Following the commemoration event in Windrush Square on Remembrance Sunday ‘Remembered: In Memoriam’ was officially launched in Brixton library:
This is a handsome hardcover volume, described as ‘an anthology of African and Caribbean experience in WW1 & WW2’.
A number of the writers who contributed were present including Nairobi Thompson who hosted the event and did her best to keep co-editor Jak Beula’s excited enthusiasm in check (a difficult job, adroitly done).
Mind you, his enthusiasm was understandable, this is an important publication which, as he proudly pointed out, includes a message of support from Her Majesty The Queen.
In addition to Nairobi, other writers on stage included Professor Gus John, Marika Sherwood, Esther Stanford-Xosei, Dr Onyeka Nubia and Patrick Vernon. Other authors and special guests were in the audience and it was a real pleasure to meet Walter Tull’s great nephew who had traveled down from Scotland specially for the event. If I understood correctly Nairobi is herself a great, great niece of Walter so this was something of a Tull family gathering. Walter’s great nephew is definitely ‘White’ and Nairobi is equally definitely Black, seeing them together was a great visual metaphor for the joys of living in multi cultural Britain. I was also able to shake the hand of Phil Vasili author of several books about pioneering Black footballers that grace the shelves of Historycal Roots.
The book was on sale at the event but if you want a copy now I think you will probably have to contact the Nubian Jak Community Trust: http://nubianjak.org/ It’s well worth the effort.