The Cunard Yanks & GI Babes

Cunard Yanks

Bristol premiere of a Cunard Yanks already shown in Liverpool and New York to popular aclaim. In the early 1950s young, white, Liverpool seamen who worked the Cunard Line, were sailing to New York. Although they did not know it at the time, they were to collide with the explosion of a new cultural scene in the U.S.A. This was the great migration of Afro-Americans to the northern states and the cities of Chicago, Detroit and New York which had brought new music, dance and fashion to the streets. One of the reoccurring themes of this History Week is the importance of the ship as conduit for information via the crew ‘below decks’. Thus a small group of cooks, pantry-men and waiters who were later to be nick-named “The Cunard Yanks” would act as this conduit and consequently change the cultural history of Liverpool.

2005, 30 mins.

GI Babes

GI Babes is a programme made for the BBC directed by James Macalpine. GI Babes is the story of the black American soldiers based in the West Country in WW2 and the children born to the white women they met. Rachel is a mixed race American in search of her father who was for a time billeted in Bristol. The story of her search is also the story of the Black GI’s and their experiences in the West of England during the war.

2005, 30 mins.
Produced By : Available Light