He's Coming Home

But Vernon Vanriel still needs our help.

- Miles Templeton

Last week Amelia Gentleman, writing in The Guardian, highlighted the plight of ex-boxer Vernon Vanriel. For those of you unfamiliar with this fighter, Vernon boxed out of Tottenham between 1976 and 1985, and his nickname was “The Entertainer”. And from what I remember of him, he was all of that.

Vernon came to the UK in 1962 as a six-year-old. His father had come to Britain sometime earlier, answering a call made to the Commonwealth from the British government for people to come to help rebuild the country after World War Two. Vernon and his family became part of the Windrush generation, a generation often treated unfairly.

“He now lives in an abandoned roadside grocery shack in western Jamaica, ill, penniless and desperate to return to his family in the UK,” wrote Gentleman. “After visiting Jamaica in 2005, he was refused a visa when he tried to go back home to the country where he had lived for 43 years. He has spent the last 13 years stuck, destitute and homesick.”