Wind back the hours, the days and months, a year –
and out of fog, Ormonde sails like a rumour,
or a tale about how what’s too soon forgotten
will rise again – light up, awaken engines,
swing her bow through half a century,
return a hundred drifters, lost-at-sea.
From Ormonde by Hannah Lowe
The Empire Windrush is commonly believed to be the first boat to have brought post-war migrants from the Caribbean to Britain in 1948. This moment was captured by the Pathé newsreel of the famous calypsonian Lord Kitchener tentatively singing, London is the Place for Me.
