Two thirds of the Historycal Roots team attended the final event of the Windrush 70 project at Lambeth Town Hall. It was a varied evening of: entertainment (calypsonian De Alberto, supported by Alexander D’Great and flautist Keith Waithe, performing with Manjeet Rasiya on tabla); education (Ansel Wong, who spoke about the many different components of the Caribbean diaspora and how they had transformed British society); and inspiration (Baroness Floella Benjamin, who spoke about some of the obstacles she had faced and overcome during her life).
The event was well supported by Lambeth council. The current mayor, Councillor Christopher Wellbeloved, spoke from the heart about his own experiences growing up as a young man of mixed heritage in the UK. Councillor Sonia Winifred spoke about the importance of education and the need to love our young people and help them turn away from violence (if you live in London the subject of knife crime is hard to avoid).
I will focus though on the presentation by Arthur Torrington, founder with the late Sam King, of the Windrush Foundation. Arthur spoke about the e-book that the project has produced. The book, which will be available shortly through the Windrush Foundation website (https://windrushfoundation.com/profiles/), tells the story of 70 ‘Windrush Pioneers and Champions’. The Historycal Roots team are proud to have played a part in producing this book.
We were lucky enough to have several pioneers in the room with us: Allan Wilmot, who arrived in December 1947 on a ship called the Almanzora; and Alford Gardner who was on the Windrush itself.
Also present was Edna Chavannes. Edna came to the UK in 1951 as a trainee nurse and served the NHS for 45 years before retiring in 1996. Edna was delighted to be presented with a silver salver commemorating her role as a pioneer.
Without Edna and the thousands like her who travelled to the UK in the 1950s and 1960s there really would not be an NHS. As the event’s compere, Burt Caesar, said, the story of the Windrush itself is usually a story about men, the story of the many thousands of women who migrated to Britain has never properly been told.
Another pioneer who featured was Mona Baptiste. Although Mona is no longer with us, the Windrush Foundation had nevertheless produced a silver salver in her name.
We collected this on her behalf and hope to have the great pleasure of presenting it to her family in 2019.
Returning nicely to the theme of education from earlier in the evening, Arthur also spoke about the education resource pack the project has produced to help teachers tell pupils at Key Stage 2 (about the ages 7-11) about the contributions of the Windrush generation.
It was a lovely evening and well done to Arthur and his team for this event (and the others that preceded it) and for the delivery of a very successful project.
To conclude, I can’t resist including a link to the song that De Alberto performed live. Ardent monarchists may prefer not to click on the link!