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BBC News
24-06-2025
- General
- BBC News
Wellingborough's Windrush community join the streets to celebrate
People have come out into the streets of a town to celebrate the contribution Caribbean migrants and their families have made to the in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, joined together to mark the event of Windrush Day on Empire Windrush docked in Tilbury, Essex, in 1948, bringing hundreds of passengers from the Francis, 82, who is a part of the Windrush generation, said: "Many people don't know about Windrush, and they need to understand what it is all about." Travellers on HMT Empire Windrush - and those on other ships which came to the UK until 1971 - became known as the Windrush Francis said she left her home in Montserrat in 1961 to come to the UK, where she had living in Wellingborough, Ms Francis said: "It is important for people to know our history and why we come here. The government needed us to come and work."People came here and tried to get accommodation and that was very hard."Many people find these things very easy now, but in our days it was not that easy." The event was in partnership with the town council, Northamptonshire Rights & Equality Council, Made with Many, Wellingborough African Caribbean Association, and the Wellingborough Windrush Innovation Day has been held on 22 June since 2018 to celebrate the legacy of the Windrush was set up in the wake of the Windrush scandal, when thousands of people were wrongly classed as illegal then prime minister, Theresa May, apologised for their treatment and a compensation scheme was established. Glenroy Bell from the Windrush Innovation Society, in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, said: "This year, organisations have come together to make it a bigger event."It is part of my personal heritage, my grandparents came over from Jamaica in the 50s."We want to celebrate the positive things of what the Caribbean members have done in the UK." Follow Northamptonshire news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
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.
