Windrush anniversary: 'Not seeing my grandparents again was painful'

Morcea Walker moved to England in 1958 from the Caribbean

A former teacher said leaving her grandparents behind in Jamaica to come to the UK aged nine in 1958 was still "painful" to this day.

It is 75 years since the arrival of HMT Empire Windrush at Tilbury docks with 492 passengers from the Caribbean.

Morcea Walker, Northamptonshire's Vice Lord Lieutenant, arrived 10 years later with her mother and became part of the UK's Windrush generation.

"I never saw my grandparents again and that is painful, even now," she said.

The Windrush anniversary refers to the first Caribbean migrants who arrived in Essex on 22 June 1948, but many people continued to arrive during the next two decades.

They were invited by the UK government to fill a labour shortage.

Morcea Walker said when she qualified as a teacher she did not know any other black teachers

Ms Walker's father first came to the UK in 1956 and two years later she followed with her mother.

She said: "It was explained that I was going to visit my father and I'd be back soon. A kind of a holiday, really."

The 75-year-old, who lives in Northampton, said the hardest part was saying goodbye to her grandmother, who she was very close to.

She said: "I can remember saying to her, 'Well, who are you gonna get to grate your coconut now?', because I used to grate a coconut on Wednesday night for her to make coconut oil.

"I never saw my grandparents again and that is painful, even now."

She said she remembered being "so excited" when she first saw snow and wanted to "collect some and send it to my grandmother".

Morcea Walker said the trip from Jamaica to the UK took three weeks

Ms Walker's family experienced the racism that many of those who had come from the Caribbean faced, including at church - which Ms Walker said was a "major disappointment".

She said: "We went there, nobody spoke to us and the second week, we got excited because somebody was coming towards us, but they said, 'Somebody had to move because you were sitting in their seats'.

"My father just wheeled out of the church without a word and my mother just looked at the person and said, 'Well, that's the last time you'll be seeing us'."

Ms Walker, who was awarded an MBE in 2012, also said when the family tried to get a house in London "my father got spat on and told, 'We don't want any black people here'".

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The 75th anniversary of Windrush's arrival is being marked with events across the UK, but Ms Walker believes there should be better education about black people's role in British history.

She said: "I've [become] little concerned about the whole thing because I've had people believe that black people came [to the UK] 75 years ago for the first time.

"So, while I want to celebrate those people who came and gave so much, I know that there is still work to be done."