Project shares memories of demolished Caribbean club

An archive project is aiming to share stories about a town's demolished Caribbean social club.

The Ipswich Caribbean Association (ICA) started in the 1970s, with a building on Woodbridge Road used as a social space with fitness and martial arts classes, dominoes clubs, dance nights and elders’ luncheon clubs serving traditional food.

It closed in 2010 and the building was demolished in 2012. A new exhibition is being staged at the Spill arts festival's Think Tank building.

"It was the place where people from my community went for everything," said Franstine Jones, who was on the ICA Project steering committee.

"It catered for everyone, from christenings, through childhood and the teenage years, until they were adults and could use it as a social club."

Robin Deacon, artistic director of Spill, said: "The ICA Project reflects a desire for Spill to focus on the histories of our town, giving voice to those best placed to tell their own stories.

"It is important to understand this does not aim to be some definitive history of the ICA, but to provide a snapshot of its huge significance.

"As several people interviewed for the project have pointed out – you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.

“As well as the Suffolk Archives at The Hold in Ipswich, we are delighted to be working with the Black Cultural Archives in London to place these fascinating local stories into a national story that highlights the importance of Caribbean cultures in the UK."

To me, ICA was the place to discover yourself, what your family means to the community, where you fit into the mix.

We celebrated every wedding and wake.

As kids, we would look forward to these events, meet up with the other black children from all areas of Ipswich and compare notes; who was the fastest, the best at football or eventually, the best performer.

We would dart around and skid across the floor until our trousers knees burned through.

I remember the music, the sound system - reggae and dub - but also, as I got older, garage and hip hop events. It was a safe space to explore and be creative. It felt special. We knew it was unique and we were proud of it.

By the time I was a teenager, I knew all of the black Caribbean families because we had all crossed paths several times. I couldn’t really have an issue with other people my age, because our parents knew each other, or our cousins were friends, or our grandparents were in the same partner.

It was truly ours and everyone misses it.

Elijah Turay works on Angelle Joseph's Friday evening show across BBC Local Radio in the East of England, available on BBC Sounds.

The ICA building on Woodbridge Road was closed following a firearms incident in which one man was wounded and four others hurt in the early hours of 19 December 2009.

More than 300 people were in the club at a private function at the time.

Ipswich Borough Council, which was then under a Conservative-Liberal Democrat administration, withdrew its annual £50,000 grant for the association.

In 2012, the council's Labour administration said it could not afford to spend £1.25m on renovating the building and agreed to demolish it, for a car park.

The ICA Memories exhibition is open 10:30-16:00 from 16-24 November at the Spill Think Tank, which is next to Ipswich Museum on High Street.

There are also other events there, including A Conversation with John Ferguson and Tony Powlett on Thursday, 21 November at 19:30.

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