E BATTLES HER PARENTS FACED TO GET MARRIED
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were black. He said he didn’t n’t want people to turn around nd and say, ‘You can’t expect any ny more from them because e they’re black.’ But he never r had a chip on his shoulder.” ”
The couple left in 1978 but t returned in 2006. Carla was living in the town and the couple decided to move back, buying a house on the site of his old RAF base.
Sadly, Harry died from lung cancer in 2011, a year after Pauline passed away from dementia.
Carla said: “Everybodyy who you speak to remembers him. I do feel near my dad here and I have happy memories.
“I left home while we were posted here and, by the time I finished college, they had left. After I met my husband Michael, we decided to move back.
“Because of my colour, they remember me from the first time we were here in the 70s.”
Prime Minister Theresa May was forced to apologise earlier this year and Home Secretary Amber Rudd resigned after hardline rules categorised some Windrush men and women as illegal immigrants.
A parliamentary committee into the scandal said their treatment had been shocking and called for a “fundamental change in law, culture and procedure”.
All Windrush-generation migrants have now been told they will be granted their citizenship papers and application fees wi l l be waived. Some wi l l receive compensation.
Carla said she believes her father would have felt sad about the controversy.
She said: “Dad would probably feel blessed about his life but feel sad for the people affected by this.
“People being deported is scandalous. It wasn’t racist but it should never have happened.”
Carla said Harry and Pauline’s love was as strong at the end of their marriage as at the beginning.
She added: “When mum got dementia, dad was determined to look after her. He used to say he had made a vow and wanted to honour it. He got lung cancer and was so sad when my mum had to go to a care home.”
Harry only managed to return to Guyana once before his death. He used his life savings to take his family there.
Carla, who was 13 at the time, said: “I remember him crying and I think that’s the first time I saw him cry. We were there during Christmas and New Year. It cost my parents all their savings to take us there. They had been saving for a deposit on a house but my father felt it was important to go.”
Carla’s daughter Anna Stainke, 27, said she grew up incredibly proud of her grandfather’s story. She said: “As I got older, I was aware of how controversial it was at the time for a mixed race couple to marry.
“I’ve always known he was from the Windrush generation. It has taught people about the significance of it.”