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Snapshots Of Caribbean Life At Wandsworth Museum

By Carron Taylor

08/03/2004


Carron Taylor found out what life was like for Caribbean people now living in Haringey before they upped sticks and moved to England.

Memories From the Islands is a new photography exhibition on loan from The National Archives on display at Wandsworth Museum, London until April 18.

Originally commissioned by the Ministry of Information, the 28 photos on show depict life on many of the Caribbean islands throughout the 1950s and 1960s.

Members of Haringey University of the Third Age (U3A) and friends, who grew up in the Caribbean, have chosen the images in conjunction with the National Archives of England and Wales in Kew, London.

The black and white pictures are loosely grouped into the themes children, women, work and general everyday life. All of them are accompanied by the Haringey group's own recollections of life back home and their own personal experiences.

Shows a photograph of a woman sewing. She is wearing a bandana. She is sitting in a room with photographs on the wall with lots of photographs.
Photo: Sewing © National Archives. Courtesy of Wandsworth Museum.
Shows a photograph of boys playing cricket. The one in the foreground is facing the camera and holding the cricket bat.

Photo: Cricket © National Archives. Courtesy of Wandsworth Museum.

"We came together as friends old and new, to share our memories of the Caribbean and to select photographs that remind us of a life that we treasure," said a member of the group.

"It is our hope that this exhibition will recreate something of that life and encourage others to learn about and share their own heritage."

The photos are both striking and intimate, capturing people in their personal space and lives: an elderly lady sewing in her home; mothers with their babes in arms waiting in a clinic; men and women shopping in their local market; a man cutting sugarcane; school children huddled together reading a newspaper.

Most are set in Jamaica and Barbados, although life in Trinidad, Tobago, Grenada, the Cayman Islands, Montserrat and Dominica is also depicted.

Photo: Cutting Cane © National Archives. Courtesy of Wandsworth Museum.

Shows a photograph of a man cutting cane in a sugar cane field. He is wearing a hat. In his left hand is a large knife and in his right a piece of sugar cane.

Sue Barber, the museum's assistant curator said, "Everyone can get something out of viewing the exhibition. It is very personal, these men and women from Haringey have chosen the photos and given their memories to explain them."

As well as viewing these wonderful portraits of life visitors can also see the museum's small collection of Caribbean artefacts, which includes a calabash bowl, postcards and a straw hat and bag.

It is possible to log on to the Moving Here website which records the migration of Caribbean, South Asian, Jewish and Irish communities to England in the last 200 years.

The exhibition is a must for anyone wanting a taste of Caribbean life and culture as winter rolls on.

To visit the Moving Here website click here.

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