Black Voices In Conversation - Sidney McFarlane's Windrush journey to 30-year RAF career and MBE

• Watch Victoria Whittam's report.

Throughout Black History Month, we are celebrating the contribution made by people of colour to the region as part of our Black Voices in Conversation series.

In the next in our series, we hear from a former RAF officer Sidney McFarlane. He and his wife eventually settled in Lincoln, and one of their sons went on to become a Hollywood star.

Sidney McFarlane arrived in the UK from Jamaica in 1955 as one of half a million immigrants from the Caribbean, who were known later as the Windrush generation.

The government invited people to fill labour shortages left in the wake of World War two, but despite that encouragement, the welcome wasn't always warm, as Sidney explains:

"It was quite a common thing to take up a newspaper, looking for a flat and see no black, no jews, no Irish, no cats and no dogs wanted.

"We just saw ourselves as ambassadors from our country."

Trained engineer Sidney followed his wife Gwendolyn, who had come to the UK a year before him. Neither of them could secure work in the industry they were qualified for, so nurse Gwen was forced to initially take up a job in a factory.

Sidney was called up for national service, which eventually lead to a distinguished 30-year career in the RAF. He used his position to educate others about equality and diversity, for which he was awarded an MBE.

He credits his career for saving him from the Windrush scandal, that saw people wrongly deported & detained, while others lost their jobs, homes, or were denied benefits or medical care to which they were entitled. 

He said: "What they have done is over the years they have changed the immigration act and made it retrospective.

"So what they have done, from telling me as a person born in a colony that you are British and eligible for national service and you have to come in, you have got no choice, to years later saying, I am sorry, we made a mistake, you're not British really, to be honest."

After getting posted to RAF Cranwell, in Lincoln, where today the population remains 98% white, Sydney and Gwen raised their three sons, one of whom is Hollywood actor Colin McFarlane.

To mark Black History Month, their family story can be discovered as part of an online exhibition, Windrush Lincoln.