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Remember dear old William Beveridge and his report in 1942. One of his recommendations had been that the government should provide free health care to every citizen. At the time only the wealthy could afford to pay a doctor. On 5 July 1948 the National Health Service came into being in England. The man who was the brains behind it was a Welsh Labour MP called Aneurin (pronounced, I hope, an eye run) Bevan. It was the very first free health care system available to everyone anywhere in the world.
Before the war you either paid for healthcare or there were some schemes run by cities or charities. This one was a national scheme, the same for all. You could, if you chose, still pay for your healthcare as my mother did right up until 1972. My sister and I had the same doctor but he treated us under the NHS, as the National Health Service came to be called. Mr Bevan's NHS meant that every resident would be signed up to a specific doctor, known as a general practitioner or GP. Patients would be able to have free medical, dental and nursing care.
In 1951 Bevan resigned from the Labour government when they introduced charges for false teeth and glasses. In 1952 the new Conservative government introduced charges for prescriptions. The NHS has been a source of many arguments ever since.
At its beginning, the NHS employed 360,000 staff. By 2015, it was the fifth largest organisation in the world with 1.7 million employees. The money to pay for the NHS comes from taxes.
Many of the people who now work in the NHS are either descended from immigrants to our country or are actually immigrants themselves.
On June 22 1948 the Empire Windrush docked at the Port of Tilbury in Essex. The ship had been coming back from Australia and stopped off in Kingston, Jamaica in the West Indies to pick up some servicemen who were there on leave. An advertisement was placed in a Jamaican newspaper offering cheap transport to anyone who wanted to come and work in Britain. The British Nationality Act in 1948 had given British citizenship to all people living in Commonwealth countries.
You can read about the Commonwealth in our 1922 calendar date. Jamaica was part of this so their citizens were now British citizens too.
Returning to Windrush, there were 492 people who took advantage of the offer and became the first group of modern-day immigrants to the United Kingdom. Not many of them necessarily intended to stay in the UK but this was the beginning of our modern multi-cultural society. The arrivals were housed in a shelter in Clapham and most then sought work at the Labour Exchange in Brixton where my father had once worked. At the time he was in Geneva. The majority of these people did indeed stay in Britain. Many more would follow.
UPDATE 2018
In 2018, a scandal occurred involving those 492 people, their descendants and the approximate half a million who followed them before 1971. In 1971 the Immigration Act said that all Commonwealth citizens already living in the UK could stay. After this date, a British passport-holder born overseas could only settle in the UK if they firstly had a work permit and, secondly, could prove that a parent or grandparent had been born in the UK.
Sadly, the British government did not keep a record of those granted leave to remain or issue any paperwork confirming it. Furthermore, in 2010 landing cards belonging to Windrush migrants, as all these people became known, were destroyed by the Home Office. Because they came from British colonies that had not been given independence, they all believed they were British citizens.
In 2012 the immigration law was changed and people needed to have documentation to work, rent a property or access benefits, including healthcare. Rather stupidly, in my view, the government didn't think to look at the “Windrush” migrants as special and so some of these people, who lacked the documents because they were never given them, were told they needed evidence to continue working, get treatment from the NHS - or even to remain in the UK. By 2018, some people had already lost their jobs, some not been given the urgent medical treatment they needed and some had letters telling them they might have to leave the country
These are people who have probably been at school in the UK, worked all their lives in the UK and were hoping for a peaceful retirement after contributing much to our society. They were treated disgustingly by the people in charge of running the country but, in April 2018, the then Home Secretary apologised for the appalling way the Windrush generation was treated. She told parliament that the Home Office had become too concerned with policy and strategy and lost sight of individuals.
It seems obvious that happens quite a lot these days. The Home Secretary when the new 2012 law was introduced was Theresa May, as of now, 2018, the Prime Minister. It looks as though things will now be sorted but a lot of unnecessary stress and worry had been given to people who had never done anything wrong.
UPDATE 2019
On the 22 June 2019, 71 years to the day after the Windrush docked, the now caretaker Prime Minister but still the actual Teresa May, announced a monument will be built to honour “the tremendous contribution the Windrush generation and their children have made to our great country." The day was also the very first National Windrush day.
The monument would be situated at Waterloo Station. Don't ask. You might have imagined it at Tilbury where the ship docked or Brixham where many of those first people started their lives here, but it won't be there. I suppose it could be argued more people will see it at Waterloo which is the busiest station in Britain with over 62 million passengers a year but it seems a little odd. However compared to some of the decisions made by government about these people, our fellow citizens, our fellow human beings, it's not that significant really. Nice that a monument to them is being built although it isn't even at the planning stage yet. Watch this space.
FURTHER UPDATE 2022
On June 22nd 2022, now designated Windrush Day, the statue was finally unveiled. It shows a man, woman and child standing on top of some suitcases.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge helped with the unveiling along with two Windrush passengers Alford Gardner and John Richards.The statue was designed by the
Jamaican artist and sculptor Basil Watson.
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