Location
The Beveridge Hall
Register now: https://www.history.ac.uk/events/remembering-ship-citizenship
This free evening event rounds off a day-long conference on The Windrush Scandal in its Transnational and Commonwealth Context, offering us an opportunity to celebrate the 75th Anniversary of Windrush and to reflect on the contributions of the so-called ‘Windrush Generation’ to British society.
Readings from the internationally renowned poet and playwright, John Agard will form the centrepiece of the evening. Agard was born in British Guiana (present-day Guyana) in 1949 and has lived in the UK since 1977 working for the Commonwealth Institute and the BBC. He is the winner of the 1997 Paul Hamlyn Award for Poetry and the 2021 Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry. In November 2021 he became the first poet to be awarded the Book Trust’s Lifetime Achievement Award. His works have featured on the AQA English GCSE syllabus since 2002. He has been engaged in a wide range of Public Engagement and Knowledge Exchange initiatives, including serving as poet-in-residence at the National Maritime Museum in 2008.
One of his famous poems implores us to ‘remember the ship in citizenship’ and fittingly offers us the title of this evening’s event.
This event has been supported by the School of Advanced Study, John Coffin Memorial Fund and Renaissance One.