Diversity is our greatest strength... Charles’ tribute to the Windrush generation
PRINCE Charles honoured the contribution of black people in Britain yesterday and hailed diversity as the country’s greatest strength.
On the 72nd anniversary of the arrival of the Empire Windrush at Tilbury Docks in Essex – bringing the first in a post-war generation of Caribbean immigrants to help rebuild Britain – the heir to the throne spoke of the nation’s debt of gratitude to them.
Charles, 71, also paid tribute to people from African and Caribbean backgrounds working in the NHS and other frontline jobs during the Covid-19 pandemic and acknowledged that they had been hit particularly hard by the coronavirus.
Legacy
In a video message marking Windrush Day, he said: “Today, as we honour the legacy of the Windrush generation, and the invaluable contribution of black people in Britain, I dearly hope that we can continue to listen to each other’s stories and to learn from one another.
“The diversity of our society is its greatest strength and gives us so much to celebrate.”
His remarks came after a wave of
Black Lives Matter protests in Britain and a report, published in March, which found some of the Windrush generation and their children were wrongly detained, or even deported, and others were denied official documents, healthcare, work and benefits despite legally living in the UK.
More than 500 Jamaicans and others from various parts of the Caribbean – applying to job adverts amid labour shortages in post-war
Britain – were among the 1,027 passengers who disembarked at Tilbury on June 22, 1948 from the British troop ship.
Charles said: “The men and women who stepped off the Empire Windrush at Tilbury in June 1948, just a few months before I was born, had left behind all that was familiar to them in order to strive for opportunity in a land they barely knew.
“Many of them had served with distinction in the British Armed Forces during the Second World War, just as their fathers and grandfathers had in the First World War.
“Now they came to lend their hard work and skill to a country rebuilding in peacetime, and to forge a better future for themselves and their families.
“They could hardly have imagined how they, and those that followed them, would make such a
‘They came to forge a better future for themselves and their families’
profound and permanent contribution to British life.
“Today offers an opportunity to express the debt of gratitude we owe to that first Windrush generation for accepting the invitation to come to Britain and, above all, to recognise the immeasurable difference that they, their children and their grandchildren, have made to so many aspects of our public life, to our culture and to every sector of our economy.”
Heartbreaking
The Prince also highlighted the impact of coronavirus, and expressed his sympathy to those who had lost loved ones.
He said: “I know that the black community has been hit particularly hard by this pernicious virus.
“To those who have lost their loved ones in such heartbreaking circumstances, when it has been impossible for them to comfort their relatives in hospital, I can only convey my most profound sympathy.
“And to everyone on the front line who has been put under such intense pressure over the last three months and risen heroically to the unprecedented challenge, I want to say, on behalf of all of us, how inordinately proud we are of them and the way they carry out their onerous duties.”