KentOnline’s Melissa Todd met Faversham author Laurina Moody to talk legacy, carnival, and the stories that keep communities together — here’s what she discovered…

Laurina Moody, began writing in lockdown — as did half the nation, though few with such flair. “That sudden emphasis on death and crisis made me think,” she recalls. “If something happened to me, what mark would I leave behind? Nothing! This book arrived in my head like a gift. I wanted it to be my legacy, my message to the world.”

That message has taken form in Carnival Parade for Juliet and Effie — a vivid, tender children’s book, written for ages 3-8. Published last month, it’s steeped in memories of Laurina’s own family history and the communities that shaped her.

“It’s full of so many personal stories ,” she says. “It was meant in part as an homage to my mum, who died in 2017. It features smells, tastes and textures from my childhood. But then again, Juliet and Effie are the names of my grandchildren! So the story goes on…”

Set on the Caribbean island of St Lucia, where her parents were born before sailing to Britain in 1960 as part of the Windrush generation, the book shimmers with island rhythms and family details. Like many who arrived to rebuild Britain, her parents found both opportunity and prejudice in equal measure.

One figure in her family made history a few years after arriving. “There’s a plaque to my niece’s granddad, Asquith Xavier, at Euston station,” Laurina explains. “He became the first non-white guard there after challenging an informal racist policy that prevented Black workers from taking certain roles. He battled against that with union support. And he won.”

Britain needed workers to help rebuild the country after the war, but for many who came, like Laurina’s parents, the treatment they received was often abominable.

They filled vital jobs, yet were too often treated as outsiders in the country they were helping to rebuild. Sadly, that story also continues.

On the day we meet, there’s been a protest outside a children’s asylum centre in her hometown of Faversham.

For Laurina, the connection between those events and her own family’s experience is unmistakable. “It’s heartbreaking,” she says. “It shows how much work we still have to do to understand one another.”

Laurina’s connection to the Windrush generation runs through every word of Carnival Parade for Juliet and Effie.

The small, intimate details - the occasional use of Creole patois, the parrot feathers used to decorate costumes, the smell of pumpkin soup - make the prose crackle.

You can almost smell the jerk chicken sizzling, hear the steel drums warming up, see the sequins catching the sunlight as the parade begins.

Beneath the book’s rhythm and joy lies a quiet reflection on what it means to belong.

Although the book’s setting is Caribbean, its small local story of two little girls enjoyng a wonderful day could take part in any community.

Laurina’s Faversham isn’t literally in the book, but its spirit certainly is.

Who gets to call a place home? Who has a right to tell its story, its history? At Faversham carnival this weekend a tank joins the procession, bedecked with flags.

“It’s empathy we need,” says Laurina. “Then as much as now. When we share our stories, we make it harder to hate. Because once you’ve heard someone’s story, really heard it, it’s almost impossible not to care. Having listened to my elders all my life, I wanted so much to pass their stories on.

“When we stop telling our stories, that’s when misunderstanding begins. And when we share them - in books, in homes, in communities - that’s when we can start to build something better.”

A carnival parade for Juliet and Effie by Laurina Moody costs £9.99.