MikeBolland has spent his entire working life in television. He started at BBC Scotland as an office boy before becoming a film editor. In 1973 he moved to London where he joined the Community Programme Unit working on Open Door, Grapevine and Somethin’ Else. In 1981 he made a major move to join the fledgling Channel 4 where he commissioned The Tube, The Comic Strip, The Last Resort and After Dark amongst many other shows. After leaving the channel he worked as an independent producer before returning to BBC Scotland as Head of Arts and Entertainment. Two years followed at the National Film and Theatre School where he established the MA in Television Entertainment.

Sue Davidsonhas a background in community arts, campaigning, drama and film training. She worked in the Community Programme Unit during the 1980s and 90s as a director, series producer, or executive producer on many different series, including Open Space, Shaking the Heavens and Olympic Diaries. Since 2000, she has worked in the independent sector as series/executive producer (on programmes including Brat Camp, Bad Lads Army and The Apprentice) and Commissioning Editor Factual at Channel 5. She is currently Commissioning Executive Producer at National Geographic.

Dr Jo Henderson is a Senior Lecturer in Contextual Studies at the University of West London, where she also runs the Media and Design Foundation course. Her doctoral research, Documents of Ordinariness (UCL) investigates authority and participation in the BBC including the Community Programme Unit and its initiatives.

Selma Jamesis co-ordinator of the Global Women’s Strike.In 1972, she established Wages for Housework (WFH) as an international perspective that redefined the working class to include all who work without wages, starting with women, the primary carers everywhere. This year (2022–23), the WFH Campaign is celebrating its 50^th anniversary. With her husband CLR James, Selma James campaigned for independence and federation of the Caribbean. She is the author of Sex, Race, and Class – The Perspective of Winning (PM Press, 2012) and Our Time Is Now: Sex, Race, Class, and Caring for People and Planet (PM Press, 2021). James is based at the Crossroads Women’s Centre in Kentish Town, London.

DrTony Laryea worked for BBC television for 21 years, first as a director and producer and later as Editor of the BBC Community Programme Unit, from 1985–90. He founded the independent production company Catalyst Television in 1991, revolutionising gardening on television as well as taking the company into drama and documentary making.

DrClive Chijioke Nwonka is Associate Professor in Film, Culture and Society at University College London. Nwonka’s research centres on the study of Black British and African American film and visual culture. He is the co-editor of Black Film/ Cinema II (Goldsmiths Press, 2021) and is the author of the forthcoming book Black Boys: The Aesthetics of British Urban Film (Bloomsbury, 2023).

Giles Oakley worked for the BBC for over 30 years, including 18 in the Community Programme Unit, where he was Head of Community & Disability Programmes, 1993–98. He helped produce The Devil’s Music, a history of the blues for BBC1 in 1976, for which he wrote the accompanying book, still in print.

Maggie Pinhorn began her career working in the art departments of feature films at Pinewood and Shepperton Studios. In the early 1970s she founded Alternative Arts, an independent multidisciplinary arts organisation in Covent Garden, and the Basement Film Project in Stepney, where she worked with a group of young people making Tunde’s Film. The Community Programme Unit invited them to make one of the first Open Door programmes, and they chose to create their own spoof TV channel ‘East End Channel One’. Maggie continued to work in the East End creating Community Festivals, and in Covent Garden where she started the famous Street Theatre. From the mid-90s Alternative Arts work has been focused in East London, producing among other things ‘Photomonth’ – the International Photography Festival – and exhibitions and events for Women’s History Month and Black History Month.

Dr Mike Phillips OBE worked for the BBC as a journalist and broadcaster between 1972 and 1983 on television programmes including The Late Show and Omnibus, before becoming a lecturer in media studies at the University of Westminster. He has written full-time since 1992, and is best-known for his crime fiction, including four novels featuring black journalist Sam Dean. In 1998 he co-wrote Windrush: The Irresistible Rise of Multi-Racial Britain to accompany a BBC television series telling the story of the Caribbean migrant workers who settled in post-war Britain, while his book London Crossings: A Biography of Black Britain (2001), a series of interlinked essays and stories, is a portrait of the city seen from locations as diverse as New York and Nairobi, London and Lodz, Washington and Warsaw. Recently, Phillips has worked as a Cross Cultural Curator at the Tate, and as freelance art curator in Belgium.