They came to the UK from the Caribbean, with a promise to find work and rebuild Britain after the Second World War but some were met with a hostile reception.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 After the Second World War, hundreds embarked on the Empire Windrush to England from the
00:05 Caribbean to help rebuild a post-war Britain. And 75 years on, children of the Windrush
00:12 generation living in Kent are looking back at their troubled experiences of living here.
00:17 Claudette moved here at 13 with her brother and described it as a culture shock.
00:23 I was the only black child in my class at the time, so it was quite difficult. They'd
00:30 never seen black children, so they didn't know anything about the Caribbean. They just
00:35 assumed that I didn't speak English, but English was the only thing I spoke. The other children,
00:41 they weren't very welcoming, let's say that. You were teased all the time. No one wanted
00:47 to play with you during the break time. Lunch time in the dining room was quite difficult
00:56 because I didn't really like the food. The food was quite alien to me.
01:01 Nadia came to the UK with her mother when she was just a toddler. Even at a young age,
01:07 she remembered sleeping in a bunker on the ship here.
01:10 You know, people still don't quite accept that, you know, black people have been here
01:19 for generations. I know that I've experienced racism, yeah, in applying for jobs, in trying
01:30 to get promotion. I know. I might not be able to prove or describe it, yeah, but I know.
01:38 I know what I've experienced. I've had to work maybe three times as hard to be in a
01:47 position in my career.
01:50 Nadia and Claudette met through the North Kent Caribbean Network in Gravesend. It encourages
01:55 communities to meet up and is also a place to find support.
02:00 It's mainly about providing the information and actually highlighting just how crucial
02:04 that generation was to the development of the Britain that we know today. But what a
02:08 lot of people haven't managed to really realise in the past was that link towards the establishment
02:14 of the NHS, the transport services and links within the UK and the fact that it was that
02:19 generation that came here specifically to work in those industries that helped to rebuild
02:25 the country after the Second World War. So it's been really important that we showcase
02:29 that and we highlight those contributions.
02:31 In a response to the treatment that many faced when coming across on the Empire Windrush,
02:36 a Home Office spokesperson said, "The whole of government remain absolutely committed
02:41 to righting the wrongs of the Windrush scandal. Extensive support is in place to help people
02:46 access the Windrush compensation scheme. Already we have paid or offered more than £79m in
02:53 compensation to those affected and we continue to make improvements so people receive the
02:58 maximum award as quickly as possible."
03:01 75 years on, descendants of the Windrush generation say society has come a long way but they say
03:07 more needs to be done in achieving equality.
03:11 The change ought to be that people have a better understanding that the people who are
03:19 coming aren't all illegal immigrants because that's the attitude, that seems to be the
03:26 attitude.
03:27 Well, it's nice that we have a month that we can celebrate Black History Month in October
03:34 and also we should take away from that and continue to build on that because one day
03:41 we shouldn't, we might not have a Black History Month and it's not, you know, it won't be
03:46 needed, it won't be necessary and I look forward, I hope it's in my lifetime that one day we
03:51 will not need to have a Black History Month, that Black History will be part of everyday
03:58 history and not just a month in October.
04:01 [BLANK_AUDIO]