Below is a draft proposal for pitching the podcast documentary about Althea McNish. This is my final post on this blog during the Transart Institute Academy, except where my advisors' feedback warrant an additional post or note.
18 June 2022
Title: Caribbean designer takes post-war Britain by storm
Dek: Althea McNish's success in Europe's high fashion world owed much to her multiculture savvy as a Merikin in Trinidad
Logline: Althea McNish, a Trinidadian textile designer who made her mark in the industry during the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, was able to rise above the rabid racism of post-war Britain thanks in part to her rich heritage as a descendant of the Merikins, who abandoned slavery in the US to fight with the British during the early 1800s before settling in Trinidad.
Althea McNish was a world class designer whose legacy since her death in 2020 is attracting increasing attention. She is currently the subject of an exhibition at the William Morris Gallery and will also be featured in upcoming exhibitions in various parts of the world.
Althea was born into a family belonging to Trinidad's Merikins, the name given to black US soldiers who fought with the British during the 1812 war and subsequently migrated to Trinidad in the West Indies. They settled in the rural southeast region, Moruga, and many of their descendants are still living there. As a young woman, in the 1950s, she migrated to the UK with her parents as part of the Windrush generation, as Caribbean migrants to Britain of that era were called. Those Caribbean migrants who responded to the call to help the motherland rebuild in the war's aftermath found their reception by the host community to be exceptionally chilly; but despite the racism that wore down many of her contemporaries, Althea not only survived but thrived and gained clients that included Dior, Balenciaga, Givenchy and other great fashion houses in Europe.
Perhaps Althea's exceptional resilience can be traced to her being a member of the Merikins community, which meant that even in her native Trinidad, she likely learned early on how to negotiate between different cultures successfully, that is, her Merikins culture and the culture of the typical Trinidadian.
The fact that Althea and her family were middle-class, educated, and had migrated voluntarily also meant she was likely more than game for facing up to the harsh realities of life in Britain as a black woman, and had gone there with the full consciousness of just how much she was up against. At the same time, her choice to migrate with her parents (she was 26 at the time) shows she believed in her own capacity to thrive despite the hostility she would encounter, and she seized the opportunity to go to the UK with both hands because she knew what she wanted for herself: She wanted upward social mobility, financial success, and whatever else life in the higher stratas of UK society could offer. In the words of Irene Cara decades later, she intended to "light up the skies like a flame...baby remember my name."
Althea succeeded in achieving her goal.
The podcast documentary would be in 3 parts.
Podcast 1: Would open with discussion of the exhibition of Althea McNish's work now on at William Morris and then, jumping off from a reference to her designs based on Trinidad flora, begin telling the tale of the Merikins, their intrepid spirit in escaping slavery to join the British navy with their entire families in tow, the special skills they provided the British navy in conducting their war against the US, and their experiences after arriving in Trinidad (as a reward for military services) including the tensions they experienced there with native First People communities and white landowners who resented their presence. The podcast will shine a spotlight on the Merikins' particular attachment to the unique topography of Moruga, the area where they settled, in keeping with the following statement from a social scientist. "The morphologies of space are meaningfully mapped to record political, economic, or social events. Oral histories and collective memories can thus be archived and retrieved by reference to spatial markers."
This is indeed evident in Moruga, where the Merikins recorded their history by means of the signage throughout the territory where they settled, as well as by other markers. Althea grew up and went to school in the capital of Trinidad, Port-of-Spain, but the Merikins' attachment to their land likely played a role in shaping Althea's consciousness of her environment, including the flora and colours that became an outstanding hallmark of her work, and will form an important part of this story.
Possible sound design: The sounds from the rural community of Moruga, including the sound of the vehicle travelling over the sometimes rough terrain to get there. Sounds of traditional festivities still observed by the Merikins. Sounds of boats and rivers.
Podcast 2. This story focuses on Althea McNish's life, beginning with her interview with Liberty's chairman and his buying her entire graduation portfolio on the spot, before his putting her in a taxi and sending her off to one of the great designers of that era with whom she would frequently collaborate. We then retrace her steps by going back to her arrival on the ship in the UK and follow her through the challenges of adapting to life in the UK, her achievement of a scholarship to attend the Royal College of Art, her rise in the world of textile and fashion design, as well as her relationship and subsequent marriage to her husband, the well-known Scottish architect John Weiss. The myriad ways she negotiated around racism, principally (in her own words) by ignoring it, and the exceptional interpersonal competence she demonstrated in dealing with members of high society for whom she worked will be shown at appropriate points interwoven throughout the narrative. Her belief that she could make her dreams come true will be made clear as the story unfolds by means of reminiscences of family and acquaintances, as well as the way that belief enabled her to overcome hurdles on the way to achieving it. The podcast will also feature some discussion of her acknowledged technical prowess as an artist, which made it possible for her to produce seminal designs, and the importance of her use of colour in achieving the effect she did.
Possible sound design: Archival footage of radio broadcasts about the arrival of Caribbean people on ships; as well as music by a Trinidadian contemporary of Althea's, known by the sobriquet Lord Kitchener, who produced songs about his time in England. Archival footage from the fashion shows of those she created designs for.
Podcast 3. This will open with sounds of racial protests in Britain during the 1960s and 70s, a particularly difficult time for minorities in that country. It will then be juxtaposed with media footage from the past three years since the Windrush scandal broke in Britain, the result of a misguided and inhumane policy introduced by British Minister Theresa May that deprived many Caribbean-descended Britons of their rights as legal citizens. The podcast will then spotlight the Caribbean Artists Movement, which Althea helped to found in 1966, and will feature interviews with those who knew Althea and joined with her in founding the Movement. This podcast will explore whether Althea felt compelled to be a founding member of this ethnically oriented artists group in response to a shift in racist discourse that began in the late sixties, where blacks were no longer said to be biologically inferior but culturally inferior. This podcast will then briefly summarize the most notable achievements of the Windrush generation in Britain, and look at the ongoing debacle related to the efforts to forcibly repatriate Britons of Caribbean descent, begun under Theresa May, and the inadequate efforts made by the current government to right the wrongs done to them. It will conclude with reflections from experts on the difference that Althea McNish made to the history of modern textile design and ponder whether that history would be as it is today if it were not for her having migrated to the UK to live, study and work.
Possible sound design: Sounds of violent clashes in race riots in Britain during the 1960s and 70s. Sounds of recent news reports about the Windrush scandal that broke about three years ago. Protest songs from that era-- Jimmy Cliff??, etc.
My Bio:
Jewel Fraser is a Caribbean freelance writer who has written environmental stories for international publications for several years. In 2020, she began producing both narrative and interview/discussion style format podcasts. She is the recipient of a 2020 Emerging Producer Bursary from the World Congress of Science and Factual Producers to further her career as a narrative podcast producer. In 2021, she also received a grant from the National Geographic Society’s COVID-19 Emergency Fund for Journalists to support her podcast production work. A former Inter American Press Association scholarship winner, she is a graduate of the Humber College, Ontario, creative writing programme. Based in Trinidad and Tobago, Jewel has working knowledge of the French language and holds the Dalf C1 language diploma.