Everyone should hail those pioneers, but I also feel a personal responsibility to create a life that celebrates their spirit
I lost both of my paternal grandparents in the space of a year and a half, between 2019 and early 2021. With their passing, I lost my direct links to the Windrush generation, and the unrecorded stories and family histories they carried with them. As we celebrate the 75th anniversary of the first arrivals from the Caribbean in 1948, I am conscious of the scale of potential loss as more of the pioneers of this generation reach the end of their lives, and the void that creates for descendants like me.
Where does all this loss leave us? The generations that came after Windrush, those of us with a foot in both camps, born in Britain but brought up with fading memories of sun-drenched islands, half-told stories from our elders and a sense of dual identity hanging somewhere between the two.
