August 20, 2025 • 33 mins
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When we lose a loved one, the stories they carried often disappear with them—unless we find ways to preserve them. This powerful truth drives creative consultant Calvin Walker's experimental audio project "Daylight Come," which traces his family's migration from Jamaica to the United Kingdom and connects deeply personal narratives to broader historical movements. Calvin walks us through his creative process, from attempts at writing and filmmaking to his eureka moment when discovering AI-generated voices could provide the emotional distance needed to tell difficult stories. What unfolds is a masterclass in cultural preservation that weaves individual experiences with pivotal historical contexts like Windrush, colonial legacies, and the formation of Caribbean communities in postwar Britain.
Most compelling is Calvin's passionate defense of documenting seemingly "ordinary" family histories: "The more stories, even if they're banal, that get put down with dates and times and facts, the harder it is to sweep them away and say it didn't really happen like that." In an era when historical narratives are contested and sometimes erased, these personal archives become powerful acts of resistance and remembrance. Have you considered documenting your own family's journey? Calvin offers practical advice for getting started with modern tools that make preservation more accessible than ever. Recording these histories builds bridges across generations and oceans, ensuring cultural legacies endure beyond individual lifetimes.
Calvin Walker is a Jamaican-born creative consultant with British and French nationalities. His work bridges visual arts, storytelling, and cultural advocacy, shaped by a background in photography and technology. After starting out as an independent photographer, Calvin moved into multimedia development and later spent twenty years at Film France, where he developed international partnerships and promoted France as a global hub for film and post-production. He collaborates with artists, filmmakers, and institutions around the world, and has contributed to major industry events such as the Cannes Film Market, FOCUS London, and Berlinale EFM. Calvin also advises art and design schools and is the creator of Daylight Come, an experimental audio project exploring ancestry, migration, and memory.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Strictly Facts, a guide to Caribbean
history and culture, hosted byme, alexandria Miller.
Strictly Facts teaches thehistory, politics and activism
of the Caribbean and connectsthese themes to contemporary
music and popular culture.
Hello everyone, welcome toanother episode of Strictly
(00:23):
Facts, a guide to Caribbeanhistory and culture, where we
dive deep into the rich anddiverse history of the Caribbean
and its diaspora.
Today's episode focuses onsomething that's often
overlooked but incrediblypowerful our own family
histories.
Our conversation takes us on aunique journey, one of personal
history, migration and the powerof storytelling.
(00:46):
The act of recording ourpersonal histories is a very
important way to preserve thelegacy of our ancestors and
understand the historical andcultural forces that shape our
lives.
Today's guest has embarked on ajourney documenting his own
family's history, tracing thepath from Jamaica to the UK.
(01:06):
In this conversation, we'llexplore why he chose to create
such an audio project, to tellthis history, the challenges
that he may have encountered andwhy it's crucial for each of us
to take ownership of ourfamily's narratives.
So joining us today to delveinto the ways in which personal
histories intersect with broaderhistorical context is creative
(01:28):
consultant and creator of theexperimental audio project
Daylight Come Calvin Walker.
Calvin, thank you so much forjoining us today.
Why don't you tell ourlisteners a little bit more
about you?
What inspired your interest increating audio projects and
other creative projects and, ofcourse, your roots in the
Caribbean?
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Great.
Thank you, alexandra.
Thanks for inviting me.
So my roots I was born inJamaica, st Thomas.
I stayed in Jamaica until I wasfive years old and I was brought
to England and so it was quitedramatic at the time, like a
traumatic break from, you know,a child growing up in the West
(02:07):
Indies, arriving in the UK inwinter and just seeing white
people for the first time.
So that was just my sort of,you know, complete sort of
change of environment.
And so I grew up and I had myroots in London because there
was a big West Indian communityat the time which has kind of
(02:30):
changed a little bit.
Now it's broader, it's moreAfrican.
It's at the time when I grew upit was really purely West
Indian, so Jamaicans, barbadians, trinidadians, and it wasn't
much more than that, and so overtime it's much more mixed today
.
So my roots sort of stayed fromthat point of view and people
(02:53):
were coming over in the 60s tojoin their relatives who had
started coming over from the 50s.
So there was like a really kindof lively community and you
know.
So that's how it started off inEngland.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
We don't touch about this much you as we continue in
the episode, but do you want tomaybe share with us what sort of
piqued your interest in sort ofdoing the creative consultancy
work that you do around?
You know, daylight Cummins,we'll talk a little bit more,
but just in general perhaps sureso well, basically at school I
was studying, I was reallyinterested in art.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
So at the end when I left school I was working as a
kind of intern to learn thetrade, and so it touched on art,
photography, and then sort of Igradually found my way, worked
for quite a while as aprofessional photographer and
then through that there was akind of natural kind of
(03:48):
connection to multimedia at thetime and then from multimedia to
filmmaking.
So it's kind of a naturalprogression.
And then I worked for almost 20years at the French National
Film Commission.
So I left the, came to live inFrance, did various jobs in
multimedia and ended up for along time.
(04:09):
The longest period I everworked was at the Film
Commission, and so when I leftthe Film Commission I carried on
working as a consultant,basically doing the same kind of
work, but independently,working with film commissions
not necessarily French, related,uk, wherever.
And so that's where I am today,working as a consultant, and
(04:30):
also I'm sometimes called in towork as the kind of critic for a
design school, parsons, whichis Parsons, new York, but they
have a French section which isParis, parsons, paris.
So I get called in sometimes tocritique and that's really
interesting.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
And I'm sure I think that sort of lends us into
Daylight Come.
Right, you've been doingmultimedia work sort of
externally right, as yououtlined for us, and what better
way to sort of bring your ownpassion for multimedia work with
your own family's history?
And so I really enjoyedlistening to Daylight Come and
(05:08):
sort of bridging audio, which ofcourse I love as a fellow
podcaster, right With Caribbeanhistory, caribbean family
stories.
I've always, you know, sort ofput it out there for listeners
that if they do want to join usfor an episode and talk about
their family stories, that'scertainly something that I
welcome.
So I was really intrigued tocome across your project and you
(05:30):
know sort of the ways that itblends all of these things right
.
Tell our listeners a little bitabout Daylight Come in your own
words and what inspired theidea to even, you know, start
this project and document yourfamily's history in this way.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Sure.
So basically what happened wasmy mother passed away in 2011.
I had an older sister who haddisappeared a long time before.
Sort of voluntarily complicatedand that's what happens with
the community where people comefrom, the Caribbean is kind of
(06:06):
not very sort of settled thestandard family units where the
father, mother, whatever and soI'd lost touch with a sister and
then I decided I'd try and findher when my mother passed away.
And that was a long searchprocess and actually it could be
interesting for other listenerswho sort of embark on this
journey of trying to tracesomeone or write a family story
(06:29):
I actually called on the help ofthe Salvation Army, who have a
family search section.
So when it turned out that theyhad found out my sister had
passed away, I kind of felt itwas my duty to leave some kind
of trace of her memory and thefact that there was kind of
disconnect.
And so once I decided to dothat that was kind of the hard
(06:52):
part came following that sort ofhow do I do it?
Do I write it?
I'm not very good as a writer.
I thought of doing like a shortfilm.
I did many attempts, it didn'twork.
I was never really satisfied.
And also the thing is, how muchdo you say?
I had very little informationabout my sister.
(07:13):
I knew I wanted to saysomething and so basically it
grew organically from wanting tosay something about they're
leaving a trace and bringing inthe rest of the family for it to
make sense of the context.
And then the context of thefamily made sense to bring in
the context of immigration,colonization, going back all the
(07:34):
way to slavery, so it kind ofsuddenly grew like in waves.
Um.
So once I had that kind of inmy head, I was kind of lost on
how I would put it down, becauseI always liked sound and I
couldn't work out exactly how Iwanted to do it.
I did several attempts offriends recording.
It didn't work, it didn't kindof speak to me.
(07:55):
And I'll just give you thislittle anecdote of how this kind
of eureka moment arrived.
So I cycle a lot near where Ilive in Paris and I listen often
to podcasts as I'm cycling,with a little speaker attached
to my handlebars.
And so one day, as I'mlistening to a podcast, I
suddenly hear my emails beingread out, my personal emails,
(08:17):
and I'm thinking what's going on.
And so I realized that somehow,as I'm riding, I jolt and some
kind of setting triggers offautomatic reading of my emails,
what sounds kind of weird, butwhat actually made me realize
that, hearing these voices, thequality didn't improve a lot.
And so I started exploringautomated voices, generated
(08:40):
voices, and suddenly I realizedthat was what I needed.
I needed to be able to findsomething that would speak the
voices as I'm writing the text.
But I could completely keepreworking, whereas I couldn't
with a human being, you know, Icouldn't have an actor, voice
actor, so I could just keep onpracticing reworking.
So I'd given up until thatpoint.
(09:02):
I'd given up on, you know,writing it as a written story or
as a short film or whatever,and so that suddenly made it
possible.
So that's how putting ittogether, sort of the source for
the story, the method I use formaking it and how that sort of
gelled together.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Well, I first want to say condolence for the losses
of your mom and your sister.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
But you definitely did in a sense, touch on a
question that I also had of you,because I'm always interested
as somebody who also loves audio, but, you know, listening to it
, I said, well, this could havebeen a book like this, could
have been a short story, as yousaid, even film iterations of
this project, as somebody whoalso loves audio, what were you
particularly challenged by?
(09:46):
You know, you've, you've walkedus through why you chose not to
pursue the other ventures inthat way.
But what were the challenges ofpursuing an audio project as
opposed to?
You know different elementswell the.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
The challenge is, first of all, which?
So I didn't want to use myvoice because it's too close to
me, and that's what was reallygood with using the audio
generated voices so I could getsome distance, and the fact that
I ended up using like a femalevoice which is you know, but
simply because, first of all, itwas the best one that could
kind of get across the emotion Ineeded.
(10:22):
And then I liked it.
So I just thought, you know,why not keep it?
So I ended up using that andthat gave me the distance I need
to be able to relate the story.
And I'd always grown up withradio when I was a child,
because we couldn't afford TV,and so I grew up reading it with
BBC Book at Bedtime, all thesekind of things.
(10:42):
So that was really my kind ofmedium.
So you know, when I found Icould actually just write
phrases and have it spoken, itwas actually not very easy.
In fact it was really hard,because getting the intonations
that you want and the expressionmeans a lot of work, but it
meant it was actually doable,which was the key thing for me.
So I reworked it, rewrote ituntil I actually got to a point
(11:06):
where I had something thatworked.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Certainly, I do want to sort of set the scene for our
listeners.
We touched on a little bitabout Daylight Come primarily,
as you mentioned for us, right,it walks us primarily from you
and your family's migration fromSt Thomas to the UK, but, as
you mentioned earlier, thereobviously marks the surrounding
moments around this time period,right.
(11:31):
So you do walk us a bit fromJamaica's colonial history.
Windrush is a part of thisstory.
Of course, you can't talk aboutJamaicans in the UK and West
Indians in the UK at largewithout talking about Windrush,
um World War I and II, a lot ofelements that I, you know, don't
want to give away for ourlisteners by chance.
But what were, maybe, um?
(11:52):
Did you encounter anydifficulties, I think, in
gathering sort of these familyhistories?
I think oftentimes we come froma culture that you know isn't
always so open to share in theseways, right, and so what was it
like for maybe you to, on theside of, actually like writing
and producing this, this projectbeyond the, you know, finding
the voices, et cetera, butcollecting the stories to
(12:13):
document?
Speaker 2 (12:14):
As you're saying that .
The funny thing is, yes,there's that secretive side that
sort of especially Jamaicanwomen have.
They're secretive for no reason, it's just like their nature.
So they're kind of whisperingand whatever, and my mother, my
aunt and the family, and whenyou realize what they were
talking about it's like why werethey bothering to whisper?
But but the curious thing withmy mum is I'm just realizing
(12:37):
that she did actually tell me alot in the early days when I
first arrived in the UK, beforemy younger brothers and sisters
came along, and so a lot of thesource came from her and some
from my aunt.
So in the story I speak a lotabout my aunt who raised me, and
so a lot of it came from them.
(12:58):
So so when I actually got towriting especially, they weren't
around anymore.
So it was a lot from the memoryof them telling me in the
beginning about, you know, whenthey grew up in Jamaica, who the
relatives were, who came over,who stayed.
So luckily I kind of, you know,was enriched with all that they
(13:19):
told me.
So when I got to writing itthere was no one else really
around and a few people who wereleft, like some cousins, didn't
know much at all, less than Ithought they would know.
So it was basically on my ownand sort of putting it down,
digging into my memory andputting pieces together.
And so it basically came fromthat and there was a few missing
(13:41):
pieces that luckily one of thecontacts that was helping me do
family search, a lady calledLisa Hill at Anglia Research in
the UK, she'd found a fewmissing pieces like names and
dates of my great aunt inJamaica and certain dates to
(14:04):
help me put together who cameover when and who stayed with
who at what other time.
But most of it sorry to answeryour question is from my mother
and my aunt in the days whenthey were giving of information
until the tap turned off and youknow it was like not so much
coming forward but it was richanyway, what they left me
(14:27):
certainly, and I found it to be,I think, um, much to sort of
what you're saying.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Oral histories are such an important part of our
culture, right, um, and in a wayI think you know you've done,
through this project, bringingthese oral histories into a sort
of new, um, modern right on theways that we connect these
stories that have been told tous and again, preserving them
for future generations in a lotof ways.
(14:52):
One thing that I also thought ofwhen it came to listening to
Daylight Come is the fact thatyou know, we all have stories
that deserve to be documented,to be told, to be saved and
preserved.
And I think sometimes, justsort of, maybe because of the
top down nature of history,people feel like, you know, my
(15:13):
family didn't do anything quoteunquote remarkable right in
history, so, so what's the bigdeal?
But I, you know, but I hope mylisteners believe that's
completely opposite of mythinking.
And so what was sort of theframework for you in thinking
these things need to bedocumented?
What are the kinds of storiesthat you chose to tell and
(15:35):
really for us to certainly beproud of, and how do you think
this helps, you know, addfurther context to, of course,
you know, for instance, a lot ofus hopefully most of us know
about Windrush, right, but howis it that you know?
By knowing your particularfamily story?
How does it give us broadercontext about Windrush and other
analogous historical events?
Speaker 2 (15:57):
I agree with you that there's nothing remarkable
about my family story, except Iguess it's remarkable in the
fact that sort of it's been putdown on paper or on voice to be
stored and archived.
Because the thing is, if wejust dismiss these family
stories and say, oh, who's goingto be interested?
(16:17):
Because that was me in thebeginning, I was thinking, you
know, I'm going to just do thisfor my sister and put it down.
And then, as I was diggingfurther and further, I'm
thinking, well, I shouldprobably leave a bigger trace
because of what's happening,especially today, with history
being rewritten in a bad way,stories being erased.
(16:41):
The more stories even if they'rebanal, that sort of get put
down with dates and times andfacts, the harder it is to just
sweep them away and say, oh,yeah, but it didn't really, it
wasn't really like that,whatever.
So yeah.
So that's the key thing.
That's why I think peopleshould be encouraged, if they
(17:01):
have an inkling, to write afamily story, just start doing
it, putting it, put it down, andthen it doesn't matter what
format it takes afterwards.
Put down you know the, thetrace of it, the details, and
put down even stuff that may bevery sensitive, that you may not
want someone to hear, becausethat's your draft, your personal
(17:23):
draft, and once it's down, thenyou can rework it, take out
what's sensitive, maybe changenames to protect people,
whatever, but at least get thething down, because if you don't
start and that was my problemat one stage I kept stalling.
Then I realized that if I keptstalling any longer it would
never be done.
And once you get into it, thenyou start putting the details in
(17:44):
, you take stuff out, you reworkit.
It's down and you can sort ofeven maybe take half of it or a
quarter of it and make a smallerstory than you thought you
would do, but at least it's done.
You can put it out there.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Uh, so it's just added to that collective family
storytelling I do want to, youknow, if I may, counter a point
that you make, because I dothink that the story was
remarkable in a lot of ways.
Right, you shape ourunderstandings of caribbean
history in a particular way,especially especially Caribbean
migration.
Well, no one's migration storylooks the same.
(18:23):
I will say that, first andforemost, right.
I think also, you know,depending on where your family
goes, things look different,right, my family largely to an
extent more so went to Canadaand the US, right, so there are
elements of this story that, ofcourse, I know, you know,
windrush, etc, etc.
But there were particularcontext to this that I found
very interesting Daylight Comethat were, you know, maybe
(18:45):
analogous in some ways, but alsodifferent from my own family's
history.
And so I think when I sayremarkable, I maybe mean, like
people think, oh, you know,parent wasn't in the military or
my grandparent, um, didn'tbecome prime minister or
something right.
But all of us certainly haveremarkable stories to share and
I think that certainly cameacross in daylight come even,
(19:06):
you know, thinking aboutparticular things.
There is a part of daylightcome where you're talking about
your aunt's experiences, right,truly, during world war one and
world war two, and those arealso things that I think add
greater context to ourunderstandings.
For instance, we just recentlydid an episode on Caribbean
(19:29):
people and World War I, worldWar II and women's voices
certainly are, you know, notoftentimes at the top of that
narrative, and so there aredifferent ways that I think a
lot of these things come to thefore, through Daylight Cup and
so sort of getting into my nextquestion, what was it like for
you to trace your lineage andconnect these moments between
you know, your personal familystories and the larger context,
(19:53):
and what did you learn aboutyour family and yourself in the
process?
Speaker 2 (19:57):
It was actually a long process because I had a lot
of material, too much material,to put into the final thing.
So I still have a lot left.
So that was also the editingprocess of you know what do you
put in, what makes it sort ofinteresting, engaging for the
(20:17):
listener, and sort of you knowstuff that you leave out,
killing your darlings kind ofthing.
So you know not to weigh thestory down.
You know, researching thelineage was basically the
information.
I had some information fromAnglia research that helped me
connect dots of when, whichships, because the ships were a
(20:40):
big deal coming over fromJamaica to the UK at the time.
So you know, windrush obviouslyis the most known, but there
were many ships, often warships,that were converted as
passenger ships.
The history is worth looking upof the Windrush, because I
don't really go into it becauseit wasn't sort of the key thing
(21:01):
in my Daylight Come project.
But if the listeners want toexplore the actual origin of
that ship, I think they'll bequite stunned because there's a
huge kind of background to thatparticular.
While I was searching throughthe lineage, you know, finding
out, you know how my family came.
You know finding out.
(21:24):
You know how my family came, um, basically I guess learning
that sort of.
We came from somewhere specificin africa which is, you know,
up until then people would saywhen I was a child they're
saying, yeah, but where do youcome from, jim baker?
You must have come from africa,and africa was this kind of
generic place.
And so by the research I foundout sort of the specific places
in Africa where we potentiallywould have been taken from to be
(21:48):
brought to the Caribbean.
So that's also like a anchorage,like a connection, sort of
through Jamaica going furtherback and not just sort of you
suddenly appear from Jamaica andbrought to the UK.
So I think that's quiteimportant and I've got this
particular relationship withJamaica where I've never
actually been back.
(22:08):
So I left as a child I've gotthis kind of ambivalent feelings
where I'll always protectJamaica but I have trouble with
Jamaicans.
So that's, you know, it's akind of a strange thing and I'm
not sure if that happens withother Caribbeans or immigrants
that arrive.
Oh, that may be just my personalkind of connection, may or may
(22:30):
not be relevant, I don't knowbut that's my particular thing
with my origins and I thinkmaybe actually now I'm thinking
about I never thought it before,but maybe it was a way of
protecting myself, because whenI arrived in the UK I could have
actually been weighed down withthis kind of split of Jamaican
(22:54):
boys grouped together, badcrowds getting into trouble or
finding your way and breakingaway from that.
And so I did the latter, and soI guess it was a conscious
decision and I guess that's oneof the reasons why I ended up
sort of having this disconnectwith Jamaica, but just to be
able to move on and sort of youknow, ending up moving to France
(23:16):
later on and then a differentkind of, you know, political
kind of evolution I don't knowif this is maybe, um, if I'm
speaking out of turn, but Ithink, in a lot of ways, perhaps
daylight come was this bridge,right, um, to connect you to
jamaica.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
in a lot of ways, right, I think doing this
research which, um, I know frompersonal experience, can be just
so laborious, right, and thento turn it into something in
particular, right, that you wantto share, that you're hoping to
craft in this way to be shared,builds a lot of bridges in some
ways, and so, even to thatpoint, how are you hoping
(23:56):
perhaps Daylight Come serves asa product that will impact
future generations, whetherthat's in your family or, you
know, just listeners?
Speaker 2 (24:06):
well, I'm kind of going back to it because I'm
currently working on a newpodcast uh, audio essay to be
more exact and I'm thinking ofreturning to daylight come to
add more study material toaccompany it.
So at the time when I put itout, I basically did the
(24:29):
transcription and the timelinefor people to sort of find their
way independently of me, butjust basically the story of
Jamaica.
And now I'm working on anotherstory and doing more study
materials.
I'm thinking of going back toDaylight Come to develop
accompanying materials whichwould be useful for future
(24:52):
generations, developing to witha lot of information that you
won't remember.
You can have accompanyingmaterial where you can have, say
, quizzes and more engagingstudy material and sort of tying
in with that.
(25:12):
I hadn't, sort of up untilrecently, shared it with any
members of my family.
I felt awkward, I sort of, youknow, when I put it out.
I thought, okay, my mission isdone, it's out there, whatever,
shared it with friends andrelations.
And I felt somehow because inthe development process I didn't
(25:36):
ask my brothers and sistersbecause they didn't want to be
restricted in them makingcomments and saying, oh, but you
shouldn't really say that orwhatever, I want you to be
restricted in them makingcomments and saying, oh, but you
shouldn't really say that orwhatever.
I want you to be free.
So I put it out there and timegoes by and I realized after a
while I actually didn't let anyof my family listen.
And one day a niece was askingme questions about just in the
(25:59):
UK and I live in France, soasking me you know about my life
and sort of connections andfamily back in Jamaica, and so
I'm seeing she's curious.
I shared it with her and shewas the first member and then
since then I shared it withother members of the family and
it was interesting because shewas really touched and she said
the kind of there was so muchstuff she didn't know about the
family personally and aboutJamaica and she was really, you
(26:24):
know, touched and started sortof researching more about her
family, origins, connections, soI can see how it can help
future generations certainly Ithink so as well, and you know,
to your point on the additionalsort of study materials, that
that's exactly sort of theimpetus for my project, for
(26:45):
things like the Strictly FactSounds.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Which brings us to my next question.
I'm sure you know in a lot ofyour own views there are things
that similarly pinpoint andcreatively showcase Jamaican and
, you know, caribbean at largeimpact in the UK.
So are there other materials,are there other, you know songs,
(27:07):
things like that that you thinkyou know also similarly
document this sort of Caribbeanmigration story to the UK in a
similar vein as Daylight Comedoes.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Music in general, but not really specifically.
I'm just thinking really of thekind of blue beat at the time we
arrived in the early 60s, andthat's a whole kind of range and
I'd be hard pushed to sort ofyou know, single out specific
(27:37):
tracks but your listeners couldreally just easily search a blue
beat of the early 60s andthat's a whole climate and it's
kind of atmosphere, the heavypounding beats that people
listening to and that was aprecursor to ska and reggae
which came later on.
It's really for me it's thatkind of that blue beat era and
(28:01):
sort of one of the early thepeople kind of associate with
his later tracks, um is jimmycliff.
So jimmy cliff, um, one of hisbig hits was hurricane hattie,
which was a hurricane that sweptthrough the Caribbean, and he
had a massive hit with that ayear later after the hurricane.
(28:25):
And that's me one of the songsI associate with my mother
telling me about hurricanes inthe West Indies.
And obviously the title of theproject Daylight Come is from
the song that Harry Belry bellafonti made famous, the banana
boat.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
uh, they all sound I definitely caught that um.
I also thought of um andrealevy's book.
Every light in the houseburning um sort of as like
analogous material when we thinkof, you know, jamaicans
migrating to the uk and you knowhow life unfolds after the fact
(29:05):
, so that's one that you knowI'll also add, uh, but I'll
definitely be sure to add, jimmycliff and harry bellofonte
songs to our strictly factsyllabus as well great my final
question for you what sort of doyou hope for how this will
inspire others?
I know we talked about you knowhow, in a sense, future
(29:27):
generations like your niece canbe impacted, but what would be,
maybe, your advice in terms of,you know, supporting others
trying to or hoping to dosimilar work, to document their
own family stories, and reallythinking about putting these
stories to pen, text, audio,whatever form, and really hoping
(29:49):
for them to preserve this forthe next generation?
Speaker 2 (29:53):
I guess I'd say the younger generation.
One advantage they have is AI.
So not to write the story, butto be kind of a companion, and
so, for example, someone has astory about their grandmother
from the West Indies or theirfamily, and just to be able to
(30:13):
start somewhere, I think AI is areally good tool so you can
either just as recorded that canbe transcribed later, that you
can build on and just to quicklystart sort of you know,
roughing it out and laying itout so you have something you
can work on, and and also it'sso easy today to put it online,
(30:35):
to share the information, justessays, on so many platforms
that are free, which actuallygets rid of the stumbling block
of cost, time intensive, becauseall these tools help to reduce
the time.
And it's motivating when youcan start to see your story
(30:57):
taking shape and say you've donethe first few pages or the
first few minutes and you canstart building and developing it
.
And I guess sort of you knowsearching on the internet and
seeing resources of I can't noneof them spring to mind, but
it's very easy to find peoplewho have started putting down
their family stories and notdirectly connected, but I'm just
(31:21):
thinking of areas where yougrew up in london or the uk and
how they've changed, andthinking about how they were
heavily maybe, uh, immigrant atone stage.
Now that's all changed, andtrying to preserve the memory of
you know how it was in the past, tied to your family, tied to
(31:45):
your heritage, because all thatstuff changed and it's gone
forever.
So it's kind of trying to stampit with your heritage in a way,
if you see what I mean.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
So I certainly agree and I think you know I will
leave us on that point, becauseI do definitely agree that you
know we can stamp our heritage,as you mentioned, in a lot of
creative ways nowadays and waysthat I think you know, as we
continue to evolve as a people,especially in this digital world
, and creating these linkagesacross time and space and oceans
(32:19):
, right nations, these areimportant ways for us to
continue to mark who we are andour legacy and imprint on the
world.
And so, with that, for all ofour listeners tuning in, I
cannot recommend Daylight ComeEnough.
I will link it in our shownotes for you all to also listen
to as something in your freetime, alongside listening to
(32:39):
Strictly Facts and Calvin.
I thank you and reallyappreciate you joining us for
this podcast to talk about yourproject, talk about family
histories, and you know how wecontinue to document family
stories and so thanks so much.
Of course.
Thank you, and you know withthat, till next time.
Look a little more.
Thanks for tuning in toStrictly Facts.
(33:00):
Visit StrictlyFacts factspodcastcom for more information
from each episode.
Follow us at strictly facts podon instagram and facebook and
at strictly facts pd on twitter.
Welcome to Strictly Facts, a guide to Caribbean
history and culture, hosted byme, alexandria Miller.
Strictly Facts teaches thehistory, politics and activism
of the Caribbean and connectsthese themes to contemporary
music and popular culture.
Hello everyone, welcome toanother episode of Strictly
(00:23):
Facts, a guide to Caribbeanhistory and culture, where we
dive deep into the rich anddiverse history of the Caribbean
and its diaspora.
Today's episode focuses onsomething that's often
overlooked but incrediblypowerful our own family
histories.
Our conversation takes us on aunique journey, one of personal
history, migration and the powerof storytelling.
(00:46):
The act of recording ourpersonal histories is a very
important way to preserve thelegacy of our ancestors and
understand the historical andcultural forces that shape our
lives.
Today's guest has embarked on ajourney documenting his own
family's history, tracing thepath from Jamaica to the UK.
(01:06):
In this conversation, we'llexplore why he chose to create
such an audio project, to tellthis history, the challenges
that he may have encountered andwhy it's crucial for each of us
to take ownership of ourfamily's narratives.
So joining us today to delveinto the ways in which personal
histories intersect with broaderhistorical context is creative
(01:28):
consultant and creator of theexperimental audio project
Daylight Come Calvin Walker.
Calvin, thank you so much forjoining us today.
Why don't you tell ourlisteners a little bit more
about you?
What inspired your interest increating audio projects and
other creative projects and, ofcourse, your roots in the
Caribbean?
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Great.
Thank you, alexandra.
Thanks for inviting me.
So my roots I was born inJamaica, st Thomas.
I stayed in Jamaica until I wasfive years old and I was brought
to England and so it was quitedramatic at the time, like a
traumatic break from, you know,a child growing up in the West
(02:07):
Indies, arriving in the UK inwinter and just seeing white
people for the first time.
So that was just my sort of,you know, complete sort of
change of environment.
And so I grew up and I had myroots in London because there
was a big West Indian communityat the time which has kind of
(02:30):
changed a little bit.
Now it's broader, it's moreAfrican.
It's at the time when I grew upit was really purely West
Indian, so Jamaicans, barbadians, trinidadians, and it wasn't
much more than that, and so overtime it's much more mixed today
.
So my roots sort of stayed fromthat point of view and people
(02:53):
were coming over in the 60s tojoin their relatives who had
started coming over from the 50s.
So there was like a really kindof lively community and you
know.
So that's how it started off inEngland.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
We don't touch about this much you as we continue in
the episode, but do you want tomaybe share with us what sort of
piqued your interest in sort ofdoing the creative consultancy
work that you do around?
You know, daylight Cummins,we'll talk a little bit more,
but just in general perhaps sureso well, basically at school I
was studying, I was reallyinterested in art.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
So at the end when I left school I was working as a
kind of intern to learn thetrade, and so it touched on art,
photography, and then sort of Igradually found my way, worked
for quite a while as aprofessional photographer and
then through that there was akind of natural kind of
(03:48):
connection to multimedia at thetime and then from multimedia to
filmmaking.
So it's kind of a naturalprogression.
And then I worked for almost 20years at the French National
Film Commission.
So I left the, came to live inFrance, did various jobs in
multimedia and ended up for along time.
(04:09):
The longest period I everworked was at the Film
Commission, and so when I leftthe Film Commission I carried on
working as a consultant,basically doing the same kind of
work, but independently,working with film commissions
not necessarily French, related,uk, wherever.
And so that's where I am today,working as a consultant, and
(04:30):
also I'm sometimes called in towork as the kind of critic for a
design school, parsons, whichis Parsons, new York, but they
have a French section which isParis, parsons, paris.
So I get called in sometimes tocritique and that's really
interesting.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
And I'm sure I think that sort of lends us into
Daylight Come.
Right, you've been doingmultimedia work sort of
externally right, as yououtlined for us, and what better
way to sort of bring your ownpassion for multimedia work with
your own family's history?
And so I really enjoyedlistening to Daylight Come and
(05:08):
sort of bridging audio, which ofcourse I love as a fellow
podcaster, right With Caribbeanhistory, caribbean family
stories.
I've always, you know, sort ofput it out there for listeners
that if they do want to join usfor an episode and talk about
their family stories, that'scertainly something that I
welcome.
So I was really intrigued tocome across your project and you
(05:30):
know sort of the ways that itblends all of these things right
.
Tell our listeners a little bitabout Daylight Come in your own
words and what inspired theidea to even, you know, start
this project and document yourfamily's history in this way.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Sure.
So basically what happened wasmy mother passed away in 2011.
I had an older sister who haddisappeared a long time before.
Sort of voluntarily complicatedand that's what happens with
the community where people comefrom, the Caribbean is kind of
(06:06):
not very sort of settled thestandard family units where the
father, mother, whatever and soI'd lost touch with a sister and
then I decided I'd try and findher when my mother passed away.
And that was a long searchprocess and actually it could be
interesting for other listenerswho sort of embark on this
journey of trying to tracesomeone or write a family story
(06:29):
I actually called on the help ofthe Salvation Army, who have a
family search section.
So when it turned out that theyhad found out my sister had
passed away, I kind of felt itwas my duty to leave some kind
of trace of her memory and thefact that there was kind of
disconnect.
And so once I decided to dothat that was kind of the hard
(06:52):
part came following that sort ofhow do I do it?
Do I write it?
I'm not very good as a writer.
I thought of doing like a shortfilm.
I did many attempts, it didn'twork.
I was never really satisfied.
And also the thing is, how muchdo you say?
I had very little informationabout my sister.
(07:13):
I knew I wanted to saysomething and so basically it
grew organically from wanting tosay something about they're
leaving a trace and bringing inthe rest of the family for it to
make sense of the context.
And then the context of thefamily made sense to bring in
the context of immigration,colonization, going back all the
(07:34):
way to slavery, so it kind ofsuddenly grew like in waves.
Um.
So once I had that kind of inmy head, I was kind of lost on
how I would put it down, becauseI always liked sound and I
couldn't work out exactly how Iwanted to do it.
I did several attempts offriends recording.
It didn't work, it didn't kindof speak to me.
(07:55):
And I'll just give you thislittle anecdote of how this kind
of eureka moment arrived.
So I cycle a lot near where Ilive in Paris and I listen often
to podcasts as I'm cycling,with a little speaker attached
to my handlebars.
And so one day, as I'mlistening to a podcast, I
suddenly hear my emails beingread out, my personal emails,
(08:17):
and I'm thinking what's going on.
And so I realized that somehow,as I'm riding, I jolt and some
kind of setting triggers offautomatic reading of my emails,
what sounds kind of weird, butwhat actually made me realize
that, hearing these voices, thequality didn't improve a lot.
And so I started exploringautomated voices, generated
(08:40):
voices, and suddenly I realizedthat was what I needed.
I needed to be able to findsomething that would speak the
voices as I'm writing the text.
But I could completely keepreworking, whereas I couldn't
with a human being, you know, Icouldn't have an actor, voice
actor, so I could just keep onpracticing reworking.
So I'd given up until thatpoint.
(09:02):
I'd given up on, you know,writing it as a written story or
as a short film or whatever,and so that suddenly made it
possible.
So that's how putting ittogether, sort of the source for
the story, the method I use formaking it and how that sort of
gelled together.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Well, I first want to say condolence for the losses
of your mom and your sister.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
But you definitely did in a sense, touch on a
question that I also had of you,because I'm always interested
as somebody who also loves audio, but, you know, listening to it
, I said, well, this could havebeen a book like this, could
have been a short story, as yousaid, even film iterations of
this project, as somebody whoalso loves audio, what were you
particularly challenged by?
(09:46):
You know, you've, you've walkedus through why you chose not to
pursue the other ventures inthat way.
But what were the challenges ofpursuing an audio project as
opposed to?
You know different elementswell the.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
The challenge is, first of all, which?
So I didn't want to use myvoice because it's too close to
me, and that's what was reallygood with using the audio
generated voices so I could getsome distance, and the fact that
I ended up using like a femalevoice which is you know, but
simply because, first of all, itwas the best one that could
kind of get across the emotion Ineeded.
(10:22):
And then I liked it.
So I just thought, you know,why not keep it?
So I ended up using that andthat gave me the distance I need
to be able to relate the story.
And I'd always grown up withradio when I was a child,
because we couldn't afford TV,and so I grew up reading it with
BBC Book at Bedtime, all thesekind of things.
(10:42):
So that was really my kind ofmedium.
So you know, when I found Icould actually just write
phrases and have it spoken, itwas actually not very easy.
In fact it was really hard,because getting the intonations
that you want and the expressionmeans a lot of work, but it
meant it was actually doable,which was the key thing for me.
So I reworked it, rewrote ituntil I actually got to a point
(11:06):
where I had something thatworked.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Certainly, I do want to sort of set the scene for our
listeners.
We touched on a little bitabout Daylight Come primarily,
as you mentioned for us, right,it walks us primarily from you
and your family's migration fromSt Thomas to the UK, but, as
you mentioned earlier, thereobviously marks the surrounding
moments around this time period,right.
(11:31):
So you do walk us a bit fromJamaica's colonial history.
Windrush is a part of thisstory.
Of course, you can't talk aboutJamaicans in the UK and West
Indians in the UK at largewithout talking about Windrush,
um World War I and II, a lot ofelements that I, you know, don't
want to give away for ourlisteners by chance.
But what were, maybe, um?
(11:52):
Did you encounter anydifficulties, I think, in
gathering sort of these familyhistories?
I think oftentimes we come froma culture that you know isn't
always so open to share in theseways, right, and so what was it
like for maybe you to, on theside of, actually like writing
and producing this, this projectbeyond the, you know, finding
the voices, et cetera, butcollecting the stories to
(12:13):
document?
Speaker 2 (12:14):
As you're saying that .
The funny thing is, yes,there's that secretive side that
sort of especially Jamaicanwomen have.
They're secretive for no reason, it's just like their nature.
So they're kind of whisperingand whatever, and my mother, my
aunt and the family, and whenyou realize what they were
talking about it's like why werethey bothering to whisper?
But but the curious thing withmy mum is I'm just realizing
(12:37):
that she did actually tell me alot in the early days when I
first arrived in the UK, beforemy younger brothers and sisters
came along, and so a lot of thesource came from her and some
from my aunt.
So in the story I speak a lotabout my aunt who raised me, and
so a lot of it came from them.
(12:58):
So so when I actually got towriting especially, they weren't
around anymore.
So it was a lot from the memoryof them telling me in the
beginning about, you know, whenthey grew up in Jamaica, who the
relatives were, who came over,who stayed.
So luckily I kind of, you know,was enriched with all that they
(13:19):
told me.
So when I got to writing itthere was no one else really
around and a few people who wereleft, like some cousins, didn't
know much at all, less than Ithought they would know.
So it was basically on my ownand sort of putting it down,
digging into my memory andputting pieces together.
And so it basically came fromthat and there was a few missing
(13:41):
pieces that luckily one of thecontacts that was helping me do
family search, a lady calledLisa Hill at Anglia Research in
the UK, she'd found a fewmissing pieces like names and
dates of my great aunt inJamaica and certain dates to
(14:04):
help me put together who cameover when and who stayed with
who at what other time.
But most of it sorry to answeryour question is from my mother
and my aunt in the days whenthey were giving of information
until the tap turned off and youknow it was like not so much
coming forward but it was richanyway, what they left me
(14:27):
certainly, and I found it to be,I think, um, much to sort of
what you're saying.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Oral histories are such an important part of our
culture, right, um, and in a wayI think you know you've done,
through this project, bringingthese oral histories into a sort
of new, um, modern right on theways that we connect these
stories that have been told tous and again, preserving them
for future generations in a lotof ways.
(14:52):
One thing that I also thought ofwhen it came to listening to
Daylight Come is the fact thatyou know, we all have stories
that deserve to be documented,to be told, to be saved and
preserved.
And I think sometimes, justsort of, maybe because of the
top down nature of history,people feel like, you know, my
(15:13):
family didn't do anything quoteunquote remarkable right in
history, so, so what's the bigdeal?
But I, you know, but I hope mylisteners believe that's
completely opposite of mythinking.
And so what was sort of theframework for you in thinking
these things need to bedocumented?
What are the kinds of storiesthat you chose to tell and
(15:35):
really for us to certainly beproud of, and how do you think
this helps, you know, addfurther context to, of course,
you know, for instance, a lot ofus hopefully most of us know
about Windrush, right, but howis it that you know?
By knowing your particularfamily story?
How does it give us broadercontext about Windrush and other
analogous historical events?
Speaker 2 (15:57):
I agree with you that there's nothing remarkable
about my family story, except Iguess it's remarkable in the
fact that sort of it's been putdown on paper or on voice to be
stored and archived.
Because the thing is, if wejust dismiss these family
stories and say, oh, who's goingto be interested?
(16:17):
Because that was me in thebeginning, I was thinking, you
know, I'm going to just do thisfor my sister and put it down.
And then, as I was diggingfurther and further, I'm
thinking, well, I shouldprobably leave a bigger trace
because of what's happening,especially today, with history
being rewritten in a bad way,stories being erased.
(16:41):
The more stories even if they'rebanal, that sort of get put
down with dates and times andfacts, the harder it is to just
sweep them away and say, oh,yeah, but it didn't really, it
wasn't really like that,whatever.
So yeah.
So that's the key thing.
That's why I think peopleshould be encouraged, if they
(17:01):
have an inkling, to write afamily story, just start doing
it, putting it, put it down, andthen it doesn't matter what
format it takes afterwards.
Put down you know the, thetrace of it, the details, and
put down even stuff that may bevery sensitive, that you may not
want someone to hear, becausethat's your draft, your personal
(17:23):
draft, and once it's down, thenyou can rework it, take out
what's sensitive, maybe changenames to protect people,
whatever, but at least get thething down, because if you don't
start and that was my problemat one stage I kept stalling.
Then I realized that if I keptstalling any longer it would
never be done.
And once you get into it, thenyou start putting the details in
(17:44):
, you take stuff out, you reworkit.
It's down and you can sort ofeven maybe take half of it or a
quarter of it and make a smallerstory than you thought you
would do, but at least it's done.
You can put it out there.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Uh, so it's just added to that collective family
storytelling I do want to, youknow, if I may, counter a point
that you make, because I dothink that the story was
remarkable in a lot of ways.
Right, you shape ourunderstandings of caribbean
history in a particular way,especially especially Caribbean
migration.
Well, no one's migration storylooks the same.
(18:23):
I will say that, first andforemost, right.
I think also, you know,depending on where your family
goes, things look different,right, my family largely to an
extent more so went to Canadaand the US, right, so there are
elements of this story that, ofcourse, I know, you know,
windrush, etc, etc.
But there were particularcontext to this that I found
very interesting Daylight Comethat were, you know, maybe
(18:45):
analogous in some ways, but alsodifferent from my own family's
history.
And so I think when I sayremarkable, I maybe mean, like
people think, oh, you know,parent wasn't in the military or
my grandparent, um, didn'tbecome prime minister or
something right.
But all of us certainly haveremarkable stories to share and
I think that certainly cameacross in daylight come even,
(19:06):
you know, thinking aboutparticular things.
There is a part of daylightcome where you're talking about
your aunt's experiences, right,truly, during world war one and
world war two, and those arealso things that I think add
greater context to ourunderstandings.
For instance, we just recentlydid an episode on Caribbean
(19:29):
people and World War I, worldWar II and women's voices
certainly are, you know, notoftentimes at the top of that
narrative, and so there aredifferent ways that I think a
lot of these things come to thefore, through Daylight Cup and
so sort of getting into my nextquestion, what was it like for
you to trace your lineage andconnect these moments between
you know, your personal familystories and the larger context,
(19:53):
and what did you learn aboutyour family and yourself in the
process?
Speaker 2 (19:57):
It was actually a long process because I had a lot
of material, too much material,to put into the final thing.
So I still have a lot left.
So that was also the editingprocess of you know what do you
put in, what makes it sort ofinteresting, engaging for the
(20:17):
listener, and sort of you knowstuff that you leave out,
killing your darlings kind ofthing.
So you know not to weigh thestory down.
You know, researching thelineage was basically the
information.
I had some information fromAnglia research that helped me
connect dots of when, whichships, because the ships were a
(20:40):
big deal coming over fromJamaica to the UK at the time.
So you know, windrush obviouslyis the most known, but there
were many ships, often warships,that were converted as
passenger ships.
The history is worth looking upof the Windrush, because I
don't really go into it becauseit wasn't sort of the key thing
(21:01):
in my Daylight Come project.
But if the listeners want toexplore the actual origin of
that ship, I think they'll bequite stunned because there's a
huge kind of background to thatparticular.
While I was searching throughthe lineage, you know, finding
out, you know how my family came.
You know finding out.
(21:24):
You know how my family came, um, basically I guess learning
that sort of.
We came from somewhere specificin africa which is, you know,
up until then people would saywhen I was a child they're
saying, yeah, but where do youcome from, jim baker?
You must have come from africa,and africa was this kind of
generic place.
And so by the research I foundout sort of the specific places
in Africa where we potentiallywould have been taken from to be
(21:48):
brought to the Caribbean.
So that's also like a anchorage,like a connection, sort of
through Jamaica going furtherback and not just sort of you
suddenly appear from Jamaica andbrought to the UK.
So I think that's quiteimportant and I've got this
particular relationship withJamaica where I've never
actually been back.
(22:08):
So I left as a child I've gotthis kind of ambivalent feelings
where I'll always protectJamaica but I have trouble with
Jamaicans.
So that's, you know, it's akind of a strange thing and I'm
not sure if that happens withother Caribbeans or immigrants
that arrive.
Oh, that may be just my personalkind of connection, may or may
(22:30):
not be relevant, I don't knowbut that's my particular thing
with my origins and I thinkmaybe actually now I'm thinking
about I never thought it before,but maybe it was a way of
protecting myself, because whenI arrived in the UK I could have
actually been weighed down withthis kind of split of Jamaican
(22:54):
boys grouped together, badcrowds getting into trouble or
finding your way and breakingaway from that.
And so I did the latter, and soI guess it was a conscious
decision and I guess that's oneof the reasons why I ended up
sort of having this disconnectwith Jamaica, but just to be
able to move on and sort of youknow, ending up moving to France
(23:16):
later on and then a differentkind of, you know, political
kind of evolution I don't knowif this is maybe, um, if I'm
speaking out of turn, but Ithink, in a lot of ways, perhaps
daylight come was this bridge,right, um, to connect you to
jamaica.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
in a lot of ways, right, I think doing this
research which, um, I know frompersonal experience, can be just
so laborious, right, and thento turn it into something in
particular, right, that you wantto share, that you're hoping to
craft in this way to be shared,builds a lot of bridges in some
ways, and so, even to thatpoint, how are you hoping
(23:56):
perhaps Daylight Come serves asa product that will impact
future generations, whetherthat's in your family or, you
know, just listeners?
Speaker 2 (24:06):
well, I'm kind of going back to it because I'm
currently working on a newpodcast uh, audio essay to be
more exact and I'm thinking ofreturning to daylight come to
add more study material toaccompany it.
So at the time when I put itout, I basically did the
(24:29):
transcription and the timelinefor people to sort of find their
way independently of me, butjust basically the story of
Jamaica.
And now I'm working on anotherstory and doing more study
materials.
I'm thinking of going back toDaylight Come to develop
accompanying materials whichwould be useful for future
(24:52):
generations, developing to witha lot of information that you
won't remember.
You can have accompanyingmaterial where you can have, say
, quizzes and more engagingstudy material and sort of tying
in with that.
(25:12):
I hadn't, sort of up untilrecently, shared it with any
members of my family.
I felt awkward, I sort of, youknow, when I put it out.
I thought, okay, my mission isdone, it's out there, whatever,
shared it with friends andrelations.
And I felt somehow because inthe development process I didn't
(25:36):
ask my brothers and sistersbecause they didn't want to be
restricted in them makingcomments and saying, oh, but you
shouldn't really say that orwhatever, I want you to be
restricted in them makingcomments and saying, oh, but you
shouldn't really say that orwhatever.
I want you to be free.
So I put it out there and timegoes by and I realized after a
while I actually didn't let anyof my family listen.
And one day a niece was askingme questions about just in the
(25:59):
UK and I live in France, soasking me you know about my life
and sort of connections andfamily back in Jamaica, and so
I'm seeing she's curious.
I shared it with her and shewas the first member and then
since then I shared it withother members of the family and
it was interesting because shewas really touched and she said
the kind of there was so muchstuff she didn't know about the
family personally and aboutJamaica and she was really, you
(26:24):
know, touched and started sortof researching more about her
family, origins, connections, soI can see how it can help
future generations certainly Ithink so as well, and you know,
to your point on the additionalsort of study materials, that
that's exactly sort of theimpetus for my project, for
(26:45):
things like the Strictly FactSounds.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Which brings us to my next question.
I'm sure you know in a lot ofyour own views there are things
that similarly pinpoint andcreatively showcase Jamaican and
, you know, caribbean at largeimpact in the UK.
So are there other materials,are there other, you know songs,
(27:07):
things like that that you thinkyou know also similarly
document this sort of Caribbeanmigration story to the UK in a
similar vein as Daylight Comedoes.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Music in general, but not really specifically.
I'm just thinking really of thekind of blue beat at the time we
arrived in the early 60s, andthat's a whole kind of range and
I'd be hard pushed to sort ofyou know, single out specific
(27:37):
tracks but your listeners couldreally just easily search a blue
beat of the early 60s andthat's a whole climate and it's
kind of atmosphere, the heavypounding beats that people
listening to and that was aprecursor to ska and reggae
which came later on.
It's really for me it's thatkind of that blue beat era and
(28:01):
sort of one of the early thepeople kind of associate with
his later tracks, um is jimmycliff.
So jimmy cliff, um, one of hisbig hits was hurricane hattie,
which was a hurricane that sweptthrough the Caribbean, and he
had a massive hit with that ayear later after the hurricane.
(28:25):
And that's me one of the songsI associate with my mother
telling me about hurricanes inthe West Indies.
And obviously the title of theproject Daylight Come is from
the song that Harry Belry bellafonti made famous, the banana
boat.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
uh, they all sound I definitely caught that um.
I also thought of um andrealevy's book.
Every light in the houseburning um sort of as like
analogous material when we thinkof, you know, jamaicans
migrating to the uk and you knowhow life unfolds after the fact
(29:05):
, so that's one that you knowI'll also add, uh, but I'll
definitely be sure to add, jimmycliff and harry bellofonte
songs to our strictly factsyllabus as well great my final
question for you what sort of doyou hope for how this will
inspire others?
I know we talked about you knowhow, in a sense, future
(29:27):
generations like your niece canbe impacted, but what would be,
maybe, your advice in terms of,you know, supporting others
trying to or hoping to dosimilar work, to document their
own family stories, and reallythinking about putting these
stories to pen, text, audio,whatever form, and really hoping
(29:49):
for them to preserve this forthe next generation?
Speaker 2 (29:53):
I guess I'd say the younger generation.
One advantage they have is AI.
So not to write the story, butto be kind of a companion, and
so, for example, someone has astory about their grandmother
from the West Indies or theirfamily, and just to be able to
(30:13):
start somewhere, I think AI is areally good tool so you can
either just as recorded that canbe transcribed later, that you
can build on and just to quicklystart sort of you know,
roughing it out and laying itout so you have something you
can work on, and and also it'sso easy today to put it online,
(30:35):
to share the information, justessays, on so many platforms
that are free, which actuallygets rid of the stumbling block
of cost, time intensive, becauseall these tools help to reduce
the time.
And it's motivating when youcan start to see your story
(30:57):
taking shape and say you've donethe first few pages or the
first few minutes and you canstart building and developing it
.
And I guess sort of you knowsearching on the internet and
seeing resources of I can't noneof them spring to mind, but
it's very easy to find peoplewho have started putting down
their family stories and notdirectly connected, but I'm just
(31:21):
thinking of areas where yougrew up in london or the uk and
how they've changed, andthinking about how they were
heavily maybe, uh, immigrant atone stage.
Now that's all changed, andtrying to preserve the memory of
you know how it was in the past, tied to your family, tied to
(31:45):
your heritage, because all thatstuff changed and it's gone
forever.
So it's kind of trying to stampit with your heritage in a way,
if you see what I mean.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
So I certainly agree and I think you know I will
leave us on that point, becauseI do definitely agree that you
know we can stamp our heritage,as you mentioned, in a lot of
creative ways nowadays and waysthat I think you know, as we
continue to evolve as a people,especially in this digital world
, and creating these linkagesacross time and space and oceans
(32:19):
, right nations, these areimportant ways for us to
continue to mark who we are andour legacy and imprint on the
world.
And so, with that, for all ofour listeners tuning in, I
cannot recommend Daylight ComeEnough.
I will link it in our shownotes for you all to also listen
to as something in your freetime, alongside listening to
(32:39):
Strictly Facts and Calvin.
I thank you and reallyappreciate you joining us for
this podcast to talk about yourproject, talk about family
histories, and you know how wecontinue to document family
stories and so thanks so much.
Of course.
Thank you, and you know withthat, till next time.
Look a little more.
Thanks for tuning in toStrictly Facts.
(33:00):
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