War to Windrush: Black Women in Britain 1939 to 1948 by Stephen Bourne

Jacaranda, 226 pages, £12.99

The widely known arrival of the Empire Windrush at Tilbury Docks in 1948 is often understood as heralding the arrival of the ‘ Windrush generation’, focusing attention on postwar migrants and men. Stephen Bourne’s new book, War to Windrush, offers a different perspective, celebrating the lives of black women in Britain in the decade leading up to the arrival of the Windrush. The book has been timed to coincide with the 70th anniversaries of this arrival and of the foundation of the National Health Service, which recruited many female migrants from the Caribbean.

The book tells a wide range of stories. There are singers, dancers, and stars of stage and screen. Many of them entertained the troops in wartime. Broadcasters worked in postwar television as well as wartime radio – Bourne highlights 27 BBC television programmes made between 1946 and 1948 that involved black women.

Wartime stories include those of black British-born and Caribbean women who faced racism when volunteering for the forces or for war work, and African-American women – including more than 700 stationed in Birmingham who rerouted mail to soldiers in Europe in 1945.

Bourne comments that “black women have been almost ‘written out’ of British history”. His book writes them into the history of the decade from 1939. Their words – from interviews and memoirs to autobiographies – plus the abundant beautiful illustrations, bring them vividly to life.