A Wandsworth winner of the Windrush Grant Scheme will use the funds to host a special celebration of one of that generation’s heroes, along with an exhibition of Windrush fashion.
The 22 June event by the Black Heroes Foundation will be held in Wandsworth and feature a reading of The Story of Flip Fraser, a play about Peter Randolph Fraser, who came to the UK from Jamaica at just 16, as well as related photographs, video clips, and a display of costumes created specially for the play that reflect the style and fashion of the Windrush arrivals.
Fraser was the first editor of The Voice newspaper and creator of theatrical show Black Heroes in the Hall of Fame, a celebration of black culture and achievement, that gained a significant following both in the UK and abroad.
The Black Heroes Foundation was set up by Fraser’s widow Joyce shortly after he passed away in 2014 and is among 26 organisations awarded a grant by the government to celebrate and commemorate the continued contributions of the Windrush generation to the UK.
A community event
This year’s focus of the Windrush Grant is on bringing communities together and to that end, the event will not only invite surviving Windrush members and their relatives to attend but also encourage them to share stories from their own lives in a Q&A afterwards that will be woven into the play itself: a live act of storytelling and commemoration in one. The play will be performed in full at The Shaw Theatre in Camden on 25 October.
Joyce Fraser OBE spoke to Putney.news about the event. “We are all about involving the community and telling Windrush stories,” she explained. “It will be a family community event and everyone is welcome.” The event is part of the larger Wandsworth Arts Fringe (WAF24).
The costumes for the play were designed and sewn at an earlier Foundation event led by the fashion designer Mary Martin London where young people were taught to design, cut and sew, with the organisation provided the sewing machines and old pictures to guide the designs. “It actually turned into quite an emotional event,” Mrs Fraser told us, “some people started crying when they saw those old photos.”
The Black Heroes Foundation was awarded £5,973.60 in the government Windrush grant program but is still raising funds to put on the best version of the show. If you are interested in supporting the group, they host a monthly event called the Soul Food Safe featuring music, dance, a quiz and an open mic every 2nd Friday.
More details are on the Foundation’s website, as will be tickets to the 22 June event. You can see a video of an earlier Windrush fashion event run by the Foundation below:
