Jamaican and Barbadian families who shaped the town, and a carnival held since 1977.
By Ship And By Plane
Reading Museum says the voyage of the Empire Windrush in 1948, and the passenger ships and aircraft that followed it through the post-war years, shaped the diverse town Reading is today. Families from Jamaica and Barbados were among them.
The community has recorded its own memories. Memories of the Reading Windrush Generation and their Descendants, a series of short films made by members of the local Caribbean community with Jocelyn Chandler-Hawkins and Through A Different Lens, follows Anderson Springer, Grace Browne, Neville Nelson, Nordia Nelson and Rod Welch, people who left their place of birth to build a new life in Britain.
Harvey De Pass
Harvey De Pass was born in Jamaica in the 1920s and arrived at Tilbury on the Empire Windrush. In March 1970 he moved to Berkshire to become Reading's first Community Relations Officer, and he worked with the town's schools, telling one conference that the children of the newcomers were not immigrants and knew no other home than Britain. After leaving the role in 1981 he opened his own business, DePass Travel, which specialised in holidays to the Caribbean, Jamaica most of all.
Carnival And Worship
Reading Carnival has been held almost every year since it was founded in 1977, one of the clearest marks the Caribbean community has made on the town. Faith has been just as central, and a recording series on the History of Black Worship in Reading tells how the churches brought people together.
Black Reading Today
The Reading Caribbean Associations Group works with Reading Museum on the town's Windrush history, and in 2023 their Windrush Lives display shared the living memory of the Windrush generation and their descendants. Black-owned food spots, barbers, salons and brands are part of everyday Reading.
Shop Black-owned businesses in Reading on CashBlack.
Photo Credits
Reading Town Hall, home of Reading Museum. Photo: Smuconlaw ., CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons