Patrick Vernon

Windrush generation pioneers: end of an era

LONDON: For many of us marking Windrush Day on June 22, commemorations will be tinged with sadness as we remember yet more of the original Windrush pioneers who we have lost over the last twelve months. Alongside that sadness, however, is a deeper determination to keep their memory and legacy alive.

‘Big John’ Richards

Two of the original pioneers who arrived in England on the HMT Empire Windrush in 1948 – ‘Big John’ Richards and Alford Gardner – passed in the last year. Like so many of their generation, they endured racism and financial hardship as they built their lives and families here in Britain. And like so many others, they contributed immensely to their local communities and to our country.

Nadia Cattouse

In addition, we have lost other Windrush pioneers during this time such as actor and singer Nadia Cattouse who died in November 2024 at the age of 99 years.

Eddie Grizzle who was founder of ACOV and sat on the boards of many charities from Wolverhampton.

Enid Jackson, founder of Cultural Dementia UK Brent; Claudette Williams, teacher and activist; Gerlin Bean, founding member of OWAAD and Brixton Black Women’s Group.

Lord Herman Ouseley, founder of Kick It Out; Paul Stephenson, founder of the Bristol Boycott; Norman Mitchell, founder of the West Indian Senior Citizen Organisation in Brent, who died aged 102.

Neil Flanigan

and Neil Flanigan, founding member of the West Indian Service Personnel Association, who died last year, just short of his 100th birthday.

Nelly Louise Brown

Also, I would like to make a special mention of Nelly Louise Brown who died recently in June this year at the age of 111 years old in Hackney. Born in 1913 in Coleyville, Jamaica, she was one of the longest-surviving Windrush pioneers. She was respected in Hackney and played a key role as carer, childminder and support for the community.

As I reflect on the legacy of the Windrush Generation I also look at my own family History. My parents – my mum aged 91 and my dad now approaching his 94th birthday – came to Britain in the late 1950s. They raised my four sisters and me in the Wolverhampton area in the West Midlands, under the gaze of Enoch Powell, who was our local MP for many years.

They are part of a Windrush generation that made significant contributions to post-war Britain: from developing the social housing movement, the NHS, transport, engineering, education, sports, arts, music, and public life. Yet sadly the majority never achieved their true personal aspirations in either career, professional development or entrepreneurship.

Nobody taught me about Windrush at school. It was down to our parents and grandparents. They taught us this history and imbued us with the ethics associated with Windrush and other migrant communities in surviving and thriving in a hostile Britain: respecting our elders, self-help, hard work, savings (or ‘pardner’), faith and contributing to the community. We were brought up to recognise that we are part of transnational families, with relatives in the Caribbean and North America, and needed to support each other emotionally and financially.

Knowing one’s history and heritage is important. We must make sure that the history of the Windrush is in the national curriculum. This is Black history, and it is British history, the story of how our society came to look as it does today and why we all have a stake in it. That is valuable for all our children to learn; but it is also something that we can all celebrate.

RACING AGAINST TIME

This 77th anniversary offers an opportunity to involve us all in the national story of modern Britain. Everybody should be invited to a party that extends right across society, from community groups that have marked Windrush Day for years, to our largest institutions.

While Windrush Day is about celebration, it is also about recognition of the survival, the tenacity and the vibrant energy that the Windrush generation brought with them, often in the face of hostility and injustice.

This injustice is still manifested in the ongoing Windrush scandal, which stripped the citizenship of people who were made British but then told they were illegal immigrants, despite having lived here for 40 years or more. That is why a part of the Windrush 77th anniversary is bittersweet. This Government has committed to addressing the injustice of the scandal but is running out of time as the victims grow older. People need justice now.

They are not the only ones racing against time. We need to capture and preserve the history of the Windrush pioneers, and those who followed, so it can be shared across the generations in the future. If we fail to do so, a vital part of our heritage will be lost with them. So we need to record the testimonies of the Windrush generation now, while we still can – and bring together those oral histories already captured into one central resource where they can be accessed in years to come. It may be our last chance to do so.

Such a resource would help to remind us about the history of racism and discrimination in the UK. But also remind us about the countless examples of achievement and success through business, the church movement, housing, education and people’s contribution to public life.

It could remind us all that the Windrush generation played a key role in shaping the Britain that we share today – a Britain with many flaws but with many great strengths too. And it could inspire future generations to keep up the fight against structured racism and anti-blackness, towards a better and fairer future by the time we mark Windrush 100 – a future that the Windrush generation would be proud to have as their legacy.

Professor Patrick Vernon OBE, Pro Chancellor University of Wolverhampton and Convenor of Windrush 100. More information available at: https://www.windrush100.org/