Thank you for giving me the opportunity to say something on this 70th anniversary of the Windrush event. Over the years there has been a lot of mis-presentation about the Windrush. After the war ended, or just before the war ended, the British took that ship from Germany and renamed it Windrush. And it started after the war to repatriate the servicemen, particularly back to the Caribbean, mainly Kingston. That photograph, which is used widely, was about the fourth or the fifth trip that that ship made, eventually it was destroyed in Mordor Harbour, some years after Port Harbour. 99% of the personnel that was on that ship were all ex-servicemen, barring one. And just a point, I was in high school when the late Queen Elizabeth had her first child, which is now King Charles III. After I finished my education, one of my cousins, second cousin, came here in 1943 for the RAF. My father, my parent wrote to him, he was one of them who came back on that first trip into Tilbury 70 years ago.
My parent wrote to him when he was working with POAC, which is now British Airways and he wrote back to my parents and said, you can get 12 jobs in a day, but the accommodation was very bad because of the state of the war. What I knew was the statements of ex-RAF service men, one had married an English lady, and the other one was still single. And they took me to this property, because when he met me, he said there was a single room there. That’s the reason why, instead of travelling to Birmingham to stay with the YMCA, I stayed in London, and that’s where I am today. A lot of misrepresentation has been made about that ship, after the war, when Churchill was defeated, Clement Attlee won the election. He said it was a disgrace that they could invite Italians to come and work in England before West Indians, because if you go down into the Redford area, you’ll find a lot of Italian descendants. That was why he said it was a disgrace that they could invite Italians who fought against England to come and work in England. There were opportunities for West Indians, (that is what he said, if you want to check it out, go in the House of Commons), he realized the educational system in the West Indies was similar to that in Scotland. And that was one of the reasons why a young man like my cousin would have come out of high schools and colleges to serve in the RAF. And I’m sure all of you will get a chance this afternoon to celebrate 70 years of the beginning of the Red Cross and the people who came from the West Indies, especially the young girls who came here for the NHS, which was that founding. And I’m sure if you check out the minutes and the history, you will appreciate how these folks, a lot of them have gone to their graves and a lot have gone back to the West Indies. But just a point, a lot of those folks who came on that ship on six different boards are all over 100 years old if they’re still alive. May God bless you all and live to celebrate the true meaning of the Windrush Generation. Thank you.