Windrush events 'intergenerational' says organiser

Glenroy Bell is one of the organisers of the Windrush Day events in Wellingborough

One of the organisers of a series of events to mark Windrush Day said he wanted to make them as "intergenerational" as possible.

Windrush Day has been held on 22 June since 2018 to celebrate the contribution Caribbean migrants and their families have made to the UK.

HMT Empire Windrush docked in Tilbury, Essex, in 1948, bringing hundreds of passengers from the Caribbean to the UK.

Glenroy Bell from the Windrush Innovation Society, in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, said: "This year, the idea was different community groups come together and launch a series of events, not just on Windrush Day, but before and weeks after."

Social justice and health inequality campaigner Patrick Vernon began Wellingborough's Windrush events

'Building Britain'

Travellers on HMT Empire Windrush - and those on other ships which came to the UK until 1971 - became known as the Windrush generation.

Among them were Mr Bell's grandparents, who arrived in the UK in the early 1950s.

He said this year's events started on 13 June with a talk from Prof Patrick Vernon OBE, who was one of the first to campaign for a Windrush Day.

The following weekend, there was a storytelling event for children with stories from the Windrush generation.

"We really want to sort of capture [the Windrush generation's] stories and be reminding of our first generations as best as we can, but the next generation to keep it going," Mr Bell said.

An exhibition at Wellingborough's Swansgate Shopping Centre focused on the late Bob Marley, who would have turned 80 years old this year

Mr Bell said when the organisers of the town's Windrush Day events met last year, "one of the key things we wanted to make sure is that we have intergenerational activities".

He added: "We wanted to make sure, as best as we can, it brings everybody together from every generation.

"It was really important because it's not just the founders, those who first came here, it's also those who are here now and building Britain as we go along."

One of the events is an art exhibition at Wellingborough's Swansgate Shopping Centre.

It included "a Bob Marley walk" to commemorate what would have been Bob Marley's 80th birthday earlier this year.

Mr Bell said: "It should be a four metre wide piece of art, which has got a [collage] of all the different images of Bob Marley.

"It's hopefully a nice big work of art for people to sort of see as part of the exhibition."