West Midlands based Nehemiah Housing Association is marking Windrush 75 with a series of special events this week to celebrate the contributions of the Windrush generation in the Midlands region and across the UK.
To celebrate this milestone, as well as the contributions and achievements of the Windrush generation in the Midlands region, Nehemiah Housing Association has held a party at its Charles Pearson Court retirement scheme in Smethwick and McCalla House in Wolverhampton.
22nd June marks the 75th anniversary of the arrival of HMS Windrush into Britain, which had several hundred passengers on board from the Caribbean to help rebuild the country and public services following the second world war.
Nehemiah Housing is proud to provide homes to the Windrush generation and their children; who have hugely enriched British life – and this anniversary allows everyone to honour and celebrate these stories and achievements.
This Windrush Day Nehemiah Housing Association will also recognise the many sacrifices and difficulties that the Windrush generation and the British Caribbean community have had to overcome over the years, as well as the resilience they have shown in the face of this adversity.
Nehemiah Tenant Una McKayle who is 82 this year and came to the UK from Jamaica in 1959 to live in West Bromwich said “My sister and brother were living in the UK already so I came to stay with them and quickly found work at Charles Bunn a local factory in West Bromwich on the hand press. I have to say though if I had had a return ticket to Jamaica I would have gone as no one told me how cold, dark and damp England was. When we were in school in Jamaica the teacher used to show us a book about England and it had photos of fires in the bedroom to keep people warm. We used to laugh and say no that can’t be true. We didn’t know what we were facing when we came to the UK.
“We came here though as there were jobs and the Queen had been to Jamaica to say we were welcome and we should come to the UK. I have always worked until I retired and I have 3 children, 29 grandchildren and 8 great grandchildren to keep me busy now. Working meant I was earning money and was able to go out and go to places like the pictures.
“I say to young people today that they don’t know what hard times are, we had it hard but your sweat of toil means you will always eat bread and don’t begrudge others.”
John Baker who is 84 and a resident of Nehemiah’s Charles Pearson Court retirement scheme in Smethwick came to the UK from Jamaica in 1960. He flew to London from Jamaica and then came to Birmingham for work. He said “England provided better opportunities and jobs but I missed the sunshine and the fresh food as we grew a lot of our own food back home in Jamaica. The winters were so dreadful when I first came and I did think of going back to Jamaica.
I met my wife here and she was also from Jamaica and we had six children and a handful of grandchildren and great grandchildren. My family all stayed in Jamaica and I missed them when I was here but I have been back to Jamaica many times and I have my own family here now.”
Another resident of the Charles Pearson Court retirement scheme Elizabeth Smith, who is 93 on the 18 June, came from Jamaica in 1956 flying into London. She said it was a shock when she came to England “I was in rooms and we had to share the cooking and washing facilities something I had not done before. The fog and the smog of London was also a shock we had to use torchlight to find our way home.
“I worked in London at a car factory and one year they had a raffle of a car and I won. It was a Hillman Imp and I was able to sell the car and move myself and my children to Birmingham. That was 1970 and I carried on working getting a job at Harrisons the drapers on the assembly line and I retired from there in 2002.
“Life was totally different in the West Indies; we planted and cultivated our own food and built our own houses. My family had goats, cows and mules so we were self-sufficient. I came to England though because in Jamaica I didn’t have the chance of an education I left school to look after my brothers and sisters and do the housework. I came to England and was able to help my brothers and sisters.
“I say whatever you want out of life go for it and you will get it. My sister became a nurse and moved to the USA and my brother moved to Canada. My eldest daughter became a nurse too and I have 13 grandchildren and 18 great grandchildren and a great great grandchild. At my age it isn’t always easy to remember how many though.”
McCalla House retirement scheme resident Mrs Malcolm who is 85 on the 21 June came to England from Jamaica where she lived in Kingston. She was 17 when she arrived in the UK in July 1955 and she joined her mum who was already here. She said: “I didn’t have a clue about what life was like in England. The food was certainly different and I had never seen a coal fire before and as I arrived in July seeing the snow and experiencing the cold winters was a shock but my mum explained this was normal for England. I knew there were opportunities here and I always wanted to be a nurse. I started nursing training at New Cross hospital but due to getting married and having children I never finished my training. I later became a nursing assistant at New Cross hospital.
“I have 7 children including twins and I am a grandmother and great grandmother and I say to all of them whatever opportunity comes your way grasp it.”
Sixty three year old Kerleen White who lives at Charles Pearson Court Retirement scheme has a completely different story to a lot of the other Windrush tenants of Nehemiah Housing. Kerleen sadly had to leave her home in Montserrat due to the Volcano. Many will remember that eruptions destroyed Montserrat’s Georgian era capital city of Plymouth. Between 1995 and 2000, two-thirds of the island’s population was forced to flee, primarily to the United Kingdom, leaving fewer than 1,200 people on the island in 1997. Kerleen said: “I came here in 2000 and arrived in Blackburn, Lancashire before moving to Birmingham to work as a care worker and a cashier. I must admit I miss the food, the climate, and the culture but I say be prepared for anything and make life what you want it to be.”
Nehemiah Chief Executive Llewellyn Graham who is also part of the Windrush generation arriving in the UK from Jamaica in 1976 aged 15 commented:
“Nehemiah Housing was born out of a need to provide suitable and affordable housing to a sector of the community that were part of the Windrush generation.
“This year marks the 75th anniversary of the arrival of HMS Windrush into Britain, offering us the chance to deepen our understanding and celebrate the immense contributions of the Windrush generation here in the Midlands.
“On Windrush Day we will recognise and thank all those who arrived as part of the Windrush Generation, and their descendants, for the enormous contributions they made to Britain during its recovery from the Second World War and have continued to make ever since. While it is a day to celebrate everything that the Windrush Generation have done for us, it is also an opportunity to reflect on the difficulties many of them faced in setting up home in this country.”