Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Desert Island Discs
Presented by Lauren Laverne
Photographer known as the godfather of black British photography, documenting Caribbean communities in Birmingham since 1965.
Eight records
Field recording of Jamaican Revival music
I remember this very much when I came to England, you know, it was a very much talked about record and it linked, you know, the whole Jamaica experience with hair.
Sonny's Letter is a letter being written from a son living in England to his mother in Jamaica about his experience at the hands of police.
Speech to the United Nations in 1963
It's important for me because it tries to challenge the whole notion of racism by major powers... It's still relevant today with all that's happening, you know, around the world. Perhaps more so than it was then.
I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free
What is it to be free? What is it to spend a whole day without thinking about race? ... I'd really love to experience that.
I remember during the hard times, you know, when all of this photography documentation and archiving was a big struggle, you know, it helped me through some dark moments.
The keepsakes
The book
The Encyclopedia of Tropical Plants
I think the Encyclopedia of Tropical Plants, it's how to identify and to grow them and what more would you need on a desert island.
The luxury
I identify it as being a rites of passage as a young man. When you've left school and you're given your own field, you have a machete to deal with the land and a sack which is used to put stuff in, stuff you might harvest. It's a Hessian sack.
In conversation
Presenter asks
You've said that your aim is not to hold on to the past, but to document the past for future generations. Why is that important to you?
Well, I think as a group of people we need to be in charge of our history. History is a byproduct of life and it will be written whether we participate in the process or not. And I felt as a group of people who are living this history it is important that we get involved in documenting. And as a photographer I felt it was a good way of writing, helping to write this history.
Presenter asks
You were born in St. Thomas, Jamaica, in 1951 – after your mother moved to Britain, you were raised by your maternal grandparents – what was family life like for you?
It was wonderful. All children had a chore. Mine was sweeping the house or the yard, but it was wonderful. Played with friends… Very rural. I describe where I come from as if you get on a aeroplane to the country, the plane doesn't go beyond that point, and you get in a car, and then it comes to the end of the road, then you get on a donkey, and when the donkey can't go anymore, I live just around the corner. So it is very rural, but absolutely beautiful.
The recording
Timestamps play the recording from that turn
Presenter
BBC Sounds, Music, Radio Podcasts. I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs Podcast. Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. For rights reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening.
Presenter
My castaway this week is Van Lee Burke. He is known as the godfather of black British photography. It was as a ten-year-old boy in rural Jamaica that he first picked up a camera. The Kodak Box Brownie was a gift from his mother, a member of the Windrush generation who'd left her homeland for Britain. In 1965, at the age of 14, he followed her and immediately began to put his camera to good use, capturing the lives of the community surrounding him in Handsworth, Birmingham.
Presenter
His desire from the start was to document history from the inside as it happened. He says I remember realizing that all history had to start somewhere, and that we were at a unique stage of history in this country. I was fortunate enough to be witnessing the arrival of a new group of people.
Presenter
His award-winning images have chronicled the lives of his subjects and the history they are part of ever since. Van Lee Burke Welcome to Desert Island Discs.
Speaker 3
Good morning and thanks for having me.
Presenter
You've said that your aim is not to hold on to the past, but to document the past for future generations. Why is that important to you?
Speaker 3
Well, I think as a group of people we need to be in charge of our history. History is a byproduct of life and it will be written whether we participate in the process or not. And I felt as a group of people who are living this history it is important that we get involved in documenting. And as a photographer I felt it was a good way of writing, helping to write this history.
Presenter
So you knew even as a young man that when you were picking up your camera you were going to capture something special.
Speaker 3
I just thought to myself, here I am witnessing, if you like, or being able to see the arrival of people coming from the Caribbean to this country, and how fortunate I am to do that, because I think, well, what will happen two thousand years from now? And I thought the least I could do is to document that as much as possible. And so the idea was to photograph everything between birth and death, really.
Presenter
And as well as photographing, you are a collector, and your collections reflect, I think you've described it as what is beyond the frame.
Speaker 3
The collection consists of numerous pieces of material I've collected over the years pamphlets, leaflets, magazines, book jackets, clothes, suitcases, anything that resonates with the community, with a history, that have a story attached to it, I collect.
Presenter
I saw some photographs and I noticed an enviable stash of vinyl in the flat. How big a part of your life is music?
Speaker 3
Yeah.
Speaker 3
It is very big, really, but no more so than anything else that I've done. You see, all of this is an attempt to acquire, to capture, to retain as much material I can find for future generation to reference. I have quite a few students from time to time who would write to use material from the archive, and that is the purpose that it was intended, really, for it to inform future generation about, you know, a lived experience.
Presenter
Well, with that in mind, tell me about your first piece of music today.
Speaker 3
The first piece of music is a field recording which was made in rural Jamaica and in particular where I live on the foothills of Blue Mountain, quite rural. I remember going to this place, John Field, where there was a mission hall where this sort of music would be sung. And there's a lot of grant in the process. And for me, it is one of the earliest links with the African experience, and which I heard so much about as a child. So this is a piece of field recording.
Vanley Burke
Mm-hmm.
Vanley Burke
My normal
Vanley Burke
Uh
Vanley Burke
Sweet name
Vanley Burke
Yeah.
Vanley Burke
Yeah.
Vanley Burke
I'm Romania. I'm Ulomenia.
Vanley Burke
Zebenuzi, Zakus, Dudina, Dadugevizi, Izenai, Ilgunai Miniza, Alcumbuzizi, Kasano
Presenter
Clean up.
Presenter
Is it nice? Send me up.
Vanley Burke
How'd you see me, ma'am?
Vanley Burke
It's a million, it's the map.
Vanley Burke
Yeah.
Presenter
A field recording of Jamaican Revival music. Van Lieberg, all of human life is in your photographs from birth to death, via celebrations, protests, religious worship and day trips. Tell me a little bit about the people that you photograph.
Speaker 3
The people are ordinary people who came from the Caribbean in an attempt to improve their life chances really. And I think initially most people came here from the Caribbean for five years. And the reason was the duration of the passport was five years, and they felt that they could improve their lot and return within that time. So the idea was to go back to Jamaica, really. I mean, they initially came here because of the state of the Caribbean at the time. In particular, Jamaica, you know, agriculture was quite poor. I mean, the people needed work. And there were quite a few people, including my grandfather, went to America to pick fruits and work on a farm and then come back and, you know, they'd probably pay for an extension of the house or buying land or whatever is necessary. And I think with America closing the door at the time and England asking for people to come after the Second World War, then, you know, it seemed an obvious thing to do. Because quite a few of these people had served in the Second World War. And it's the return of those people that brought about the wind rush.
Presenter
You've spent your life documenting the lives of people around you in the barber's shop, the cafe, a funeral, at church, and some of the subjects recur in your work, the individual subjects, including the boy at the centre of one of your most famous images, the boy with the flag, which shows a young boy on a homemade bicycle with a Union Jack flag flying from the handlebars. Tell me about the pictures that you took of him, Winford Fagan.
Speaker 3
I had recently bought a camera and I was desperate to start taking photographs so I would go out after my chores on Saturdays and go out and look for photographs to take. And I was walking in Handsworth Park on this Saturday morning and I saw him riding in the park, coming towards me and I thought, wow, it was just incredible to see this young man with his bike adorned with this flag and riding with his dog running behind him. So I asked him if I could take a photograph of him and fortunately agreed. And again, quite fortunately, after I composed the shot, the wind blew in the right time and the flag stood up. And the photograph, it's been used numerous times, many book covers and debates. It's got a life of its own and continued to do so.
Presenter
And later you took pictures of Winford Fagan at his son's funeral, and I think that's a good idea.
Speaker 3
Yes, yes. I'm very much in touch with the people I photograph. I live as part of the community that I photograph and I'm very much aware of what's happening around me and I heard his son was shot and he said if if he was going to allow anyone to take the photograph it would be me and you know I duly went along and took some photographs at the funeral of his son.
Presenter
Fanny Burke, it's time for some more music. Tell me about your second disc.
Speaker 3
Coming from the foothills of the Blue Mountain, I've decided that um Burning Spare Man in the Hills would be an appropriate choice.
Vanley Burke
Come along, my brother, come along.
Vanley Burke
Let us do the things we supposed to do forever mother. Come along, my sister, come along too.
Speaker 1
Never mind.
Vanley Burke
But if we should live up in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in there
Vanley Burke
The
Vanley Burke
Leave up in there.
Vanley Burke
And if we should live up in the year
Presenter
Burning Spear, Man in the Hills. Van Lieberg, you were born in St. Thomas, Jamaica, in 1951. And after your mother moved to Britain to train as a nurse, you were raised by.
Vanley Burke
Do you make
Presenter
Your maternal grandparents, what was family life like for you?
Speaker 3
He was wonderful.
Speaker 3
All children had a chore. Mine was sweeping the house or the yard, but it was wonderful. Played with friends.
Presenter
Rural, isolated, no electricity.
Speaker 3
Very rural electricity. Very rural. I describe where I come from as if you get on a aeroplane to the country, the plane doesn't go beyond that point, and you get in a car, and then it comes to the end of the road, then you get on a donkey, and when the donkey can't go anymore, I live just around the corner.
Speaker 3
So it is very rural, but absolutely beautiful. I mean, we're literally on the top of the hills in some of the foothills. We're from Cedar Valley area, so we could see some distance away.
Presenter
The gram
Speaker 3
Parents farmed, didn't they? Yes, they did. It's a family farm, and they grew cash crops, which my grandmother would take to the market. And we used to look forward to her coming back, because it was only then that we would have sweets. I mean, kids eat sweets now and their tongue goes red. We used to eat beech fruit.
Speaker 3
It's quite healthy.
Presenter
The first photograph of you, which I have seen, is taken outside. You're very formally dressed. You've got a white shirt and tie on, very serious expression on your face. And you're resting your hand on a table with a vase and some flowers on it. Who who took it and why?
Speaker 3
It's a local photographer who would turn up once a week, I think normally on a Sunday, and walk around the community and ask if anyone wants a photograph taken. And these photographs were sent to England to inform the family of how you look in the trousers that they recently sent to you, things like that. And this was outside our house in Melee, up in the hills. And the table was taken outside and it was made. to look like a studio shot really. And this is similar as well to the photographs that would be sent back to Jamaica where people would dress up, you know, in their, we call Sunday best, men working in factories and so on would have gloves on and tie, they would sit beside the telephone and the table. It's an attempt to show success or progress that they've made. But sometimes the telephone, you could see the cord, it wasn't plugged into anything really.
Presenter
But the photograph in that context very powerful.
Speaker 3
It is very powerful, yes.
Presenter
The first camera you ever owned was a gift from your mother. Do you remember the box brownie? What do you remember about that?
Speaker 3
I remember it very well. I remember opening the yellow box. I remember the smell of it. We don't have any technology where you from. All our toys we made ourselves. But this would be in one of the many parcels that were sent back to family in the Caribbean. And this is normally on a birthday, Christmas, or occasions like that. And in one of these occasions, I received this box brownie camera. As I said, the smell of it, the look of it, and also I was fascinated by the science of it. How did the image get from there to here? And I remember when I eventually had some lessons on how to use the camera, it was keep the sun behind you and don't press the shutter, squeeze it. And I've remembered it obviously, you know, ever since.
Presenter
Yeah.
Presenter
Family Burke, tell me about your next disc.
Speaker 3
My third is My Boy Lollipop, Millie Small. I remember this very much when I came to England, you know, it was a very much talked about record and it linked, you know, the whole Jamaica experience with hair. So My Boy Lollipop, Millie Small.
Vanley Burke
You're my Shiva Daniel
Vanley Burke
SAP
Speaker 3
Uh
Presenter
Millie Small, my boy Lollipop. Family Burke, at fourteen you arrived in the UK. Now your mother had married by this time and you had a stepfather and four brothers. So a new country and pretty much a new family to adjust to. How much of a culture shock was it?
Speaker 3
It was a fairly big shock really. I mean prior to coming here we were told about cold and snow and fog and you know all of this sort of thing and it's how am I going to live in this cold place that I hear about. I I desperately wanted to get away from Jamaica. You know it was like a wish come true really. But as it happened prior to leaving I'd gotten on the aeroplane only to be sent back because they had lost my passport. So you know just when you thought you'd escape you sent back.
Presenter
So hang on, you got on the aeroplane and then had to get off the airplane
Speaker 3
I had to get get off the aeroplane. And not only that, I'd been given a bottle of coconut oil to take to my family in England, and I think the bottle had broken, and they didn't know about it, so I had to deal with all of that, amongst other things, when I got back.
Presenter
And you're travelling on your own.
Speaker 3
I'm traveling on my own and two days later we we had I think it was a t it would have been a telegram in those days to say that you know I could travel. So coming to England was for me I think like a lot of people's experience I've heard about where I come from is very rural so therefore when you arrive here and you see all these buildings with smoke coming out of them, you know, these houses we thought were factories.
Presenter
Your parents ran the shop in Handsworth, just beyond Birmingham City Centre. Now, obviously, the local shop is the hub of a community. What was yours like?
Speaker 3
It was a really wonderful place to hear the experiences of and lives of the people who were around. It's where they would talk about their experience in the factory, in the church. And arriving at the shop, again it was a shop, it was small. It's my first experience of having an upstairs, downstairs, the back garden, really. You look out and there was no green at all. It was just houses. So it was a bit of a culture colour shock. And what was the community itself like? Who was around you? It was a mixed community. There were quite a few English, Irish, not that many people from the Indian subcontinent at that stage. But, you know, you get the racism. You know, you'd have a situation where one family would move in in the street and the white neighbours on either side would move out. I think ghettos, as they're referred to, are not really made by the people who move in there. They're made by the people who move out of these places, really. Having said that, I'm not by any means suggesting that all white people were aggressive towards, there were friends of my family who were white as well. And my mother, in our album, she has many friends who seen playing in the snow with when she came here to study to become a nurse who were white as well. So it's just the majority of people that we encountered, there was this friction.
Presenter
Time for some music, Vanley Burke. Tell me about your fourth disc.
Speaker 3
My fourth disc is in relation to all that was happening at the time, you know, the Sus laws, where the police would stop and search individuals in the street without reason. And obviously this annoyed a lot of people who were going about their lawful business. And it, you know, in many areas it erupted into violence. So I've chosen Lynton Quesar Johnson Sonny's Letter. Sonny's Letter is a letter being written from a son living in England to his mother in Jamaica about his experience at the hands of police.
Speaker 3
Them thump him in him belly and it turn to jelly Them lick him pan him back and him rib dead pop Them lick him pan him head but it tough like lead Them kick him in him seat and it started to bleed
Speaker 3
Mama
Speaker 3
I just couldn't stand up there nor do nothin'.
Speaker 3
So me droop one in him eye and he started to cry Me thump one in him out and him started to shout Me drink one ban him shin and him started to spin Me thump him on him chin and him drop on a bin and crash
Speaker 3
Undead
Presenter
Yeah.
Speaker 3
Uh
Presenter
Lynton Quasi Johnson Ann Sonny's letter. Vanley Burke, you were part of a growing West Indian community in Birmingham that was much discussed in the media at the time. How much of what you heard and read reflected your own experience?
Speaker 3
Very little, really. I mean, we heard about disease-ridden people living in an overcrowded house, you know, stealing our jobs and our women lazy, you know, and all of these negatives. And I wasn't experiencing that. So that also, you know, propelled me to that, you know, we need to document our own history. We need to hear our own voice. So definitely that influenced me somewhat.
Presenter
And what about the generation gap between you and your parents who were part of that early Windrush generation? You know, how wide was the the gap and the the difference in attitudes between those sets?
Speaker 3
Well, a lot of the older generation, I think, came and they thought that if a young person came and told them, you know, I'm being racially abused at school or by the police or by any of the institutions around, they wouldn't necessarily believe them. Their attitude is that there is no smoke without fire. And you must have done something wrong for this to happen. It wasn't until much later on that a lot of people realized that, you know, their children were being picked on, really. And for many, by then, it was too late. Because there was a lot of brutality. You know, a lot of people died at the hand of racists, you know, racism and racists in this country. You know, in police cells, a lot of them would be put in mental institutions we hear about. But that's been going on for a long time. So yes, a lot of people have been really, I have to say, brutalized by the system.
Presenter
And at the time, who were you taking your photographs for? I d I don't know.
Speaker 3
I mean I I talk about I'm photographing for the people but I really don't know if I could identify them. I just felt the need, you know, compelled if you like to document these things. And it wasn't always easy photographing the community and I've been threatened a few times in the process. But I just felt that if you like I knew best.
Speaker 3
You know, and you will come around to seeing what I'm trying to do. So I remember when times got a bit tough later on, I thought to myself, what would happen if I were to take all my negatives and publicly took an ad out in a few choice press and say, well, Vanderburg will be destroying all his negatives in Hansoth Park on 12 o'clock on the 14th of whatever month? Who would respond to that? And I remember telling a young man this and he said, they're not yours to burn. And for me, that solves the whole question I needn't ask anymore. It wasn't necessarily that I wanted to destroy them because I still knew the value in them, but I just wanted to question the whole process of why am I taking these images and what are their purpose and who is aware of them and who will be involved with their use.
Presenter
Vanderberg, tell me about your fifth disc.
Speaker 3
My fifth disc is Haile Selassie's speech to United Nation in 1963. I recently used this speech in a piece of work I did at the MAC in Birmingham, Beyond Windrush, where I I say I squeezed the air out of it. I took out all the spaces, all the punctuation marks, all the capitals, and just presented it in a block form.
Presenter
Why is this speech important?
Speaker 3
It's important for me because it tries to challenge the whole notion of racism by major powers, the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior. It's also the speech that Bob Marley's song War was based on, but I wanted to go back to its source. It's still relevant today with all that's happening, you know, around the world. Perhaps more so than it was then.
Vanley Burke
But until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned, until there are no longer first class and second class citizens of any nature,
Vanley Burke
That until the colour of a man's skin.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 1
Until the
Speaker 1
Man's skin.
Vanley Burke
is of no more significance than the color of his eyes, that until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all without regard to race, that until that day the dream of lasting peace
Speaker 1
Think peace.
Vanley Burke
And world citizenship and the rule of international morality will remain but a fleeting illusion to be pursued but never attained.
Vanley Burke
And until the ignoble and unhappy regimes that hold our brothers in Angola, in Mozambique, and in South Africa in subhuman bondage have been toppled and destroyed, until bigotry and prejudice, malicious and inhuman self-interest have been replaced by understanding and tolerance and goodwill, until all Africans stand up and speak as free human beings, equal in the eyes of all men as they are in the eyes of heaven, until that day the African continent will not know peace.
Presenter
Haile Selassie speaking at the UN in 1963. Van Liberg, how did you go about becoming a photographer? Did you have a dark room?
Speaker 3
Yes, I started by I built a dark room at my grandparents' house. They'd recently purchased a house in the Los Hills area, Birchfield area, and I'd converted the old outside coal house into a dark room. My uncle helped me to put electricity and water in it, and I would spend numerous hours in there doing photography. But I'd also go to evening classes to learn photography. And later on I worked and I went to the School of Photography in Birmingham. But I spent a lot of time, you know, in the dark room. You know, while friends were going to parties and so on, I'd been there in the wee hours of the morning trying to understand how photography works or trying to take that perfect image.
Presenter
Having left school, you took a job as a studio attendant at Birmingham College of Art and Design, so it wasn't possible to make a living from your photographs of terms.
Speaker 3
I tried the idea of going around to houses, you know, taking photographs, but my parents really my mother in particular didn't want
Speaker 3
She thought, well, photography was something you do in your spare time. Really, you know, you need to do a job. What about engineering or something like that? And I would go around to people's houses and take photographs. They'd come to the shops and invite me to take photographs of them and their family. But I soon knocked that on the head because when I took the photograph, to deliver the photograph and to collect my money, I was told, can you come back next week? The paraffin man has just come and they've just paid the paraffin man. So can you come back next week? And that went on too often, so I decided, you know, I'm not going to be doing this.
Presenter
Yeah.
Presenter
Powerful man's always good prioritise. Prioritize don't have to agree.
Speaker 3
Prioritize them after. Rightfully so. And so I just decided I was going to concentrate on taking the photographs. But fortunately, none of my family has ever said you need to get a proper job. You know, they've always supported what I've done.
Presenter
And when do you know it's time to put the camera down?
Speaker 3
It's never a time to put the camera down. That's when you can't lift it up. I don't always succeed, but I try to take photograph every day.
Presenter
Fanny Burke, tell me about your next disc.
Speaker 3
Um the next disc is Miles Davis Blue in Green. Just a wonderful, gentle music you can relax to. And if you drink rum, you can have a rum and coconut water, you know, too. Beautiful music.
Presenter
Yes, please.
Presenter
Miles Davis, Blue in Green. Van Lee Burke, you exhibited a Windrush-inspired installation 5,000 miles and 70 years at the Mac in Birmingham earlier this year. Now you're the son of one of the Windrush generation and of course controversy over incorrect deportations of Windrush citizens has been making headlines all year. You must have been following the story very closely. How do you feel about it all personally?
Speaker 3
But for the grace of God, go hi, really, because I'm one of those people. Fortunately, I happen to have applied for citizenship when it was asked and I was exempted. But I've met a number of people who since told me that they were caught up in the whole event. A gentleman whom I hadn't seen for some time, I noticed him recently at our local shopping center, and he told me that he was in Jamaica for some years. He was unable to return to England. And he was just able to, because of the recent controversy, he was given leave to come back to England. You know, if you can imagine just being told you can't go back, you can't work. The ability to use the national health facilities, to work, to gain mortgage, to have a bank account, it affects every aspect of your life. So, you know, these people have been traumatized, really. It's quite shocking.
Presenter
And, you know, how do you feel as a British citizen watching that happen?
Speaker 3
I'm incensed by it all really, as a number of fair-minded thinking people would be. It's particularly horrific to treat people who were invited, if you like, to contribute. And many of them, you have to remember, paid their own fare to come here to fight the war. And there was a collection around the island to buy spitfires to fight in the Second World War. And they came and they contributed with their lives. And they've really developed this country in many, many respects. And to find that then you're being shoved on the scrap heap, it's a bit disheartening.
Presenter
You're described as the godfather of black British photography and have said in the past that people are desperate to see themselves. Are they still, do you think? Or is social media helping to change things and to redress that balance?
Speaker 3
No, I I say people are desperate to see themselves re reflected in the society and see their contribution to the society that they live in, the communities that they live in.
Speaker 3
I I think I've been very fortunate in that I've hit upon something that resonates with the people that I I photograph. So they're quite keen to see what what I'm doing and what I've done. And you know for all the exhibitions that I've had, there is this eagerness to see and to share that experience with other people.
Presenter
Tags of music, Van Lib. Tell me about your seventh disc.
Speaker 3
The seventh one is Nina Simone. I wish I knew how it would feel to be free. I've loved Nina Simone amongst many other artists, but she was exceptional. And this one for me is really you know,
Speaker 3
What is it to be free? What is it to spend a whole day without thinking about race? You know, what is it to spend, if you like, hours without thinking about it? What would life really be like? You know, if that is freedom, how would it be? And I'd really love to experience that. I don't think I might, though, but, you know, I do like her rendition of this.
Vanley Burke
I wish I knew how it would feel.
Vanley Burke
To be free.
Vanley Burke
I wish I could breathe
Vanley Burke
Are the chains holding me?
Vanley Burke
I wish I could say all the things that I should say Say them loud, say them clear
Vanley Burke
For the whole round world of heal
Vanley Burke
I wish I could share all the love that's in my heart.
Vanley Burke
Uh
Speaker 3
Remove all the bars that keep us apart.
Vanley Burke
I wish you could know
Vanley Burke
What it means to be me
Vanley Burke
Then you'd see and agree that every man should be free.
Presenter
Name Simone, I wish I knew how it would feel to be free. Vanley Burt, I know you see your mum every day and you you cook for her. Is it true that you take food from your own allotment?
Speaker 3
Is it true that you
Speaker 3
Yes, a few years ago my friend Claudette Holmes, she had an allotment and she invited a number of us to come and share the allotment with her. And she moved on to somewhere else and it's now my allotment. So yes, I grow vegetables. It's where I go to do my thinking really.
Presenter
How green are your fingers?
Speaker 3
Very green. You have to remember that I come from a rural, you know, and farming would have been my next choice of career had I stayed in the Caribbean. I love growing things. All our vegetables in the summer I grow and I give to friends and family. And we cook and eat. The pumpkins are wonderful. Tomatoes are wonderful this year. Everything is not too bad.
Presenter
Time for our final piece of music, Van Lib. What's it going to be?
Speaker 3
The next disc is Leo Graham Not Giving Up. And I remember during the hard times, you know, when all of this photography documentation and archiving was a big struggle, you know, it helped me through some dark moments. I just needed something, if you like, to propel you along. You know, you're not making the progress you thought you should be making at the time. And it just pull you along, push you along and jolly you up and tell you, you know, just get on with it, really.
Vanley Burke
I know it drops.
Vanley Burke
Although it's tough, I'm not giving up.
Vanley Burke
I don't hit your up
Vanley Burke
I know it's a
Vanley Burke
I'm not deceiving a
Vanley Burke
Life can be this weather.
Vanley Burke
It shouldn't be so rubble.
Vanley Burke
It shouldn't be so troubled.
Vanley Burke
No
Presenter
Uh
Vanley Burke
Oh no.
Presenter
Leo Graham and not giving up. Van Lee Burke, I'm about to cast you away into lonely isolation on your very own desert island, but having discussed your tenacity and resourcefulness and lately your green fingers, I get the feeling you might be alright. What do you think I should do?
Speaker 3
I think I should I'd like the experience.
Presenter
You like it.
Speaker 3
Yeah, it's a challenge. I like challenges.
Presenter
Would you get lonely?
Speaker 3
I might do, but, you know, I try to form a relationship with the animals around, try to get a parrot or something you can teach in whatever language you speak.
Presenter
And of course you're going to be a fair distance from your archive. What about collecting? What we'll do is.
Speaker 3
Oh, I'd find something to collect. Perhaps collect seashells, make things from seashells, coconuts. Yeah, I'd find something to do.
Presenter
You will, of course, find the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare waiting for you there. You can also choose another book to take with you. What's it going to be?
Speaker 3
I think the Encyclopedia of Tropical Plants, it's how to identify and to grow them and what more would you need on a desert island.
Presenter
You can also take a luxury with you, something that will make the time on the island more pleasurable. What would you like?
Speaker 3
A machete and a crocos bag.
Presenter
Machete in a Crocus Bag What is a Crocus Bag?
Speaker 3
I identify it as being a rites of passage as a young man. When you've left school and you're given your own field, you have a machete to deal with the land and a sack which is used to put stuff in, stuff you might harvest. It's a Hessian sack.
Presenter
Haven't you painted on those in the past?
Speaker 3
I have done. You've done your homework well.
Speaker 3
Yeah, they resonate with the history of the people and my experience and the lives of the people who immigrated from the Caribbean. So yes, I've sorted them out and painted on them.
Presenter
I have one last thing to ask of you, Van Lieberg. If you could only keep one of your fabulous tracks today, which would it be?
Speaker 3
It would be Miles Davis Blue and Green. You know, at the end of a l long day cultivating the island, it's something to come and listen to. So I would definitely take Miles Davis Blue and Green.
Presenter
Sublime choice. Van Liberg, thank you so much for sharing your Desert Island discs with us.
Speaker 3
Thank you very much. I've listened to Desent Island all my British life and I didn't dream that I'd be sitting in this chair. Thank you. It's been a pleasure being here.
Presenter
I hope you enjoyed that interview with Vandi Burke.
Presenter
Many photographers have been cast up on the island's sandy shores, including David Bailey in 1991, Sam Taylor Wood in 2005, and Rankin, who spoke with Kirstie Young in 2013.
Presenter
Eve Arnold, the first American woman to be a member of the famous photographic cooperative Magnum, talked to Sue Lawley in 1996.
Vanley Burke
Your photography is self-taught, isn't it, Eve? You've never really had any professional training. Oh, I had six weeks of training at the New School for Social Research under Brodovich, who was the great hero of magazine art direction. This was in New York. In New York. Just six weeks. Six weeks. It was given to the school called New School for Social Research.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Vanley Burke
How did you get on?
Vanley Burke
Well, the first day that I went to the class I brought some pictures with me.
Vanley Burke
Rodovitch had told the class that we were all going to criticize each other's work.
Vanley Burke
And the class was just savage with me. My work was not very good. It was.
Vanley Burke
Very much camera club kind of thing.
Vanley Burke
And I left that class determined that I would never go back.
Vanley Burke
However, I was too intrigued with what the assignment that was given us was, which was for the following week we were all to go out and photograph
Vanley Burke
Fashion shot, and I wasn't interested in fashion, but I dug up.
Vanley Burke
A group of fashion models in Harlem. And it was really quite incredible because this was in the fifties.
Vanley Burke
when you couldn't place a magazine article in a white magazine about a black.
Vanley Burke
But I was intrigued with these young women. It was before the civil rights movement became very heavy in the States. And these women in Harlem were sewing their own clothes, designing them. It was at once an attempt to go their own way and also an attempt to turn their backs on Seventh Avenue and the rag trade in New York.
Vanley Burke
And I photographed there came back with the pictures to the class.
Vanley Burke
Of one of the models called Fabulous. Her name was Charlotte Scribling, but she called herself Fabulous.
Vanley Burke
and Brodovich, who was giving the class,
Vanley Burke
decided that these were fine pictures and I was to go back.
Vanley Burke
and continue photographing and I went back for over a year. But wh what was so extraordinary about that? Well these were the days when people worked mainly in studios and everything was beautifully lit and retouched and organized. And these were simply documentation and recordings of what was going on. It was kind of reportage. A reportage with no eff
Vanley Burke
No additional light.
Vanley Burke
Everything as was. And the models moving, not posed. No, no, the models moving and, you know, preparing and putting on their makeup and their wigs and doing whatever they were doing. But was it so very different in terms of the image? I mean, I've seen the pictures you're talking about and Fabulous was kind of sacheting towards you, wasn't she, with these wonderful clothes on. Well, she was in motion. Yeah. And that was not what happened. You would always say, hold it.
Vanley Burke
If you run a studio and photographing a model, it was always posy, it was always contrived.
Vanley Burke
Uh whereas this was natural. And because I didn't know it shouldn't be done that way, I did it my way. So it was available light. It was w you were off the tripod, it was hand held, was it? It was handheld. Which was incredibly avant-garde, really, wasn't it?
Speaker 1
And
Vanley Burke
in gone into the visual language, that kind of thing.
Presenter
Eve Arnold speaking to Sue in 1996. There are over 2,000 more wonderful castaways housed in the Desert Island Disc's back catalogue. You can download all our podcasts and listen wherever you want. Next time, my guest will be Hella Pick. She'll be 90 next year and spent 35 years as a journalist with The Guardian. She was witness to some of the key events and interviewed some of the pivotal figures of the past century. I do hope you'll join us.
Speaker 1
Hello, I'm Matthew Price and alongside Tina DeHealy I host the Beyond Today podcast from the BBC. Each weekday we're going to be tackling some of the biggest news stories with help from some of the best and most informed journalists in the BBC. It's the news podcast that jumps right in to give you that little bit more. So make sure you head over to the BBC Sounds app, search for Beyond Today and subscribe. And if you'd like to join in the chat, use the hashtag BBC Beyond.
Presenter asks
The first camera you ever owned was a gift from your mother. Do you remember the Box Brownie? What do you remember about that?
I remember it very well. I remember opening the yellow box. I remember the smell of it. We don't have any technology where you from. All our toys we made ourselves. But this would be in one of the many parcels that were sent back to family in the Caribbean… I received this box brownie camera. As I said, the smell of it, the look of it, and also I was fascinated by the science of it. How did the image get from there to here? And I remember when I eventually had some lessons on how to use the camera, it was keep the sun behind you and don't press the shutter, squeeze it.
Presenter asks
At 14 you arrived in the UK – your mother had married by this time and you had a stepfather and four brothers – so a new country and pretty much a new family to adjust to. How much of a culture shock was it?
It was a fairly big shock really. I mean prior to coming here we were told about cold and snow and fog and you know all of this sort of thing and it's how am I going to live in this cold place that I hear about. I desperately wanted to get away from Jamaica. You know it was like a wish come true really. But as it happened prior to leaving I'd gotten on the aeroplane only to be sent back because they had lost my passport. So you know just when you thought you'd escape you sent back… coming to England was for me I think like a lot of people's experience I've heard about where I come from is very rural so therefore when you arrive here and you see all these buildings with smoke coming out of them, you know, these houses we thought were factories.
Presenter asks
You were part of a growing West Indian community in Birmingham that was much discussed in the media. How much of what you heard and read reflected your own experience?
Very little, really. I mean, we heard about disease-ridden people living in an overcrowded house, you know, stealing our jobs and our women lazy, you know, and all of these negatives. And I wasn't experiencing that. So that also, you know, propelled me to that, you know, we need to document our own history. We need to hear our own voice. So definitely that influenced me somewhat.
Presenter asks
What about the generation gap between you and your parents who were part of that early Windrush generation – how wide was the gap and the difference in attitudes between those sets?
Well, a lot of the older generation, I think, came and they thought that if a young person came and told them, you know, I'm being racially abused at school or by the police or by any of the institutions around, they wouldn't necessarily believe them. Their attitude is that there is no smoke without fire. And you must have done something wrong for this to happen. It wasn't until much later on that a lot of people realized that, you know, their children were being picked on, really. And for many, by then, it was too late. Because there was a lot of brutality. You know, a lot of people died at the hand of racists, you know, racism and racists in this country. You know, in police cells, a lot of them would be put in mental institutions we hear about. But that's been going on for a long time. So yes, a lot of people have been really, I have to say, brutalized by the system.
Presenter asks
You exhibited a Windrush-inspired installation '5,000 Miles and 70 Years' at the MAC in Birmingham earlier this year. You're the son of one of the Windrush generation, and controversy over incorrect deportations has been making headlines. You must have been following it closely. How do you feel about it all personally?
But for the grace of God, go hi, really, because I'm one of those people. Fortunately, I happen to have applied for citizenship when it was asked and I was exempted. But I've met a number of people who since told me that they were caught up in the whole event… if you can imagine just being told you can't go back, you can't work. The ability to use the national health facilities, to work, to gain mortgage, to have a bank account, it affects every aspect of your life. So, you know, these people have been traumatized, really. It's quite shocking… I'm incensed by it all really, as a number of fair-minded thinking people would be. It's particularly horrific to treat people who were invited, if you like, to contribute. And many of them, you have to remember, paid their own fare to come here to fight the war… And they came and they contributed with their lives. And they've really developed this country in many, many respects. And to find that then you're being shoved on the scrap heap, it's a bit disheartening.
“I just thought to myself, here I am witnessing, if you like, or being able to see the arrival of people coming from the Caribbean to this country, and how fortunate I am to do that, because I think, well, what will happen two thousand years from now? And I thought the least I could do is to document that as much as possible. And so the idea was to photograph everything between birth and death, really.”
“I think ghettos, as they're referred to, are not really made by the people who move in there. They're made by the people who move out of these places, really.”
“I remember a young man [said] the negatives are not yours to burn. And for me, that solves the whole question I needn't ask anymore. It wasn't necessarily that I wanted to destroy them because I still knew the value in them, but I just wanted to question the whole process of why am I taking these images and what are their purpose and who is aware of them and who will be involved with their use.”
“It's never a time to put the camera down. That's when you can't lift it up. I don't always succeed, but I try to take photograph every day.”
“What is it to be free? What is it to spend a whole day without thinking about race? You know, what is it to spend, if you like, hours without thinking about it? What would life really be like? You know, if that is freedom, how would it be? And I'd really love to experience that. I don't think I might, though.”