Based on interviews with Dame Hilda Bynoe, Merle Collins explores the wider themes of ancestry, the small nation state and regional identity, and race in Dame Hilda's conception of her role. It provides an insightful portrayal of not just an exceptional woman, but the emergence of a new Caribbean middle class, many of whom emigrated to the UK in the 1940s and 1950s, a journey rarely described from a female perspective.