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Oral history recording with Jaqueline Henry, born in Linstead, St. Catherine, Jamaica, in1957. Recorded as part of Race Council Cymru’s Windrush Cymru Heritage Project.

“My mum had a birthmark and I always used to say, I will remember my mum, because she got a birthmark…”

Jacqueline Henry was born in St Catherine, Jamaica in 1957.

“My childhood in Jamaica was fantastic, I loved the school and I loved spending time with my grandad, my grandmother and my uncle.”

“I really wanted to be a geologist, to study fossils. Even when I was over here, I used to love fossils and rocks.”

“I came to the UK December 5th 1969, to join my mum when I was 11 years old… I arrived at Gatwick… so it was right cold.”

“[It] was a shock to the system…I came straight to Cardiff… my mum was living in Ely.”

“When I first came it was an eye-opener. I was 11 going on 12, I was very optimistic and education-wise…”

“I’d never experienced racism until I came to this country, especially as a child…”

“I was my top of the class [in Jamaica]…”

“I was pushed down to lowest of the class, I was a bright child… for the first 3–4 years of my life over here, they knocked my confidence out.”

“The neighbours… the things that they done was unbelievable. I got up one morning and there was like a bucket of… I can’t even describe it… excrement out the back towards the window… my mother [had to] wash down the back…”

“I did not have that much of a problem in work really… I didn’t think I would have been over here for that length of time.”

“I think people should know the depths of their history. Study history properly that’s what I would say.”