"An oral history interview with Gwen Hester in Newport, discussing her experience of growing up within a family which migrated from the Caribbean during the 1950s. “The undercurrent [of racism] is still there now, to this day…”
Gwen Hester, a member of the Broodie family, was born in St Kitts in the Caribbean. She came to Newport to join her parents as a young girl.

“All I remember about St Kitts was grapes, black… ‘sea grapes’ and they’re only grown by the sea.”

“My parents were already here. My mum worked as a nurse in Britain… my grandmother, my father’s mother, looked after me.”

“She used to take me everywhere with her… she was a church lady and she’d take me to church with her in the evenings and on Sundays and during the week.”

“She was a big influence on me, she used to say to me ‘if you’ve got a pound, make sure you save 50 pence, always save half of whatever you’ve got’.”
“I was in junior school when I came over to the UK.”

“I’m the eldest of nine siblings… we came over to Britain two at a time… I was the second lot [to come]. “

“It was typing and shorthand in those days, I worked [as a typist] there for 25 years. There I had a lot of racism…[but] I got my dream job as a child.”

“The undercurrent [of racism] is still there now, to this day…”

“My friend, if she went to church, they’d move her out of her seat…the reason the West Indians started their own church is because they weren’t welcome in the churches anywhere… they don’t see you as equal to them.”

“I’ve been in Newport now for 50 odd years, long time, isn’t it, very, very long time.”
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