As part of the Black History Month celebrations in Bristol we have a number of interesting Jamaican visitors in the city. That includes the Jamaican Poet Laureate, Mervyn Morris, who is doing a public event tonight at Bristol University.

Also in town in Thomas Glave, who is a well known gay writer with several Lammy nominations to his name. Thomas is also one of the founders of J-FLAG, the Jamaican LGBT rights group. I met up with Thomas yesterday at the Ujima studios where he was appearing on the Kizzy Morrell show. I’d been invited along as the LGBT expert.

As it turned out, Thomas was a bit late arriving, and Kizzy had a very packed show, all of which conspired to give us less time than we had hoped. However, the first hour of the show is well worth listening to because of the fascinating interview with a chap from Little Rock, Arkansas, who is in Bristol to explain how his city is helping is poorest citizens. You can find that first hour here.

Thomas and I are on towards the end of the second hour of the show. We start about 49 minutes in. We managed to cover a bit of what is happening in Jamaica these days, including the excellent news that J-FLAG is raising money to provide a safe house for trans teens who are homeless because they have been thrown out by their parents. You can find the second hour of the show here.