<
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/22/britain-windrush-75-pioneers-country-achievement>
"Look again at that picture taken 75 years ago at Tilbury docks. Look at those
people as they posed for the historic photographs. Look at their faces; wearied
from a month of travel, etched with joy, hope, bewilderment and lurking stage
left, just out of sight, foreboding.
As the descendants of that Windrush generation, we get to look at those faces
every day in the pictures of our own families that we hang on the walls and in
our front rooms. They have the same posed smiles, the demeanour of all
adventurers who smile at the outset of an uncertain journey. There were 492 of
them and they knew they had to impress and account for themselves. The attire
was pin-sharp, whatever could be said of them on arrival, it was not to be that
they were slovenly. They knew enough to show that they came in peace. Some sang
and exuded bonhomie for
Pathé News, but others interviewed on the day sought
to echo the self-effacement and deprecation they saw as essentially English.
They made the best of it; but they didn’t know much at all. They would have to
learn much quickly in turbulent decades."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
