W - reference file


 		  
 
Simon Woolley - Director of Operation Black Vote a project designed to get Black people to not only exercise their democratic right to vote, but to get actively involved in the political process. Woolley is a founder of OBV. He has helped guide the project from an idea into an influential national organisation. He writes and comments for the national and Black press and media. He is a board member of the String of Pearls Festival, Chair of the Black Londoners Forum, member of the National Black Caucus and of the Black Jewish Forum. OBV
 
Trix Worrel - Director, producer and writer. Worrel is the famed film and television producer/director who created perhaps the most successful Black British sitcom Desmond's. The series starring the late Norman Beaton, Carmen Monroe and Robbie Gee centred around a Peckham, southeast London, barbershop. It was the longest running Black British sitcom.
 
The Empire Windrush brought the first wave of first generation of migrant workers from the Caribbean to Britain in 1948.The ship was built in Germany and originally named the Monte Rosa on its launch in 1930. During world war two it was used as both a troop and hospital ship. It was seized by British forces after the German defeat, refitted and renamed Empire Windrush. The journey for which it is renowned took place in 1948. Adverts in Jamaica’s Gleaner newspaper offered cheap transport for anybody wanting to work in the England. The war had created a labour shortage and many low-paid positions were up for grabs. The fare was a cut-price £28 and 10 shillings. When the Windrush departed Kingston on May 24th, 1948, it had 300 passengers below deck and 192 above, from Jamaica and Trinidad. It took a month to reach England, eventually docking at Tilbury in Essex on June 22nd. Hundreds of its passengers were temporarily housed in the Clapham South deep air-raid shelter in south-west London. The shelter was less than a mile from the nearest labour exchange on Coldharbour Lane in Brixton and so naturally Brixton became the spiritual home of modern Black Britain. The fate of the boat however ended in tragedy. On a trip from Kure in Japan to Southampton in 1954, a large explosion in the engine room just off the Algerian coast completely burned out the ship. What was left sank in the Mediterranean.
 

SILCOTT, Winston - "Silcott has been tried for murder three times, he's been convicted twice and acquitted once - either he's very, very unlucky or he's as guilty as sin," said a policemen when asked about him.
Silcott was jailed for life in 1987 for the killing of policeman Keith Blakelock during the 1985 Broadwater Farm riots - the conviction was later overturned and he was cleared in November 1991. The guilty verdicts of Engin Raghip and Mark Braithwaite who were charged alongside Silcott were also quashed.
Silcott had been jailed on the weight of an unsigned, uncorroborated police statements taken in the absence of a solicitor. Analysis showed that some pages of the document had been replaced at a later stage. He was released in October 2003 having served 18 years for the murder of boxer Tony Smith. 
Silcott lives in Tottenham, north London and has been involved in various community and anti-crime schemes. He is believed to be penning an autobiography 
 
Jacqueline Walker is a mother of three whose book Pilgrim State tells the story of her mother Dorothy and her tragic battle with mental health coupled with a determination to keep her family together. Walker a PhD in black identity in literature says the book pays homage to her mother: "This was a recognition of my mother's parenting achievements that social services had not acknowledged."

   
 

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