Una Marson at Broadcasting House

From 1941 Una Marson produced ‘Calling the West Indies’ and ‘Caribbean Voices’ from Broadcasting House — the BBC’s first Black woman programme-maker. Jamaican poet, journalist and broadcaster Una Marson joined the BBC in 1941 as a programme assistant on ‘Calling the West Indies’, a service for Caribbean troops serving in Britain. By 1943 she was producing ‘Caribbean Voices’, which over the next decade gave national air-time to V.S. Naipaul, Sam Selvon, Derek Walcott, George Lamming and many others — effectively launching post-war Caribbean literature in English.

She broke under the strain in 1946 and returned to Jamaica. Broadcasting House at Portland Place still stands.

People

• Una Marson

Themes

• Literature
• Caribbean diaspora
• Theatre & performance

Place

• Westminster
• Wartime

Hero image

• File: /media/people/una-marson.jpg
• Credit: BBC, Second World War
• License: Public domain
• Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AUna_Marson_-_BBC_-_WWII.jpg

Sources

• Jarrett-Macauley, Delia. The Life of Una Marson, 1905–65. Manchester University Press, 1998.