Howard Gardner

I'm Howard Peter Gardner, not to be confused with the the American psychologist Howard Earl Gardner.

I was born in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England in 1951. I left school at 15 and started an engineering apprenticeship. After working in various factories around Leeds, I eventually finished my working career as an office equipment repair engineer and I retired from work in 2016. I like to play golf, enjoy reading and listening to music.

In 2018 on the 75th anniversary of the arrival of HMT Windrush, to the UK, my father Alford Gardner, who was a passenger on the ship became a bit of a celebrity. He was invited to various events and did some, newspaper, radio and TV interviews. The stories regarding his life were becoming well documented, and was asked on quite a few occasions if he was ever going to put his story into print.

I was asked by Arthur Torrington of the Windrush Foundation if I would be able to help dad put pen to paper, or should I say put fingers to the laptop. I have to admit, I am not a writer, at school I couldn't even write a full-page essay, but with the help of the publisher Jacaranda I have managed to get dad's story told.

The book Finding Home, A Windrush Story, is not just about my father, but is about the struggles that the men and women from the Caribbean faced when they came to help the Mother Country in their time of need.