archive to draw from (earlier interviews were done, now held at Northamptonshire Records Office which is a white-owned archive under West Northants Council).

Part 2 (Ch 6-8) carries readers through my research process and the questions I asked myself during that period including literature choices, methods of investigation, and conversations with the dead. In Northamptonshire’s Caribbean, join me as I tell a sort of history about the place my family have called home since 1960. This is Black history; it’s just rarely been told this way before.

CONTEXT: In February 2021, I started working with constituted community group NorFAMtoN to curate and deliver hampers to Caribbean elders in Northamptonshire. On these trips, the group found many people we helped wanted to tell us their life stories, so we planned to curate a book. This ended up not happening, so instead, I took this opportunity to form the research questions that would be a good basis for a PhD (something I always intended to do) – Northamptonshire’s postwar Caribbean story which I  have wanted to look at for years.

Since then, some of the recipients of those hampers have died, and since 2018, many elders nationally have died before being compensated for their ordeal under the Home Office Scandal. Talking to the descendants of those elders, there is a history, building off local community projects, (like those done by Northamptonshire Black History Association) that needs to be told.

With early Black Caribbean victims of the hostile environment dating back to as early as 2014, what became known as the Windrush Scandal has spotlighted this generation to many who otherwise may not have known – both through miseducation and ignorance.

Since 2018, Amelia Gentleman’s original investigation into the deportations was turned into the book Windrush Betrayal while Northamptonshire Rights & Equality Council have started an immigration advice service responding to the hostile environment. In 2020, the government published Windrush Lessons Learned which failed to name institutionally racism as the force in play that discriminated against members of the Windrush Generation – denying them pensions, healthcare, and the ability to work when their status as citizens was stigmatised despite many being in this country for over fifty years.

The NorFAMtoN project saw us visiting many elders in Northampton and Wellingborough, as we acquired funding to curate culturally-appropriate hampers. During the lockdowns, this went someway into aleviate isolation and food poverty. Our visits in many cases brightened their day, when they were cut off from the community spaces this generation held so dear.

Post-lockdown, the hostile environment has continued to ravage Caribbean communities across the UK. And whilst news cycles do not cover the Windrush Scandal anymore, it should be a national crisis. My PhD takes its inspiration from this community project also building on the work of ACES (1998) and Northamptonshire Black History Association (2008).

In this project, I offer a creative writing approach to tell Northamptonshire’s postwar Caribbean story. This is not just part of the history of Black people in the county, but the history of everybody that lives and works here.