Oral history interview with Errol Alexis, Windrush Cymru, Our Voices, Our Stories, Our History 2021

Description

"An oral history interview with Errol Alexis in Cardiff, discussing his experience of growing up within a family which migrated from the Caribbean during the 1950s. “My father was a seaman, Cardiff was a seaman’s port… Sometimes we didn’t see him for a year. He was in the Merchant Navy, in the 50s.”
Errol Alexis was born in the West Indies, on the Island of St Vincent, previously a British colony, in 1936. Errol’s father sent for him to come to Britain in 1957, at around 21 years of age.
“I wanted to be a boxer, funny enough…”
“[In school] we had an assembly, we all had to sing the [British] national anthem, in the 50s, it was the British West Indies…The schooling was all administrated by Britain.”
“I asked different people and they put me on the train and I got into Cardiff.”
“I joined the Army [laughs]… In the end, I was called up. We went trained in Maindy Barracks…We were sent to Libya… from Libya to Cyprus as a peacekeeping force to support the Police… We were posted back home, kitted out, a rest, re-trained and they send us to Berlin, this is during the Cold War… [I was] a member of the international guard, we used to guard [Rudolf] Hess…. Well, I was the only Black person there then, but, when you get together you become a family, you all depend on each other, so we [become] a unit… Six years [in the Army].”
“I finished in the Army in the 60s…”
“After a while I had a job on the railway, as the porter in Cardiff General, the end of the 60s… Then I apply for a driving job, I was driving for the railway, then Margaret Thatcher privatised part of that section. A long time, twenty years roughly [worked on railways].”
“I was about 70… A charity [called] ‘Scope’, it’s a nationwide charity, [looks] after disabled people. Twelve years roughly I worked with them…””
I like Wales, you know… You can have two homes… I think they [parents] made a good choice when he come to Wales.”
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• https://www.windrushcymru.org.uk/ (link opens in new window)