Windrush Day

[lady-janine]

I believe today has been designated Windrush Day.

Do any of you have any comments about this at all?

Has our treatment of our West Indian colleagues been fair?
Do you thin they should receive compensation?
Are you grateful to them for their contribution to society?
Do you wish they had never been invited here in the first place?

Any thoughts at all?

[david small]

You warm my heart Naomi:-)

[naomi24]

Awww ... shucks. :o)

[Khandro]

They had few skills & largely did the most of menial jobs. Statements I have seen in the press this morning that they built Britain, is utter bull....

[jesmond]

Oooh dont get me started on compensation as I wont stop but will only say FEPOW who didnt get theirs till around 1999/2000 and for those who know what I am on about then you should know what they went through.

[lady-janine]

Thank you for all your responses.

[douglas9401]

"I'm waiting for National Acoustic Guitar Beginner's Day:-)"

Don't fret.

[Khandro]

'The Ministry of Labour was also unhappy about the arrival of the Jamaican men, minister George Isaacs warning that if they attempted to find work in areas of serious unemployment ‘there will be trouble eventually’. He said: ‘The arrival of these substantial numbers of men under no organised arrangement is bound to result in considerable difficulty and disappointment. I hope no encouragement will be given to others to follow their example.’

[Ha-ha!]

Soon afterwards, 11 concerned Labour MPs wrote to Prime Minister Clement Attlee stating that the government should ‘by legislation if necessary, control immigration in the political, social, economic and fiscal interests of our people… In our opinion such legislation or administration action would be almost universally approved by our people.’ The letter was sent on 22 June; that same day the Windrush arrived at Tilbury.'

[retrocop]

//"I'm waiting for National Acoustic Guitar Beginner's Day:-)"

Don't fret.//


Chap called Del is selling Acoustic guitars very cheaply down the market with no strings attached.

[Hymie]

I was interested to see one of the Windrush migrants being interviewed on TV yesterday, saying that she remembered Enoch Powell touring the Caribbean islands, encouraging them to come and settle in the UK – whatever happened there (rivers of blood etc)?

[Khandro]

//I was interested to see one of the Windrush migrants being interviewed on TV yesterday, saying that she remembered Enoch Powell touring the Caribbean islands, encouraging them to come and settle in the UK – whatever happened there (rivers of blood etc)?//

I think that person has, to say the least, an unreliable memory.

[Bobbisox1]

I saw two WR migrants who’ve now settled back in Jamaica ,interviewed last night, one had been a builder in Nottingham and due the 1987 crash, lost everything , his marriage to a white lady ended in divorce , when he go off HMS Windrush , he vowed to himself to work hard in his adopted country, get married and raise a family , he did all that successfully only he then was deemed to be be ‘ illegal ‘ by the then Home Secretary Theresa May and he was deported back to Jamaica, another served in the British forces and shied a medal for his tour of NI, he too was deported , this came about by a simple visit to a Dentist, the dentist asked for proof of him being here , he had none as his passport had like the builders, been destroyed he was refused treatment and pulled out his own tooth after drinking a bottle of vodka and using pliers, he wasn’t proud of his army medal’ I gave Britain the best years of my life and they did that to me’
At that moment , I felt ashamed I was British!

[Khandro]

No need to feel ashamed, they should have simply renewed their passports before they expired.

[Hymie]

Why should people have to renew their passports to avoid being illegally deported?

[Bobbisox1]

I felt ashamed that those who’d been in the forces and served my country , and for the builder who’d paid his taxes to this country , had been treat that way Khandro

[Zacs-Master]

The ones who were repatriated / deported once their usefulness was deemed to be over should definitely be compensated.

[Bobbisox1]

I agree 100% Zac, these two men were ,but they were still very angry at the way they’d been treated by our Government

[Ken4155]

Retro, Dougie's response to my post was quite 'sharp'. In comparison, yours fell a tad 'flat'.

[Khandro]

Hymie //Why should people have to renew their passports to avoid being illegally deported?//

Ideally they shouldn't have been deported, but as immigrants (i.e. people not born in the UK) their passports were their only means of identification that they were British domiciles, an extremely valuable document for them to take care of; so they should, as many of them did, renewed it before it lapsed.

[Khandro]

Also, being a member of the British armed forces doesn't automatically make a person a British subject. The Gurkha regiment, for example, are recruited from Nepal, which is neither a dependent territory of the United Kingdom nor even a member of the Commonwealth.