- Friday, February 28, 2025
Prince William paid a tribute to the occasion in a video on social media, saying, “Today we celebrate the Windrush generation, their descendants and everything they have given to us all.”
By: Shubham Ghosh
WILLIAM, the Prince of Wales, on Thursday (22) said the Windrush generation have made the UK “a better people today”. The remark came as the country was witnessing celebrations marking 75 years since the first crossing from the Caribbean region into Britain.
The voyagers and their descendants had helped rebuild the UK and added to its culture, Prince William said, according to a BBC report.
Nearly 500 people arrived on board the HMT Empire Windrush at Tilbury Docks in Essex on June 22, 1948, the first of thousands of people encouraged to migrate and make up for shortage of labourers in the armed forces, industry and National Health Service.
In 2018, it was found that many British citizens, who had arrived as migrants from the Caribbean between the late 1940s and 1970s and were known to be Windrush generation, were facing deportation and detention, despite having the right to reside in the UK.
Prince William paid a tribute to the occasion in a video on social media, saying, “Today we celebrate the Windrush generation, their descendants and everything they have given to us all.”
“We are a better people today because the children and the grandchildren of those who came in 1948 have stayed and become part of who we are in 2023. And for that we are forever grateful,” he added.
The royal member’s tribute came following his meeting with Royal Air Force veteran Alford Dalrymple Gardner, who is one of the few living passengers to have travelled on the ship seven decades ago.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, the Jamaican-born Gardner said quite a lot had happened in the last few months:
“I’ve met the King and I’ve met the Queen, and I’ve met the Prince of Wales.
“There’s a portrait of me to be hung at Buckingham Palace so in a couple of thousand years when I’m dead and gone, my great great great ones will see my name… nothing can beat that.”
The portrait is one of the 10 paintings of members of the Windrush generation by black artists, commissioned by the king, the BBC report added.
On Thursday morning, King Charles III was joined by young people and dignitaries at St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle for the celebration of the Windrush generation.
The Windrush flag was flown at the houses of Parliament and public buildings across the country, including Bristol and Exeter, throughout the day.
Additionally, a £1m fundraising effort was under way to recover the anchor from the HMT Empire Windrush, which sank off the coast of Algeria in 1954, and put it on public display.
Patrick Vernon, convenor of the Windrush 75 network, said the events were a chance to “celebrate the diversity of modern Britain” and to “acknowledge the legacy of those first Windrush pioneers, the challenges they overcame and the contribution they made to Britain”, the BBC added.
