Windrush75 Windrush children of Leeds

ThrivingCaribbeancommunitieswerealso establishedoutsideofLondon.TheVoice looksatthreestoriesofthesecond-generation whosettledinthenorthofEngland

THE CHILDREN of the Windrush generation helped to cement the foundations laid down by their parents — and it wasn’t only in London where they built thriving Caribbean communities.

Here, we look at three stories of second-generation West Indians and how the Windrush legacy shaped life in Leeds.

Norman Francis was a founder member of Mandela Warriors, a local basketball team in Leeds set up in the early 1980s, and now coaches youngsters in the city.

His mother, Merlyn, came over to the UK from Jamaica while she was pregnant with him in 1961 and settled in Leeds. His stepfather, Edmund, worked night shifts at a foundry and his mum was a hospital cook.

Build

“That generation helped build the country we know today. The country needed help and reached out to places like the Caribbean to fill in the jobs that a lot of British people didn’t want to do, or felt were below them — like dustmen, bus drivers and nurses — and these jobs helped keep the country going,” says Norman, a father of six.

“We look back at our parents’ genera tion and look at the conditions they had to face and the things they had to do. There wasn’t much money but there was always food on the table and a roof over your head.”

Norman, a head coach at Leeds City Col lege Acad emy, has been coaching bas ketball in the city for nearly 40 years and, despite hav ing his left leg am putated below the knee in 2021, contin ues to run children’s basketball teams. The inspirational youth basketball coach believes much of the fortitude and success of him and his peers stems from the example set by their parents.

“We made our entertainment, like the sound systems and setting up basketball and football clubs. These things became a big part of our culture and the foundations for all this came from the ethics of our parents.

It’s now up to us to continue that legacy and lay more foundations for our youngsters.”

A new book out next month Rebellion to Romance, by Susan Pitter, celebrates stories of second generation West Indians living in Leeds. People like Norman and Sandra Whyles, who worked as a nurse and health promoter for a number of years before becoming an artist and maker.

Sandra was born in Birmingham in the 1960s and moved with her family to Leeds when she was eight. Her mother worked as a cleaner at Leeds University for more than 40 years in order to provide for Sandra and her siblings.

“She saved up so that we could go on school trips. She did that so we could do things that she never did, and those sacrifices spurred us on to do better things.”

Her mum moved back to Jamaica more than 20 years ago, and Sandra still visits her to help stay close to her roots. “It’s part of our culture. We were brought up with Jamaican culture, but some people weren’t.

Some Caribbean people didn’t want their children to know about it, they were embarrassed about not having a toilet inside or having to fetch water. But my mum was happy to tell us her stories as a child and what it was like, and in doing so we learned how to survive.”

Sandra, inset below left, feels her mother’s generation instilled in them a sense of resilience in the face of adversity.

“That generation was brought up to believe that England was the ‘motherland’, but they were still brave to leave their homes that they loved to come to a country that was often hostile towards them – and still stay.

“That was the brave part, to stay and endure and raise their children. My generation thrived and did well and we got our values from our parents.”

Training

Lornette Smith was 10 years old when she and her two younger siblings moved to Leeds in 1962. They joined their mother, Lorna, who had arrived a couple of years earlier.

“Like so many other people from the Caribbean, my mother was encouraged to come over here to work as a young person and she left behind her children with grandparents. She eventually saved enough money to pay for us to come over,” says Lornette.

“In the Caribbean my mum had been training to be a teacher but when she came over here she couldn’t get a job like that, you ended up in a factory. So my mum worked in the Burton factory in Leeds making men’s suits.”

Lornette herself went on to run the famous Jumbo Records shop in Leeds, with her husband Hunter, for 43 years. She’s also a historian and teacher and is full of praise for the courage of her mother’s generation and the sacrifices they made.

“She was a single mum when she was bringing us up and she had four children who all went to university — and that’s the testament of the Windrush generation to me.

“They didn’t come here to sponge; they came here to work hard and better themselves.”