Remembering when...
Remembering when... the Troopship HMT Empire Windrush docked at Tilbury By Ken Hayes - Honorary Membership Secretary The Troopship HMT Empire Windrush docked at Tilbury on 22nd June 1948 with 1,027 passengers from the Caribbean of which 539 were Jamaican. They had come to England to find work at the invitation of the UK Government and had paid a fare of £28.10 shillings,
(£1,0029 in value today). Among those Caribbean natives, there were Polish nationals, (mainly women and children), displaced by WWII, members of the RAF and British natives. Caribbean migration between 1948 and 1971 became known as the Windrush Generation.
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Britain was recovering from the WWII bombings and rebuilding was beginning. Many young Caribbean men and women who had served in the British armed forces decided to come to Britain to help as unemployment was high at home. These new arrivals were not welcomed
as they thought they would be. Oswald ‘Columbus’ Denniston said, “the atmosphere on board the Windrush was jolly, we had two or three bands and calypso singers. Jamaican people are happy-go-lucky, when you have more than six you have a party”. He was 35 when he arrived in England and he began working the same day at the shelter in Clapham where the passengers were staying, handing out rations. Oswald settled in Brixton where he worked as a street trader. He died in 2000 aged 86. He said. “Many of us thought we would come here for a better education and stay for about five years, but then some of us have stayed 50”.
