Windrush is Sam King’s true legacy
The South London Press has been publishing since June 22, 1948 stories of Caribbean passengers who arrived at Tilbury Docks on the ship Empire Windrush, and is still doing so today, writes Arthur Torrington.
Windrush Foundation acknowledges this support, especially as it celebrates 30 years of providing heritage education and other services to members of the community.
The Foundation was the first organisation to have celebrated Windrush Day: June 22, 1948. Sam King (1926-2016) came up with the idea, but this has not been acknowledged by the British Government, which gives the public impressions that Windrush Day is their idea.
They hijacked it in June 2018 and divided the Caribbean community.
None of the Government’s publications and websites give any credit to the late Sam King for his seminal Windrush work.
Many pieces of evidence for Mr King’s founding of Windrush Day are included in his biography, Climbing Up the Rough Side of the Mountain,1998 (2004 edition).
For example, he said: “The epic voyage created a permanent bonding of Windrush people which is [still maintained and nurtured by regular contact].
“We were the magnificent 500. The brotherhood consisted chiefly of the volunteers for the war who had been compulsorily dismissed and dispatched to Jamaica, and had reconvened in that big reunion on the Empire Windrush.
“Now, without government constraints, we were taking the bull by the horns, climbing up the rough side of the mountain.
“As always happens to mortal men in the assent, some indeed have toppled off the slippery crags and cliffs and suffered broken body and soul, while others have soft-landed and have been able to reason themselves into sufficient courage to take stock and set off again to the promise land, encountering the hideous barren rocks and whirlwinds…” (page104).
Mr King’s best-selling book is the first and only one by a black writer who describes his personal experiences as a Second World War RAF ex-serviceman, demobbed in Jamaica, returning on the Empire Windrush, and co-founding a Windrush charity.
His book influenced Andrea Levy’s Small Island, first published in 2004. She told him so. Arthur was there and heard the conversation. Windrush is Sam King’s legacy.
No Sam King, No Windrush Day
Without Sam King, there would be no Windrush Day and the Empire Windrush might have disappeared into the mists of time.
In 1995, he co-founded (with Arthur Torrington) an organisation called Windrush Foundation, the first in Britain to have been formed to celebrate the lives of Caribbean men and women who arrived on the ship at Tilbury Docks.
Sam was the driving force and had been since 1967 when he collaborated with the Sunday Times, publishing a special supplement on June 30, 1968 commemorating the 20th anniversary of Windrush Day.
He went further in August 1974 working with BBC TV to broadcast a Windrush programme called Ship of Good Hope.
The 40th anniversary was marked in June 1988, hosted by the Mayor of Lambeth. Sam organised it.
Member of Parliament Bernie Grant hosted a reception for a group of Windrush passengers at the House of Commons in 1997.
But the organisation’s first major public events were held in 1998, the 50th anniversary of Windrush Day on June 22.
One of them included a reception hosted by the then Prince Charles (now King Charles III) at St James’s Palace.
Our first heritage publication in 2005 was called We Served, and in 2008, an oral history project created a video and booklet called Windrush Pioneers.
The 60th anniversary of Windrush Day was commemorated in June 2008.
That year, Windrush Foundation collaborated with the Imperial War Museum, displaying an exhibition called From War to Windrush, which included photographs of Second World War ex-service personnel, and Windrush passengers.
In 2012, British people viewed one of the most moving moments of the London Olympic Games. Dozens of Caribbean people and a giant model of the Empire Windrush entered the stadium during the ceremony’s historical pageant, representing the Windrush Generation and the thousands of Caribbean people who had settled in the UK.
The 70th anniversary in 2018 saw what the media labelled a ‘Windrush Scandal’, which exposed the mistreatment of thousands of Caribbean settlers who were wrongly denied rights, detained and many deported despite having the right to live and work in the UK.
Also in 2018, the Tory Government followed Windrush Foundation’s flagship, publicly acknowledging the importance of June 22, Windrush Day, and making it an annual national statutory commemoration.
During the 75th anniversary of Windrush Day, the organisation created seven education resources, all available downloadable free at www.windrushfoundation.com.
The year 2024 saw the Windrush Foundation collaborating with Transport for London as it renamed six overground networks.
One of them, which operates from north London to South London, was named the ‘Windrush line’. Sam King’s became the face of the Windrush line.
Pictured top: Prince Charles (now King Charles III) at St James’s Palace, meeting Windrush passengers in 1988 (Picture: Windrush Foundation)
