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Wales Online
3 days ago
- Business
- Wales Online
Tesco giving away free breakfasts in cafes on Sunday if you show staff one thing
Tesco giving away free breakfasts in cafes on Sunday if you show staff one thing For the fourth year in a row, the supermarket chain is doing something to mark a very special day for people up and down the country Supermarket giant Tesco is giving away free breakfasts at hundreds of its stores this Sunday. For the fourth year running, Armed Forces personnel and veterans will be able to claim their free breakfast in more than 300 stores to mark Armed Forces Day. The day itself is an annual event celebrated in late June to commemorate the service of men and women in the British Armed Forces. Originally called Veterans' Day, it was first observed in 2006. Although an official event, it is not a public holiday in the UK. The name was changed to Armed Forces Day in 2009. Tesco has confirmed that as a thank you for their service, approximately 180,000 serving Armed Forces personnel and nearly two million veterans in the UK can choose from The Breakfast, The Veggie Breakfast, The Vegan Breakfast or Sausage Bap to enjoy for free when they present their MOD90 or Veterans ID card at either The Café or The Coffee Shop in stores across the country on Sunday, June 29. For our free daily briefing on the biggest issues facing the nation, sign up to the Wales Matters newsletter here . 'Our Armed Forces make extraordinary sacrifices to keep us safe,' said Ashwin Prasad, Tesco UK CEO. 'As the largest private employer of veterans in the UK, we want to recognise those who serve, and have served, this Armed Forces Day. We hope this free breakfast will go a little way to show our gratitude for their service.' Sabrina Lungo, chair of the Armed Forces colleague network at Tesco, added: 'Armed Forces Day is an important opportunity to recognise our Armed Forces personnel and veterans, and we're happy to be offering them this small token of our appreciation for the fourth year running. Article continues below 'Through our thriving Armed Forces network, we are proud to support the entire Armed Forces community at Tesco, from veterans to military partners and families, as they navigate the challenges of life in the Armed Forces and beyond.'
The Guardian
22-06-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
The Windrush generations were proudly British. Yet immigrants are still fighting to be seen that way
This week I went to a Windrush Day reception in the gardens of 10 Downing Street. Standing in the brilliant sunshine, with a steelband tinkling away in the background, it was great to see this generation of Caribbean migrants finally being honoured as their bravery and enterprise deserves. The excited guests – Windrush-era Caribbean migrants, their friends and family – were thrilled to be at No 10, and the absolute highlight was being addressed by the prime minister, Keir Starmer. Fortunately on this occasion, he refrained from telling his guests that they were turning Britain into an 'island of strangers'. In any case, it would have been nonsense. Nobody identified more strongly with Britain than that generation, many of whom had a picture of Queen Elizabeth II on their living-room wall. When the Empire Windrush arrived at Tilbury docks in Essex, its occupants did not see themselves as 'immigrants', but citizens of the United Kingdom and Commonwealth come to help rebuild the 'mother country' after the war. Most of the passengers gave their last country of residence as the Caribbean, including Jamaica, Trinidad, St Lucia, Grenada and Barbados. Some had served in the British armed forces, but others had responded to the British government advertisements for workers. While it is good to see the contribution of migrants to Britain in the postwar period commemorated, it is possible to get too sentimental about the Windrush era and forget the brutality of the racism they faced when they disembarked from those ships. They had been so very proud to come, but Britain's reception was cooler than they might have expected. One issue was employment. The Windrush era spanned from 1948 to the early 1970s, but the first Race Relations Act was not until 1965. So, in the early years of the Windrush era, employers could brazenly refuse to employ someone because they were black and not even pretend there was another reason. Accordingly, most Windrush migrants went into sectors hit by postwar labour shortages like transport or factory work. Windrush-era women often went into the NHS. It was not an easy way to make a living. Nurses, in particular, were often on permanent nights or put into grades where there was plenty of backbreaking work but no promotion. Instead, they had to train younger white nurses and watch them climb the ladder. Despite all that, they were hugely proud of their jobs. Some people nowadays like to talk about the pressure immigrants put on the public services. But my mother's generation helped to build the NHS. Another problem was housing. Windrush-era migrants owned their own homes to an extent that might seem remarkable now. But it was not because they earned a lot of money. They had little choice. Before the 1965 Race Relations Act, many councils simply would not let to black people. The private sector was even worse. A notorious slum landlord of the time was Peter Rachman, who would charge double or treble the normal rent. He specialised in Caribbean tenants because they could get so few mainstream landlords to rent to them. My father, like very many Caribbean migrants of the time, bought a house in what was then a shabby part of west London. He accumulated the deposit using an intra-community saving scheme called 'pardner'. But he paid the mortgage by having a tenant or a family in every room. We ourselves were in one room in that house with a cooker on the landing. When my father bought his house, there was an Irish family, headed by 'Uncle Jimmy', as sitting tenants in the basement. I don't think Uncle Jimmy had encountered a black baby before. When I was born, he promptly fell in love. Every morning, my mother would give me breakfast. Then she would take me down to Uncle Jimmy and he would give me another breakfast. In the Windrush era, black people were often the victims of violence by bad actors such as teddy boys or fascist organisations such as the BNP. There was a backdrop of fear. The Notting Hill race riots were the culmination of years of teddy boys attacking black people. My mother used to tell a story about teddy boys storming down our west London road. They knocked on every door and if they found a black family inside, they beat them up. My parents waited petrified as the noise of the teddy boys grew nearer. Then out from our basement emerged Uncle Jimmy. He said very firmly 'they are not getting our Diane' and when the teddy boys knocked on our door, he opened it. Seeing a white man, they assumed a white family lived inside and moved on to the next house. No one should ever underestimate the courage of the Windrush generation. Travelling from the Caribbean countryside to one of the biggest cities in the world in order to build a new life was an act of extraordinary daring. Nor could my parents, and that whole wave of Caribbean migrants who came here in the 1950s on the Empire Windrush and all the other ships, have ever guessed that their achievements would one day be celebrated with so many splendid events. Including a reception in the garden of 10 Downing Street. Diane Abbott has been the Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington since 1987 Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
BBC News
20-06-2025
- General
- BBC News
Who were the Windrush generation and what is Windrush Day?
Windrush Day has been held on 22 June since 2018, to celebrate the contribution Caribbean migrants and their families have made to the Empire Windrush docked in Tilbury, Essex, in 1948, bringing hundreds of passengers from the Caribbean to the 2018, it emerged that the government had not properly recorded the details of people granted permission to stay in the UK, and many were wrongly mistreated. What is the Windrush generation? HMT Empire Windrush became a symbol of a wider mass-migration in the Caribbean were invited to the UK to help rebuild post-war to the National Archives, which holds the ship's passenger list, there were 1,027 people on board. More than 800 gave their last country of residence as somewhere in the hundred passengers were Jamaican, but others arrived from islands including Trinidad, St Lucia, Grenada and travellers - and those on other ships which came to the UK until 1971 - became known as the Windrush had served in the British armed forces in World War Two. Why did the Windrush generation come to Britain? In 1948, the British Nationality Act gave people from colonies the right to live and work in government needed workers to help fill post-war labour shortages and rebuild the countries were also struggling economically, and job vacancies in the UK offered an of those who came became manual workers, drivers, cleaners, and nurses in the newly established NHS. What is Windrush Day? Commemoration events have been held on 22 June every year since 2023, the 75th anniversary of the arrival of HMT Windrush was marked with a series of concerts, exhibitions and seminars across the Charles, who held a reception at Buckingham Palace to mark the anniversary, hailed the Windrush generation's "profound and permanent contribution to British life".This year will see events taking place around the country, including a number sponsored by the government's Windrush Day Grant Scheme. Where are the Windrush generation now? It is unclear how many people from the Windrush generation are still in the UK, but the number is thought to be in the are among more than 500,000 UK residents who were born in a Commonwealth country and arrived before 1971, according to University of Oxford estimates. What was the Windrush scandal? The 1971 Immigration Act gave Commonwealth citizens living in the UK indefinite leave to remain - the permanent right to live and work in the included the Windrush generation, but also people from other former British colonies in South Asia and Africa. However, in April 2018, it emerged that the UK Home Office had kept no records of those granted permission to stay, and had not issued the paperwork they needed to confirm their had also destroyed landing cards belonging to Windrush migrants, in affected were unable to prove they were in the country legally and were prevented from accessing healthcare, work and were also threatened with deportation.A review of historical cases also found that at least 83 people who had arrived before 1973 had been wrongly deported. What did the government do about the Windrush scandal? In April 2018, then-Prime Minister Theresa May apologised for the treatment of those affected. An inquiry was announced and a compensation scheme inquiry, which reported in March 2020, said that the scandal was both "foreseeable and avoidable", and criticised "a culture of disbelief and carelessness" in the Home made 30 recommendations, including:a full Home Office review of the UK's "hostile environment" immigration policyappointing a migrants' commissionerestablishing a race advisory boardInquiry author Wendy Williams warned there was a "grave risk" of similar problems happening again without government Secretary Priti Patel accepted the recommendations in full. But in January 2023, then-Home Secretary Suella Braverman announced the Home office was dropping three of the commitments:to appoint a migrants' commissioner responsible for "speaking up for migrants and those affected by the system directly or indirectly"to give the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration new powersto hold events with people affected to "listen and reflect on their stories"The High Court later ruled that Ms Braverman acted unlawfully by dropping the measures relating to a migrants' commissioner and the chief inspector of borders and June 2025, the Reverend Clive Foster was appointed as the first Windrush Commissioner - seven years after the scandal was first exposed.A top priority will be looking at how to improve the Windrush Compensation Scheme which has been described by campaigners as "torturous". How does the Windrush Compensation Scheme work? The Windrush Compensation Scheme was established in April 2019, and about 15,000 people were thought to be the scheme has been consistently criticised for processing delays, low offers, and unfair rejections reversed on 2021, MPs found the scheme had itself become a further trauma for those eligible. The Home Affairs Committe said many of those affected were "still too fearful of the Home Office to apply".In April 2023, Human Rights Watch said the scheme was "failing" victims, and repeated calls for it to be removed from the Home Office's response, the Home Office said it was "committed to righting the wrongs of Windrush".In October 2024, Labour Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced an additional £1.5m of funding to help victims apply for of April 2025, the scheme had paid out more than £110m.
Winnipeg Free Press
10-06-2025
- Winnipeg Free Press
Ex-U.K. soldier sentenced to prison for ‘vicious assault' that killed Winnipeg man in Toronto bar
TORONTO — A former British soldier who delivered three lethal elbows to the head of a Winnipeg entrepreneur in a Toronto bar was sentenced to four years and three months in prison Tuesday. 'This was a vicious assault with tragic consequences,' Superior Court Justice Katherine Corrick said during sentencing in a downtown Toronto courtroom. Craig Gibson, 30, was taken into custody late last month. He showed no emotion as he stood up with his arms outstretched, waiting to be handcuffed and taken back to prison. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS FILES Brett Sheffield On Aug. 28, 2023, Gibson, then a corporal with the British Armed Forces, had just completed a reconnaissance competition in Thunder Bay and was in Toronto on his way home to England. Brett Sheffield, 38, and some of his employees from Pilot Mound-based NextGen Drainage Solutions,were in Toronto on a business trip. Both men and their friends went to Locals Only Bar on King Street West that night. Surveillance footage showed the two groups interacting good-naturedly with each other while consuming copious amounts of alcohol. A disagreement arose, however, and after heated words, Gibson elbowed Sheffield three times in the head. Officers responded to the incident at 11:25 p.m. that night and 'life-saving measures were commenced on scene,' but the victim died two days later in hospital, the Toronto Police Service said at the time. A Toronto jury convicted Gibson of manslaughter in December, rejecting his testimony that he was acting in self-defence because he believed Sheffield was carrying a knife. The judge said Tuesday that what happened that evening was not 'a one-punch manslaughter,' nor a bar fight. Gibson struck Sheffield 'without warning' and had to be pulled away by others. She called Gibson 'a strong and powerful man.' He testified he grew up in a rough part of Scotland 'where you did not make it through school if you did not know how to handle yourself. And he knew how to handle himself.' He had been living in England with his fiancée and infant daughter while on bail. When he was 21, Gibson joined the British army and served in Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine and Kosovo. While Gibson was dishonourably discharged, his British Army superiors submitted letters of support to the court. They described him as a disciplined, dependable soldier who has acted as an instructor and mentor to junior colleagues. As a result of the conviction and sentence, he has lost any chance of realizing his lifelong goal of serving as a member of the SAS, an elite special forces unit in the British army. There is no minimum sentence for manslaughter, and the maximum is life imprisonment. Prosecutors had asked for a six-and-a-half-year sentence. Defence lawyers recommended a sentence of between two and three years. Wednesdays A weekly dispatch from the head of the Free Press newsroom. Corrick also addressed the impact Sheffield's death has had on his loved ones, 'who continue to struggle with profound grief and the immense hole that's been left in their lives.' During the sentencing hearing last month, Sheffield was described in victim impact statements as a successful entrepreneur who was gentle, compassionate and generous, the kind of person who would take a homeless man to a restaurant and buy him coffee and pie. His 96-year-old grandmother wrote the family 'will never get over his tragic, cruel, unnecessary death.' Sheffield's fiancée wrote that not only has she lost her best friend, lover and confidant, but her two children have been robbed of their hero. — Toronto Star
Daily Record
09-05-2025
- Sport
- Daily Record
Kilmarnock FC sign Armed Forces Convenant at poignant ceremony
The club reaffirmed their respect and support for those who serve and have served in the British Armed Forces Kilmarnock Football Club has formally signed the the Armed Forces Covenant, reaffirming the club's long-standing respect and support for the men and women who serve, or have served, in the British Armed Forces. The poignant ceremony took place in the club's 1869 Suite and was attended by representatives of East Ayrshire Council, including Provost Claire Leitch, and several dignitaries from the Armed Forces community. The event was hosted by Club Ambassador Raymond Montgomerie, who welcomed guests with a heartfelt tribute to the club's enduring connection to the Armed Forces, dating back over a century. 'On behalf of all the directors and staff at Kilmarnock Football Club, I'd like to offer you a warm welcome to Rugby Park for this important occasion,' said Montgomerie. 'Signing the Armed Forces Covenant is not just a formality – it's a promise. A promise that this club will stand beside our Armed Forces community, not just in word but in action.' Montgomerie spoke movingly about the club's wartime legacy, recalling how Rugby Park was requisitioned by the government during WWII to serve as a munitions dump, and how the club gave a £1,000 interest-free loan to the war effort – never repaid, but never regretted. 'This club gave more than just players to the front lines,' he said. 'We gave our ground, our resources, our support – and, sadly, we lost some of our own who played for this badge before fighting for their country. That history is not forgotten here. It's part of who we are.' A particularly emotional highlight of the day was the presentation of the Colonel's Certificate, awarded by HRH The Duke of Edinburgh, to Jock Murdoch, a 99-year-old former Kilmarnock goalkeeper and one of only four surviving Scots Guardsmen from WWII. The award was presented by Eddie Edmonstone, Chairman of the Scots Guards Association, and Colin Downie in honour of Mr Murdoch's exceptional service. 'Jock isn't just a former Killie player – he's a hero,' Montgomerie said. 'At 99 years old, he represents a generation whose courage and resilience shaped our world. It was a true privilege to welcome him back to Rugby Park and to recognise his service.' Guests then moved to the club's Memorial Garden, established in 2021 to honour the former players killed in the World Wars. Rev James McNay, Club Chaplain, led a solemn service before returning to the 1869 Suite for the signing ceremony. The official signing of the Armed Forces Covenant was conducted by Club Directors Billy Bowie, Phyllis Carroll, and Cathy Jamieson, signalling the club's ongoing commitment to supporting veterans, reservists, and their families. Councillor Jim Todd, East Ayrshire Council's Armed Forces Champion and a Royal Navy veteran, emphasised the impact of the Covenant: 'This is about recognition, respect, and responsibility. For far too long, our Armed Forces community served without expecting thanks. The Covenant changes that – and by signing it today, Kilmarnock FC shows what true community leadership looks like.' Montgomerie closed the event with one final reflection: 'We're more than just a football club. We're a part of this town's fabric, and part of its legacy. That includes the proud tradition of service to our country. Today we reaffirm that we don't forget – and we do care.'
