Windrush generation descendant Laura Banton shares family's Windrush story

Today, Thursday 22 June, marks the 75^th anniversary of the arrival of HMT Empire Windrush to the Port of Tilbury in Essex, bringing people from Caribbean countries who transformed British culture for the better.

Many of the passengers on that boat – as well as their descendants – helped support the establishment of the NHS, which launched two weeks later.

Laura Banton, senior clinical trials pharmacy assistant at Royal Brompton, is today representing the Trust along with other NHS professionals and volunteers, on a special boat trip from Waterloo to the Port of Tilbury. The trip, along with many other events and activities, honour and commemorate the Windrush generation, the sacrifices and the contributions that they and their descendants have made to British society within the UK.

Laura’s parents came to the UK from Jamaica. Her mum worked in the NHS until she retired. Laura is a member of the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic staff network. Here she shares her story.

It’ll be special to me to be on the boat trip.

I’ve always been interested in Black history and social history. My dad loved history. He would always encourage me and my siblings to learn about what’s going on in the world around us, and about where we come from.

In October last year I was asked to do a talk at our staff forum about Black History Month. Coincidentally it fell on the same day as my dad’s 90^th birthday. He passed away in November – just a month later. It’ll be special to me to be on the boat to Tilbury.

My dad never saw his parents again.

After the [second world] war, there was no money in the Caribbean. Many men who fought in the air force and the army for the UK wanted to go back, make some money. Then, because of the workforce shortage in the UK, people from Jamaica and other Caribbean countries were incentivised to come.

My dad came over to the UK when he was 21, and my mum was 25. They both came by plane. My mum never planned to stay – like many others she only intended to come for five years. My dad arrived into what was then the London Airport (now Heathrow) likening it to a shed! He never saw his parents again – he told me his mum never came out of the house to see him off she was too sad to see him go.

My son is 22 and I always tell him, your grandad left Jamaica before he was your age! My uncle came over too, when he was 19. I remember him telling me he was excited to come to England. They were so young. They came over into the unknown.

He used to say he bought her a coffee and she spilled it because she was so bowled over by his good looks.

My mum came to England from the north coast of Jamaica near the popular resort of Ochio Rios in the early 60s. She came to do her nurse training. Her sister was already in the UK – she came just after the war with her employers, a white family, she worked as a housekeeper for them.

My mum first worked in the Lyon’s Tea Shop on Oxford Street. She says she used to walk part the way home to West Hampstead as she couldn’t afford the bus journey for the whole way.  It wasn’t a flat fare like it is now!

She didn’t like the hustle and bustle of London so when she was offered a training position at Ipswich Hospital she took it.

Meanwhile my dad had been in the UK since 1954. He was from the parish of St Elizabeth in the southern part of Jamaica. He first came to Brixton but soon left for Ipswich as a cousin who was already there told him that there were jobs going. He too didn’t like the hustle and bustle of London.   He was able to buy a house a few years later and he rented rooms to fellow Caribbean people – some became life-long family friends. It is well-documented how hard it was to find accommodation back then – ‘No Blacks, No Irish, No dogs’ was a common sign in houses that had rooms to rent 

On the day my mum was at Liverpool Street station, about to get the train to Ipswich, my dad was travelling back home from spending time with family and friends in London. There she was, struggling with all her cases, and there he was, ready to help! And the rest is history!

He used to tell this story of how he bought her a coffee and she spilled it because she was so bowled over by his good looks! My mum would roll her eyes and chuckle – she says she spilled it because she wasn’t used to drinking coffee on a moving train!

There were limitations on career progression for black nurses.

People in Ipswich were predominantly white, but the factories there attracted a lot of people who came over from the Caribbean. I feel lucky to have grown up in a row of six houses where four had families from the Caribbean. A lovely old English lady lived in the fifth house and the sixth one was rented out to Americans – it was very diverse! I remember such a strong sense of community, going in and out of neighbours’ houses. I have so many warm memories.

My dad had a lot of jobs back then, working both in and outside of Ipswich. Later on he worked at Ransomes, an engineering firm which made agricultural machinery. Our yearly family trip was going to the Suffolk Show. He would proudly show us the machinery!  

My mum started her nurse training at Ipswich hospital, and then paused to look after me and my siblings. When she went back to her studies I was four years old. She qualified as a state registered nurse – I always remember her catching the envelope containing her exam results as it came through the letter box before it hit the floor. There were not many black staff nurses at that time.  Many only qualified as state enrolled nurses – there were limitations on career progression.  A few years later she qualified as a registered mental health nurse and I went with her to her graduation.

Many of my mum’s friends and family were qualified as nurses. My aunty who had come to England as a housekeeper also qualified as a nurse before she left England for America. Mum belonged to the East Suffolk Nurse’s League – she would always look forward to the annual reunion, buying a new outfit from hat to shoes. It always seemed to take place on FA cup Day! She said that she gave Ipswich good luck the time they beat Arsenal in 1978 because she was wearing a blue and white dress (to all you Gooners, I am a fan too, but not back then!)  

I joined the NHS as a bank medical secretary.

I joined the NHS in 1994 after training to become a medical secretary. It was the 90s and at that time I struggled to get a job interview – whenever I filled out the equal opportunities form, I never seemed to get a response. My route into the NHS was by joining the bank staff and working as a bank medical secretary in the radiology department at Ipswich Hospital. When one of the secretaries left, I was interviewed and got the position.

After leaving Ipswich for London, I first worked at Hammersmith Hospital in the general manager’s office, and then I joined Great Ormond Street Hospital and worked for a consultant in radiology. She was a Professor of Radiology with a speciality in skeletal dysplasias and also an expert witness in child abuse cases. Radiology was changing with the times and medical secretaries were less in demand due to digitisation so around 2007 I began to retrain. I qualified as a pharmacy technician in 2010. I joined Royal Brompton in 2015 as a locum working within the different areas of pharmacy and landed a permanent role with the clinical trials pharmacy team. We are a diverse team from all continents – we’re colleagues, but also friends. 

We’re responsible for the management and safe delivery of Investigational Medicine Products (IMPs) and providing a high-quality pharmacy clinical trials service. This includes initiation, dispensing, recording and monitoring in accordance with Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) regulations and Good Clinical Practice (GCP) guidelines.

It’s interesting work. Some of the new cystic fibrosis drugs trialled here at Royal Brompton have made a huge difference to our patients.

Windrush Day is a great opportunity for colleagues to become aware of the staff network and use it for support.

I’ve been part of our BAME network since it started in 2020. Carol (Pryce), Stella (Esan) and Charmi (Lathia) really pushed it forward, particularly in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. Myself and my colleague Vibha (Teli), have been supportive of the network since the beginning and are now co-secretaries.

Windrush Day is a great opportunity for colleagues at our hospitals to become more aware of the network and use it as a source of support. We know that not everyone can always attend meetings but you can still join as a member and get email updates.

What we really want to do is help lower band staff with their career progression. There is lots of promotion for courses and opportunities out there for qualified staff to get more qualifications, and sometimes staff on lower bands miss out on knowing how they can progress. We want them to be able to use the network for support.

I think generally our hospitals need to do more to increase opportunities for Black, Asian and minority ethnic staff, particularly to help advance careers and create more diversity in leadership roles. That’s what the network will be pushing for – for the benefit of everyone.