I first started going to the George Padmore Institute (GPI) when I was studying for my PhD. At the time, my focus was the Caribbean Artists Movement (CAM), especially Andrew Salkey who adopted the folkloric figure Anancy, the subject of my research, in so many of his stories. The letters I found at the GPI offered an invaluable insight into those early months of CAM, reflecting a commitment and passion that John La Rose aptly described in his poetry collection Foundations as the ‘fireburn of [their] insides’.

After I completed my PhD, I started volunteering at the GPI. What I discovered was that the incredible CAM resource is only a small part of the archive, its many parts united by a shared sense of purpose and the determination to bring about change. Since I started volunteering last year, in 2025, I have had the opportunity to delve into collections I didn’t know existed – John La Rose’s personal papers and fascinating photos and letters from the International Book Fairs where it’s possible to glimpse a host of groundbreaking individuals in literature, politics, music and publishing, standing proudly alongside Sarah White, John La Rose and the Huntleys, the sense of the significance of those events emanating from their faces.

There are other items of course: papers from the Black Parents Movement and the New Cross Massacre Action Committee alongside other campaigns which Sarah White and John La Rose and many others tirelessly championed.

As a volunteer I have also been offered other opportunities. I have learned how to use the cataloguing system and have gained a greater understanding of the processes and purpose behind archiving. I have also been fortunate enough to speak to some of the many researchers who visit the deceptively ordinary building in Finsbury Park, north London, each person with a different research focus or interest, hoping to explore and illuminate some small part of what a remarkable group of people achieved.

Being able to volunteer at the GPI there is a constant reminder of its importance and the fact that it existed at the centre of an intricate and extensive network of people and places, striving to foster connectivity and action, purposes still there at the forefront of its work.

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About Natalie Lucy

Natalie originally studied English Literature but later trained as a solicitor, working in a variety of roles for over ten years. She later studied for a Master’s and completed a PhD at UCL, where she was supervised by Paul Gilroy. Looking at the influence of the Anancy figure on writing and a sense of identity, its focus encompassed the work of several CAM writers, especially Andrew Salkey and Kamau Brathwaite. Part literary biography, stretching from Louise Bennett, and Caribbean Voices to contemporary writers, a book based on her doctoral research is due to be published by Palgrave Macmillan this summer.

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