Sunday is national Windrush Day (22 June). It is an annual opportunity to pay tribute, and express our heartfelt gratitude, to those who answered the UK’s call in 1948 to travel across the world to come and help rebuild a war-battered country.
More than 1,000 people arrived 77 years ago in Essex, on the HMT Empire Windrush, after accepting the invitation to leave the Caribbean and come to Britain to fill a desperate labour shortage. A number of them had even served in the Second World War.
They helped build the NHS and run the public transport system. But they were also pioneers who started businesses of their own, and breathed fresh creativity, courage and determination into our communities.
So, above all, Windrush Day is an opportunity to recognise the immeasurable difference that they, their children, and their grandchildren, have since made to so many aspects of our public life, to our culture and to every sector of our economy.
Many other ships brought migrants from the Caribbean to the UK in the post-war period between 1948 and 1973 and the term ‘Windrush generation’ came to be a phrase used to include all of them.
We unveiled a plaque to the Windrush generation in a memorial garden in Walpole Park in Ealing in 2022; and marked the 75th anniversary with an event in 2023 to celebrate their achievements.
It is important to remember them all and the mark that they, and their families, have made on our communities here in our borough. The evidence is all around us and is rich and varied – from the legendary Bogle L’Ouverture bookshop in Ealing, to the incredible work done by Descendants charity in Acton. A spotlight is often shone on other examples during Black History Month.
Their stories have helped shape our individual identities and this wonderful borough of diversity we call home.
