On 22nd June in 1948, the ship ‘HMT Empire Windrush’ landed at Tilbury docks in East London, bringing over 1000 Caribbean people to the UK. The National Windrush Day honours the British Caribbean community and the estimated 500,000 people living in the UK who are part of the Windrush Generation, who arrived between 1948 and 1971.
Our team has had the privilege to work with many dedicated local members of the Caribbean community who themselves were part of the Windrush generation, or remember their parents or loved ones on this day. In our special guest blog, Jayne Saul-Paterson remembers her father William Saul, his experience after coming to the UK, and reflects on being the daughter of a Caribbean migrant.
Windrush Day
by Jayne Saul-Paterson
In 2018, the Caribbean community and others came together in the UK to celebrate the 70 years anniversary since the Windrush boat docked in Tilbury Docks and brought with it, mostly Caribbean men (women often joined them later) in search of new life and prosperity in the ‘Mother land’ as England was known to those Elders. It was against this backdrop that the Windrush scandal landed and we watched in disgust as people who had come here as adults or children in the Windrush migration years were threatened with deportation and sent computer generated letters suggesting they had no rights of citizenship. We wrote to our MP’s, we raged on social media and we protested and for some of us whose families were directly affected or those who had parents who had made that journey, we cried as we remembered again the past discrimination and abusive treatment of our elders despite the contributions they had made to post-war England. We realise these campaigns helped some of our Elders but for the last couple of years, we have heard so many stories of hundreds of people who were threatened with deportation and the many who were deported. It is this recent scandal together with the current events including the witnessing the murder of George Floyd which makes many people of colour question the progress that has been made in race equality in the UK as well as the States. At its heart, the events remind us that as black and brown people our right to belong and live as equals in England will always be questioned by racists and bigots.
My own father William Saul left George Town, Guyana and took the boat over to the UK in the mid 1950s – the ships came from the Caribbean carrying migrants from the late 1940’s and through to the 1960s. Like many, he came with very little, just the one suitcase that can be seen in the photo of me in St Paul’s Carnival of 2018, holding my prized possession, his battered brown suitcase that he brought with him from Guyana. One of the many adaptations that had to be made in this harsh new climate, was coping with the cold and biting weather so his first month’s wages were spent on an overcoat. He was the first in his immediate family to settle in the UK and he came to North West London – those first 10 years of his time in England saw him move dozens of times around the areas of Cricklewood, Willesden and Harlesden. After my father William had been here a few years, his three nieces arrived as well – one of them lived with my father in her early days in England but he was a protective Uncle to them all particularly, I was told in the face of unwanted attentions from white, older landlords. The crossing wasn’t cheap (probably at least £600 in today's money) and took a lot of sacrifices for those left behind but who wanted their sons and daughters to prosper in England.
Picture of Jayne Saul-Paterson with her father suitcase. Photo by Bhagesh Photography https://www.bhagesh.photography/
Picture of William Saul with his niece Joyce who came to join him in England from Guyana.
Did they receive the welcome they were promised by the posters which were all over the Caribbean encouraging the young people of the Commonwealth to work in the new public services and industries of post-war England?
Not at all, my father and my cousins experienced the harsh realities of direct discrimination and prejudice in housing, in work, in health and in the established communities they met, just like their other Caribbean brothers and sisters.
The limited black history that has been taught in schools, often shows the notice outside the boarding houses of the time:
‘No Blacks, No Irish, No Dogs’
My father most certainly experienced these hostile receptions from landlords possibly one of the reasons being, he had to move around a lot and also because it was much harder to be employed in lots of different types of work due to racial prejudice. He had times where he would have struggled to pay his rent. The sign also signifies Caribbean men and women weren’t the only unwelcomed migrants on the block, Irish men and women migrated to the UK throughout the 20th Century. Two migrant communities rejected by the English communities, meant that Irish and Caribbean families often lived in close proximity and hence why romantic liaisons were formed between the two groups. My father met and fell in love with Mavis, a young woman from a strict Irish Catholic family in Mill Hill and as a result of their relationship, highly disapproved by my white Irish grandparents, my brother was born in 1959 and I came along some 7 years later in 1966.
My father did a number of different jobs but settled as a shunter working on the railways and based out of Paddington Station. The work was tough, filthy and physically demanding and probably a far cry from the work he might have hoped he had come to England to do. His nieces fared slightly better, one working in nursing, another in education and one in administration. My father socialised with other Caribbean migrants and had many Jamaican friends. Like many he enjoyed drinking, partying and dancing as way of relieving the demands of their back breaking labour and the racial abuse they endured.
Sadly, for William, my mother Mavis died 15 years after they first met, and he never really got over her death. His drinking got worse and he sadly died in a drunken fight when he was only 50 years old. I knew so little of my father other than he was described by my cousins who knew him well as a jolly man, who loved a party and was a snappy dresser.
I remain ever grateful though to my father for coming to England because in despite of the challenges he faced, my brother and I have had a really good education, and both work professionally so maybe have achieved some of the prosperous life he dreamed of. Being a woman of colour and a daughter of a Caribbean migrant, and knowing my forefathers were slaves has, to me, meant that race equality and diversity has always been central to all the work I have done from being a Race Equality teacher, to a Diversity Careers Adviser and now a freelance career coach and facilitator specialising in supporting Black and Asian and ethnic minorities at work. I am proud of the journey my father made and my cousins and the many other Windrush Elders. Their hard work, their sacrifices and the resilience they showed, plus the contribution they made to UK society, deserve to be celebrated and honoured in as many ways as we can.
Jayne Saul-Paterson
Director of GSP Coaching Ltd