Tilbury is the place for us!

Learning about Windrush history inspired a new Tilbury song

A highlight of the T100 Dreaming festival this year was a new song for Tilbury being created with students from Gateway Academy and participants from the local Youth Services, in partnership with English Heritage, Kinetika Bloco and award-winning, Trinidad born musician, Anthony Joseph,

The new song, entitled ‘Tilbury is the Place for Us’, was inspired by Lord Kitchener’s 1948 Calypso “London is the Place for Me” sung upon arrival at Tilbury Docks on the Empire Windrush.  To learn about local history, the students were granted access to Tilbury Cruise Terminal and Railway, being the first visitors there in over a year.  Stops on the tour showed them the place where the Empire Windrush arrived all those years ago, as well as Tilbury Fort where the song would be performed for the T100 Dreaming Finale on 1st August.

Tilbury locals Les Morgan, Winnie Nyamu and Melvin Ndebele shared personal stories about their connections to these local landmarks which provided further inspiration for the new song.

The song features lyrics about how these young people feel about living in Tilbury, hear it in some of the film clips below, along with comments on the project from Anthony Joseph, Shayanna Harris from Kinetika Bloco, Clare Simmonds from English Heritage and Les Morgan.  Some were filmed at the rehearsal, and some at the final performance at Tilbury Fort.

‘Tilbury is the Place for Me’ was an incredible project celebrating this rich, historic and diverse place, we’re excited to see how this develops into the future working with all the partners and participants.

With thanks to Tilbury on the Thames Trust, Tilbury Cruise Terminal, Port of Tilbury, Tilbury Fort, Gateway Academy, Kinetika Bloco, Anthony Joseph and the local Tilbury musicians as well as  English Heritage, Shout out Loud  and the Heritage Lottery Fund for making this possible.

Tilbury is the Place for Me is part of Shout Out Loud, English Heritage’s national youth engagement programme. Shout Out Loud is funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund’s Kick the Dust programme.

Photos by Mike Johnston & Katie Beadle. Video by Mike Johnston.