Features

‘Baby farming’ is the theme of a new BBC podcast which delves into archive ads from Nursery World in the 1950s

Practice
Seun Matiluko explains the subject matter behind one episode of her BBC podcast, which looks at how many West Africans privately fostered their children between the 1950s and 90s
PHOTO: BBC Sounds
PHOTO: BBC Sounds

‘30th October 1958: FOSTER MOTHER wanted for two West-African babies, girl 1½ years, boy 4 months. Apply’

August 2023. It was one of the warmest summers on record and I was taking a long bus ride to the former church building in Dulwich, London, which now serves as Nursery World’s HQ. I was there to check out the archive which, I soon discovered, was a large cupboard towards the back of the building.

My name is Seun Matiluko and I am a journalist who recently joined BBC Sounds. After a long development process, I decided to make a podcast about the UK’s largest African group: West Africans. Census data suggests Nigerians are the largest of the West African group, followed by Ghanaians.

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