Latest news with #WindrushGeneration
Yahoo
13 hours ago
- Yahoo
Windrush events 'intergenerational' says organiser
One of the organisers of a series of events to mark Windrush Day said he wanted to make them as "intergenerational" as possible. Windrush Day has been held on 22 June since 2018 to celebrate the contribution Caribbean migrants and their families have made to the UK. HMT Empire Windrush docked in Tilbury, Essex, in 1948, bringing hundreds of passengers from the Caribbean to the UK. Glenroy Bell from the Windrush Innovation Society, in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, said: "This year, the idea was different community groups come together and launch a series of events, not just on Windrush Day, but before and weeks after." Travellers on HMT Empire Windrush - and those on other ships which came to the UK until 1971 - became known as the Windrush generation. Among them were Mr Bell's grandparents, who arrived in the UK in the early 1950s. He said this year's events started on 13 June with a talk from Prof Patrick Vernon OBE, who was one of the first to campaign for a Windrush Day. The following weekend, there was a storytelling event for children with stories from the Windrush generation. "We really want to sort of capture [the Windrush generation's] stories and be reminding of our first generations as best as we can, but the next generation to keep it going," Mr Bell said. Mr Bell said when the organisers of the town's Windrush Day events met last year, "one of the key things we wanted to make sure is that we have intergenerational activities". He added: "We wanted to make sure, as best as we can, it brings everybody together from every generation. "It was really important because it's not just the founders, those who first came here, it's also those who are here now and building Britain as we go along." One of the events is an art exhibition at Wellingborough's Swansgate Shopping Centre. It included "a Bob Marley walk" to commemorate what would have been Bob Marley's 80th birthday earlier this year. Mr Bell said: "It should be a four metre wide piece of art, which has got a [collage] of all the different images of Bob Marley. "It's hopefully a nice big work of art for people to sort of see as part of the exhibition." Follow Northamptonshire news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X. 'We have to remember' Windrush migrants 'Bad feeling' endures over Windrush scandal Wellingborough Windrush
BBC News
13 hours ago
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Wellingborough Windrush events 'intergenerational' says organiser
One of the organisers of a series of events to mark Windrush Day said he wanted to make them as "intergenerational" as Day has been held on 22 June since 2018 to celebrate the contribution Caribbean migrants and their families have made to the Empire Windrush docked in Tilbury, Essex, in 1948, bringing hundreds of passengers from the Caribbean to the Bell from the Windrush Innovation Society, in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, said: "This year, the idea was different community groups come together and launch a series of events, not just on Windrush Day, but before and weeks after." 'Building Britain' Travellers on HMT Empire Windrush - and those on other ships which came to the UK until 1971 - became known as the Windrush them were Mr Bell's grandparents, who arrived in the UK in the early said this year's events started on 13 June with a talk from Prof Patrick Vernon OBE, who was one of the first to campaign for a Windrush following weekend, there was a storytelling event for children with stories from the Windrush generation."We really want to sort of capture [the Windrush generation's] stories and be reminding of our first generations as best as we can, but the next generation to keep it going," Mr Bell said. Mr Bell said when the organisers of the town's Windrush Day events met last year, "one of the key things we wanted to make sure is that we have intergenerational activities".He added: "We wanted to make sure, as best as we can, it brings everybody together from every generation."It was really important because it's not just the founders, those who first came here, it's also those who are here now and building Britain as we go along." One of the events is an art exhibition at Wellingborough's Swansgate Shopping included "a Bob Marley walk" to commemorate what would have been Bob Marley's 80th birthday earlier this Bell said: "It should be a four metre wide piece of art, which has got a [collage] of all the different images of Bob Marley."It's hopefully a nice big work of art for people to sort of see as part of the exhibition." Follow Northamptonshire news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
BBC News
a day ago
- General
- BBC News
Who were the Windrush generation and what is Windrush Day?
Windrush Day has been held on 22 June since 2018, to celebrate the contribution Caribbean migrants and their families have made to the Empire Windrush docked in Tilbury, Essex, in 1948, bringing hundreds of passengers from the Caribbean to the 2018, it emerged that the government had not properly recorded the details of people granted permission to stay in the UK, and many were wrongly mistreated. What is the Windrush generation? HMT Empire Windrush became a symbol of a wider mass-migration in the Caribbean were invited to the UK to help rebuild post-war to the National Archives, which holds the ship's passenger list, there were 1,027 people on board. More than 800 gave their last country of residence as somewhere in the hundred passengers were Jamaican, but others arrived from islands including Trinidad, St Lucia, Grenada and travellers - and those on other ships which came to the UK until 1971 - became known as the Windrush had served in the British armed forces in World War Two. Why did the Windrush generation come to Britain? In 1948, the British Nationality Act gave people from colonies the right to live and work in government needed workers to help fill post-war labour shortages and rebuild the countries were also struggling economically, and job vacancies in the UK offered an of those who came became manual workers, drivers, cleaners, and nurses in the newly established NHS. What is Windrush Day? Commemoration events have been held on 22 June every year since 2023, the 75th anniversary of the arrival of HMT Windrush was marked with a series of concerts, exhibitions and seminars across the Charles, who held a reception at Buckingham Palace to mark the anniversary, hailed the Windrush generation's "profound and permanent contribution to British life".This year will see events taking place around the country, including a number sponsored by the government's Windrush Day Grant Scheme. Where are the Windrush generation now? It is unclear how many people from the Windrush generation are still in the UK, but the number is thought to be in the are among more than 500,000 UK residents who were born in a Commonwealth country and arrived before 1971, according to University of Oxford estimates. What was the Windrush scandal? The 1971 Immigration Act gave Commonwealth citizens living in the UK indefinite leave to remain - the permanent right to live and work in the included the Windrush generation, but also people from other former British colonies in South Asia and Africa. However, in April 2018, it emerged that the UK Home Office had kept no records of those granted permission to stay, and had not issued the paperwork they needed to confirm their had also destroyed landing cards belonging to Windrush migrants, in affected were unable to prove they were in the country legally and were prevented from accessing healthcare, work and were also threatened with deportation.A review of historical cases also found that at least 83 people who had arrived before 1973 had been wrongly deported. What did the government do about the Windrush scandal? In April 2018, then-Prime Minister Theresa May apologised for the treatment of those affected. An inquiry was announced and a compensation scheme inquiry, which reported in March 2020, said that the scandal was both "foreseeable and avoidable", and criticised "a culture of disbelief and carelessness" in the Home made 30 recommendations, including:a full Home Office review of the UK's "hostile environment" immigration policyappointing a migrants' commissionerestablishing a race advisory boardInquiry author Wendy Williams warned there was a "grave risk" of similar problems happening again without government Secretary Priti Patel accepted the recommendations in full. But in January 2023, then-Home Secretary Suella Braverman announced the Home office was dropping three of the commitments:to appoint a migrants' commissioner responsible for "speaking up for migrants and those affected by the system directly or indirectly"to give the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration new powersto hold events with people affected to "listen and reflect on their stories"The High Court later ruled that Ms Braverman acted unlawfully by dropping the measures relating to a migrants' commissioner and the chief inspector of borders and June 2025, the Reverend Clive Foster was appointed as the first Windrush Commissioner - seven years after the scandal was first exposed.A top priority will be looking at how to improve the Windrush Compensation Scheme which has been described by campaigners as "torturous". How does the Windrush Compensation Scheme work? The Windrush Compensation Scheme was established in April 2019, and about 15,000 people were thought to be the scheme has been consistently criticised for processing delays, low offers, and unfair rejections reversed on 2021, MPs found the scheme had itself become a further trauma for those eligible. The Home Affairs Committe said many of those affected were "still too fearful of the Home Office to apply".In April 2023, Human Rights Watch said the scheme was "failing" victims, and repeated calls for it to be removed from the Home Office's response, the Home Office said it was "committed to righting the wrongs of Windrush".In October 2024, Labour Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced an additional £1.5m of funding to help victims apply for of April 2025, the scheme had paid out more than £110m.
The Guardian
6 days ago
- General
- The Guardian
Sir Geoff Palmer obituary
Sir Geoff Palmer, who has died aged 85, was a son of the Windrush generation who became a grain scientist of global renown and, in his later life, an equally distinguished campaigner for racial equality and historical awareness. Most of his career was spent in Scotland, where he arrived in 1964 as a research student, when even renting a room was not easy. 'As I walked up the path I'd see the curtain move and by the time I got to the door, I was told the room had been taken.' Surrounded in Edinburgh by street names and statues which had, from his perspective, unsavoury connotations, Palmer made it a mission to raise awareness of Scotland's links with the slave trade. He believed these had been downplayed, although the wealth of many Scottish dynasties was founded on slavery and 'about 60% of the surnames in the Jamaica telephone directory are Scottish'. He went on to become Scotland's first black professor in 1989 and did much to make Heriot-Watt University an internationally recognised research centre for brewing and distilling. In 2021, he became the university's chancellor. The many accolades he received included, last year, admission to the Order of the Thistle, Scotland's highest order of chivalry. Palmer's crusade to force historical reassessment came to wider attention during the Black Lives Matter campaign, through his focus on Henry Dundas, Viscount Melville, who, as a minister in William Pitt's administration, was known as the 'uncrowned King of Scotland' and whose towering monument is the centrepiece of St Andrew's Square in Edinburgh. Palmer maintained that Dundas had been responsible for delaying the abolition of slavery by 15 years during which a further half million slaves were transported from Africa to the Caribbean. Under the scrutiny engendered by Black Lives Matter, the Melville monument became the subject of intense controversy. However, Palmer did not support removing or toppling monuments. He said: 'My view is that if you remove the evidence, you remove the deed. Therefore, slavery-related objects such as statues and buildings should carry plaques which tell the truth of links with slavery'. This was the solution eventually arrived at in the case of the Melville monument. Palmer arrived in London a month before his 15th birthday, which proved a detail of critical significance. His father, Aubrey, had deserted the family in Jamaica and his mother, Ivy, came to London aboard the Mauretania in 1948, leaving Geoff behind to be looked after by aunts until her earnings as a seamstress could bring him to England. She had arranged a job for him but, as they left for work, a man stopped them to ask how old Geoff was. It was, he recalled, a life-changing intervention. The fact he had not reached 15 meant he had to go to school. Initially, he was branded 'educationally sub-normal'. 'On a test they gave me, one of the questions, I can remember it clearly, was: 'What is Big Ben?' And I must have written, 'It's a big guy'.' Shelburne secondary modern in Highbury took him in and his cricketing ability meant he was soon playing for London Schools. This led to an offer from Highbury grammar, where he gained an A-level in biology. He found work as a lab assistant and, after adding to his qualifications, secured a place at Leicester University, where he graduated with honours in botany. Palmer returned to London but the only work the Labour Exchange would offer him was peeling potatoes in a restaurant. Set on an academic career, he saw an advert from Heriot-Watt, then a college of Edinburgh University, offering a PhD opportunity and was interviewed by Dr Anna Macleod, the world's first female professor of brewing and biochemistry. 'After about 10 minutes, she said: 'I'm going to take you'. She gave me a dustbin full of barley. I said: 'What am I going to do with that?'. She said: 'Get on with it. That's your research material'.' This set Palmer on a course that was to make him a celebrated figure in the evolution of brewing and distilling. 'I then went and read up as much as I could about barley and malt', he said. 'Those references are still in my head because I went to the library at the Royal Botanic Garden, next to where I lived in Edinburgh, and tracked their barley research, right back to the 1800s'. By 1967, he had gained his PhD, for research that proved groundbreaking. It involved the science and technology of changing germinated barley into malt and produced results which were reported in the scientific journal Nature. The barley abrasion process that Palmer identified accelerated the malting cycle and became of great value to big brewers and whisky companies. He became senior scientist at the Brewing Research Foundation in Surrey before returning in 1977 to Heriot-Watt where, among his many achievements, he secured £1m from the Scotch Whisky Association to help establish the International Centre for Brewing and Distilling in 1989. His expertise was in demand from many countries and businesses. One notable legacy was in Africa, resulting from a ban on the importation of European malt and barley by the Nigerian government in the 1980s. Palmer advised on the uses of local grain, an innovation which spread across the continent to the benefit of many small farmers. While increasingly involved in working for equal opportunities, Palmer continued to teach at Heriot-Watt University until his retirement in 2005 and, in 2014, he was knighted for services to human rights, science and charity. He worked closely with his friend Benjamin Zephaniah to promote opportunities in STEM subjects for disadvantaged communities. Throughout his career, Palmer experienced and overcame both overt and covert racism while forming strong views on how the only long-term answers lay in education, which must include teaching about Britain's colonial past and its impacts on the history that followed. Spreading that knowledge became his chief preoccupation. A courteous, humorous and charismatic man, Palmer relied on reasoned argument and careful research to communicate powerful messages. He published Mr White and the Ravens, a novel about race relations, in 2001 and The Enlightenment Abolished: Citizens of Britishness, a memoir and collection of articles, followed in 2007. He is survived by his wife, Margaret Wood, an educational psychologist, whom he married in 1969, their son, Ralph, and daughters, Susie and Catherine. Sir Godfrey Henry Oliver 'Geoff' Palmer, grain scientist, historian and equality campaigner, born 9 April 1940; died 12 June 2025
Yahoo
14-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Photos of 1980s African-Caribbean life in Bradford to be displayed
A selection of photos by a Bradford-based photographer are to go on display at a museum. Victor Wedderburn's photos, which capture 1980s African-Caribbean life in the city, will be shown at the National Science and Media Museum as part of Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture. The photos feature local landmarks such as Lumb Lane's Roots Record Shop and the Perseverance Hotel, as well as sound system parties. Originally from Jamaica, Wedderburn arrived in the UK in 1971 at the age of 16, joining his Windrush Generation parents in Bradford. After losing his job at Crofts Engineers to redundancy in the early 1980s, he used his redundancy pay to buy a second-hand camera and film developing kit. He then began documenting life in the city. A spokesperson said: "Wedderburn's images, in a colour format rarely seen at the time, are an intimate portrait of the world and people that surrounded him." The new display follows Wedderburn's debut exhibition, Frontline 1984/1985, at Loading Bay in Bradford, and consists of a selection of photos from that exhibition. The photos, in the National Science and Media Museum foyer, will be available to view until October 29, 2025. For more information and to book free admission, visit
