The contributions of Caribbean and African servicemen and women to Britain’s wartime efforts are set to be explored in a public talk at The Questors Theatre in Ealing on Saturday evening (15 November 2025).
The event, The Forgotten Soldiers, will be presented by curator and community organiser Michelle Brooks and staged in partnership with the Caribbean and African Collective Ealing (CACE) and Showpatrol Productions. It forms part of The Reminiscence Room, a Mayor of London–funded installation hosted at The Questors that invites visitors to reflect on Windrush-era history, heritage and community identity. Running until 5 January 2026, the installation recreates a 1960s domestic setting designed to prompt reflection on migration, memory and the shaping of modern Britain.
The talk will focus on the lives of several Black servicemen and women whose roles in the First and Second World Wars have long been under-represented in mainstream narratives. They include Lilian Bader, one of the first Black women to serve in the RAF; David Louis Clemetson, a Jamaican-born First World War officer; and Walter Tull, the professional footballer who became one of Britain’s earliest Black infantry officers. The stories of Arthur Roberts, a Scottish soldier of Barbadian heritage whose wartime diaries survived the trenches, and Sam King, an RAF veteran, Windrush passenger and later Southwark’s first Black mayor, will also be explored.
A photographic display, The Forgotten Soldiers Exhibition, will accompany the talk and remain open at the theatre until 17 November 2025.
Ms Brooks said the event aimed to widen public understanding of Britain’s military past and the communities whose contributions have often gone unrecognised.
She explained: “This talk is about more than remembrance. It’s about reconnecting with a shared past and acknowledging how Caribbean and African service helped shape the Britain we know now. Their stories deserve to be remembered – not just in history books, but in the hearts of our communities.”
Tickets are available via The Questors Theatre box office. Standard tickets cost £15 and child tickets (up to age 18) are £12.50.
