The children of Windrush

The Empire Windrush docked in Britain in 1948 carrying hundreds of people from the Caribbean. On the 75th anniversary of its arrival, the children of its passengers tell of a lasting legacy.

- AMELIA GENTLEMAN

ON THE DAY EMPIRE WINDRUSH ARRIVED IN BRITAIN IN JUNE 1948, 11 Labour MPs sent a letter to the prime minister, Clement Attlee, proposing that there should be controls on black immigration.

The British people were "blest by the absence of a colour racial problem", they wrote, adding: "An influx of coloured people domiciled here is likely to impair the harmony, strength and cohesion of our people and social life and cause discord and unhappiness among all concerned."

The arrival of the ship, carrying about 500 people from the Caribbean, had already been the subject of an anxious debate in parliament. The Daily Express described its approach as "a shipload of worry".

But within a few years, for many of the passengers the huge significance of that journey had receded to such an extent that they did not tell even their children they had arrived in Britain on that ship.

Mel Gaynor, the musician best known as the drummer for Simple Minds, had no idea his father, George, was a passenger on Empire Windrush until long after his death. "My father didn't talk about it, which feels sad now," he says.

Sheine Peart, a university lecturer, only began to appreciate the importance of her father's journey when a teaching colleague was awestruck when she mentioned it in passing. "She said: 'He came over on Empire Windrush? That's like touching history."

During their childhoods, the huge cultural import of their parents' journey was not in the least obvious to many children of Windrush passengers.

"It wasn't seen as a particularly historic. It would have been like talking about a flight you've taken. They didn't realise it was such a momentous event," says Deyon Johnston, director of a recruitment company, whose father, Clinton Johnston, was on the ship.

It is only in later life the children of the Windrush passengers have begun to appreciate the enormity of the decision made, usually by their fathers, to emigrate to the UK.