Thought For The Day – Thursday 22^nd June 2023

Today is Windrush Day.  Happy Windrush Day.

“The Windrush Generation”, and their descendants, and other people who settled in the UK,  massively helped the UK re-build after World War 2.

Many had served in World War 2 to defeat the Nazis.

It is now 75 years since the arrival of people from the Caribbean, on “HMT Empire Windrush”,  on 22nd June 1948. Thousands more people arrived before and after. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Si3IRAPJkkU

They came immaculately,  in their “Sunday Best”,  and they massively enriched, and still and will always enrich,  the U.K.

To celebrate and commemorate the 75th anniversary, there are special stamps and a 50 pence coin.

We should never, ever forget our debt to “The Windrush Generation”.

We always owe a debt to those great and good people who came before us.

The U.K. has always been multi-cultural in its history but with time, travel and technology,  exciting and enriching, vibrant, vital and respectful cultural diversity further enhanced and illuminated society.   It is, and has been, wonderful.

Brilliant contributions were made to health, culture and the arts, education, literature, public service, science, society, sport and religion.

Some families had children in the U.K.  These children, and their children’s children,  massively enhanced, and continue to massively enhance the U.K.

Black History is U.K. History. U.K. History is Black History.

However, “The Windrush Generation” suffered the evil of racism. Last year, the monument pictured above, of a family in their “Sunday best” standing on suitcases,  was unveiled at Waterloo Railway Station in London, a place though which people from the Caribbean would pass.  At the unveiling, the Prince of Wales said of “The Windrush Generation”:  “Without you all Britain would simply not be what it is today.” He also drew attention to the evil of racism that “The Windrush Generation” suffered then, and which people can still suffer now.