Between 1948 and 1970 nearly half a million people moved from the Caribbean to Britain, which in 1948 was suffering severe labour shortages after WII. The immigrants were later referred to as the windrush generation. This verse is an imagination of what it would have been like for some of the first travellers.

The marketplace:

I looked at Mama in the marketplace,

Green, yellow – bananas of all shapes and sizes,

Handed from person to person,

As money drops from one purse to another.

“Mama!” I said,

Have you ‘eard about the windrush?

The boat , they say it’s bigger than the titanic,

Could take the whole island with it,

And carry the next 3 generations

Across the sea to

The land of opportunity.

They say over there the sun don’t beat,

And more buses on the street,

And more people go to university –

And you can shake hands wit the queen.

My friends say they’re going,

I wanna go to.

We could do more things across the sea,

Like sip tea and shake hand with the queen.

At home:

My daughter said she wanna go to Great Britain,

I’ve been thinking of it myself.

But I’m nervous still as I open my mouth,

To tell my husband of these plans.

“What!”

He says, mouth open wide.

Eyes bloodshot, and crazed with mad anger.

“They don’t want us over there”

He cries

“They look at us like we’re nothin’”

He says

“Over here we mean something, we have something”

His Papa did fight in the first world war,

Was friends with the british –

When i said this he smiled and nodded ok ,

“No harm in trying, anyway…”

The windrush

My son came running in one mornin’ ,

Coursing with life,

With passion and the urge for something new.

Told me to grab my things and go.

I couldn’t bring the old armchair,

50 years old,

sunken in but still good as new.

Spent two decades tending to that garden outside, Where things learnt to grow and blossomed into beauty, Where I spent my days under the sun, with the people I loved – The only one left was my son –

And tears fell from my eyes as I closed the groaning door.

10 thousand feet tall it could have been,

Was high as a mountain that boat.

The pier full of people,

Jostling with anxiety , with hope and with fear,

Worried faces mixed with joyous ones,

People cried and people laughed.

My family was behind me,

The little girl, her mama and her dad.

I clutch the photo of my beloved,

Draw a deep breath –

And take my first steps.

To a new life,

In a new land,

Full of new opportunities.

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