A major celebration has been going on in Britain since last week marking the 60th anniversary of the arrival in London in June 1948 of the M.V. Empire Windrush. She was the ship famous for bringing the first wave of West Indian immigrants that gave birth to modern multicultural Britain

What is of historical significance about that famous trip was that Bermuda was the last stop for Empire Windrush before London. She carried 500 immigrants who had been recruited in the West Indies to help rebuild post-war Britain. They were all black men, except one child and fewer than a dozen women.

Amongst them were eight Bermudians. They were stowaways. One has confessed to this writer that it was only by the grace of God that he is alive today to tell his story. He is a respectable, low profile Christian gentleman, a married man who operates the business that he owns. For the purposes of this story we will refer to him only as Roger.

Eminent black British author Mike Phillips in his book contended that if it hadn't been for the Second World War the Windrush and her passengers might not have made the voyage at all. During the war thousands of Caribbean men and women had been recruited for service in the armed forces. Many joined up for another spell in the services after the war, but the majority returned to the Caribbean only to be disillusioned over the high rate of unemployment in the West Indies.

Windrush originally was a German troop ship. In 1945 she was captured by British forces at Kiel, became a war prize and was renamed HM Troopship Empire Windrush. British authorities had sent the ship to Jamaica to pick up servicemen who were on leave from the units. Their numbers were swelled by many of their former comrades who decided to make the journey hoping to join the RAF. There were also some more adventurous young men who just wanted to see what the Mother Country was like.

From Jamaica the ship went to Tampa, Florida for three or four days. It bypassed Cuba and put into Bermuda for a scheduled stop.

The pending arrival of the Windrush was highly publicized in The Royal Gazette because among her passengers were two English girls who were engaged to be married to soldiers stationed at the British Garrison at Prospect. Their double wedding at the Garrison church took place within four hours of Windrush dropping anchor in Grassy Bay off the Dockyard on June 8. The wedding was covered with great detail by the morning paper.

As I reported in an earlier account on Our Windrush Stowaways in the Mid-Ocean News, January 28, 2005, Bermuda's black community through initiatives taken by Dr. E.F. Gordon (later Mazumbo), and the black people rolled out the welcome mat for the West Indian visitors. Amongst the latter were a number of calypso singers. Dr. Gordon laid on a concert at the old Colonial Opera House, and a big dance was held at the Unity Tennis Courts in Happy Valley, where lots of fraternization took place.

It should be remembered that visit occurred a whole decade before the Theatre Boycott that led to the desegregation of hotels, restaurants and other public places in Bermuda.

Initially the troopship's visit was supposed to have been a short stopover. But engine trouble forced her to remain Bermuda waters for three or four days.

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