Carl Connikie

How should I introduce you?

I was born in Clarendon, Jamaica in 1959, the fifth child of John and Delores Connikie, a Carpenter and domestic worker.

Like so many Windrush era Caribbeans, who were invited to the United Kingdom to help rebuild the country after WWII, my father, an ambitious man wanting a better life for himself and his family, emigrated in September 1960, when I was just 11 months old. My father left his family behind until he could afford to send for them. In 1966 the entire family, with two additional children, were reunited in Newport, Wales.

I had a standard Jamaican/Welsh upbringing and, upon leaving school with no qualifications, held a succession of dead-end jobs until I was inspired to join the Metropolitan Police as a constable. Disillusioned by the racism I found there I resigned after only completing three years of service to join Gwent Police as a civilian employee where I spent 26 years.

How did you get into photography?

For my 50th birthday, my wife, Sue, bought me an entry-level DSLR camera, which I set aside for a year, believing it was far too complicated to understand. After a year of diligent research using YouTube, I learned enough to take reasonably good quality but aimless photographs.

Then, in 2013, I developed a purpose for my photography. I began taking photos of the Windrush Generation. There was, however, a problem; most senior Caribbeans didn't want their photographs taken in everyday clothes, and neither did they go out, other than to funerals. They say necessity is the mother of invention, so I began taking photographs of the Windrush community while they were congregated at funerals. Pretty soon me and my camera became a fixture at most Caribbean funerals taking place in Newport.

You contribution this year was the exhibition “Unsung Heroes, The Life And Death Of The Windrush Generation". Can you share how this came about?

To tell you about the exhibition, I have to give you a brief history. I am going to tell you this story in a collective way, using 'we' to bring alive the links between the past and the present, my life and those whose history I am about to share with you.

We are descendants of slaves, ripped from the bosom of Alkebulan and forced through the door of no return. We were transported by fleets of slave ships, shackled in their holds so that the place where we vomited, urinated, and defecated was the same place we breathed the foul air, drank our bitter waters, and ate our stale food.

After surviving the disease-ridden six-week voyage, many didn't, we made land in the new world, the Americas. With the Native Americans cleared from their lands, we were forced to work under a searing hot sun and the unremitting overseer's lash to produce cash crops for Europe. Coffee for Lloyds, cotton for the mills of England, tobacco for the cigars of the wealthy and sugar for the tea and confectionary industries of Europe, all were created by our hands.

The battle for emancipation saw us win a hollow victory, we were free but to do what? The land on which we lived as 'free' people belonged to The British Empire. We became trapped in a new form of servitude; we became economic slaves. The Caribbean, once described by Lloyd-George as the slums of the Empire, was always somewhere to be exploited, nothing more.

After two world wars, Britain called for its Caribbean colonies to come and help rebuild the mother country, and we dutifully answered the call in our thousands. When we arrived, we found we were not welcome, we were met with signs saying "No Blacks, No Irish and No Dogs." Despite visions filled with 'Rivers of Blood', we stayed and rebuilt the country only to be told that we were "low-hanging fruit" in the orchard of immigration, to be easily plucked and deported. This was the only time we murmured.

The exhibition is about telling the story of the Windrush Generation, who lived their lives in Wales without praise or recognition. They may be the last link in a chain that stretches back 400 years and now they're reaching their dotage and inevitably disappearing. The exhibition was part of the UK Windrush Caribbean Film Festival showcased by Riverfront Theatre in Newport in June 2023. It included an installation featuring a typical Caribbean front room frozen in time with the obligatory radiogram and bar. We also had a Gramme playing some original records of the time (from the 60s and 70s) too!

The festival was curated by Yvonne Connikie, who is also a USW PhD student researching the role and significance of domino club culture for older Caribbean migrants in Wales.

Why is commemorating the 'Platinum Generation' so important?

The 75th anniversary of the Empire Windrush at Tilbury Docks comes at a time of great upheaval in Britain and the rest of the world. We are facing global changes the like of which, especially in technology, we have never seen. Some are even calling this new era the Fourth Industrial Revolution, after coal, gas, electronic and nuclear and now the internet. As part of the change, we are experiencing what is called 'cancel culture' and a rewriting of history. Others are uncovering a hidden history and bringing it to light via social media which is causing a degree of collective national cognitive dissonance. I think it is important to document, from a first-hand account, the lives of the Windrush Generation before a largely unknown but significant aspect of British history is lost forever. We need to capture their images and stories before it's too late.