Empire Windrush

Posting this in April 2018 as the Windrush Affair shames the UK Government to the very core. Regardless of which UK Government was in power at which time that various laws were passed and documents destroyed, the issue has been ignored and pushed aside for years by Mrs May and she now still does not have the courage to give an unequivocal statement that all rights of such people will be fully honoured. Disgraceful.
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Ironic that the MV Empire Windrush was a 1930 German built cruise ship that in WWII served as a German troopship and was subsequently seized by the UK as a "prize of war" and was best remembered for bringing the Caribbean immigrants to the UK to do "the dirty work" that the locals didn't want to do.

The Windrush sank the year I was born in Trinidad. For at least the following 20 years, I was to be subject to extra controls and documentation because of this. My 1974 UK passport has the extra notification that my National Status is "British Subject: Citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies". Only the next passport in 1984 says simply "British Subject".

My birth had to be re-registered when I was 12 so as to avoid problems and even then I had to have an extra "Entry Certificate" in my passport.

This Blip is of a postcard written by me to my parents who were in Greece at the time. It was the beginning of summer holidays from my boarding school in Somerset and I made my way to Heathrow and a flight to stay with my relations in Germany for a week before flying on to join my parents in Greece for the summer holidays.

As can be read, my journey went well as luckily I had the Entry Certificate. My mother had been refused boarding a flight to the UK recently as although a British Subject, her passport had been issued by the UK High Commission in Trinidad. A UK consulate official had to go out to the airport to confirm she would be given permission to enter the UK.

I am sad to say that this attitude is the same one that led to Brexit. It is a disgrace to a once morally Great country. Well, that is if you believe the days of the Empire were all about the enormous kindness, generosity and benefits which the now less than united Kingdom bestowed on half the world. No, we weren't in it for what we could get out of it for ourselves. No, we didn't want our cake and eat it back then, just as we are only leaving the EU for their benefit. 

PS The postcard is of the hospital where my uncle Georg had a few beds as an attending physician. He was a gynaecologist with a private practice in the town. The hospital was just 5 minutes walk from his home. I am actually posting this on 19th April, an ex-girlfriend's birthday. She was a trainee nurse at the Middlesex hospital in London back in the 70's and she even went into surgery with my uncle.
Happy Birthday, Annie.