Windrush Day celebration in Sheffield honours lasting legacy

An event to recognise and celebrate the contributions of the Windrush generation has taken place in Sheffield.

Entitled “Honouring Our Past: Building Our Future”, the gathering brought together community members to commemorate the legacy of Caribbean people who were invited to the UK to help rebuild the country after World War Two.

Among those in attendance at the New Testament Church of God on Sunday was Linnette Hastings who came to Sheffield from Jamaica with her brother in 1968.

She said: “It is important to the community to reflect where you came from, what you’ve been through and the resilience of the people to get as far as where we are today.”

This year marks the 77th anniversary of the HMT Empire Windrush arriving in Britain on 22 June 1948.

The ship carried more than 1,000 passengers from the West Indies and Windrush Day was introduced to celebrate their contributions to rebuilding the country after the war.

In 2018, it emerged that the government had not properly recorded the details of people granted permission to stay in the UK, and many were wrongly mistreated.

Ms Hastings, who trained as a nurse and worked at Sheffield’s Northern General Hospital, said the move to England had been a “culture shock” and recalled experiencing racism firsthand.

“We are now in the 21st Century and still for all the people of the Caribbean and beyond who came here to work, we are still experiencing racism and prejudice,” she said.

“We don’t want to hear a token, we want to see results.”

The event on Sunday included guests such as Sheffield City Council leader Tom Hunt and Lord Mayor of Sheffield Safiya Saeed.

Head usher Delroy Robinson, whose parents came to the UK in 1962, said it was an opportunity for the community to share experiences and their stories.

“It’s about not letting people forget. If you forget where your past was how are you going to appreciate where you are going in the future?

“For us it’s about letting people recognise what it was like in the Windrush generation and how we can then help build our generation going forward.”