The Sunday Times June 5, 2022 5
When Eric Smellie arrived in London
from Jamaica in 1954, flags and bunting
from the Queen’s coronation were still
hanging on trees and lampposts. Smellie,
now 92, was part of the Windrush genera-
tion of West Indian immigrants who
arrived after the Second World War.
His first job in Britain was at a factory
making pens in Stoke Newington, north-
east London. He went on to study graphic
design and worked in publishing before
becoming a housing officer for the social
justice charity Nacro. His race relations
work there, training prison staff and
police, earned him an MBE that he
received from the Queen 10 years ago.
Last Wednesday, he and several other
Windrush-generation Britons gathered at
the Hestia Age Activity Centre in Tooting,
southwest London, for a lunch of Jamai-
can patties, spring rolls and samosas, fol-
lowed by dancing and karaoke to cele-
brate the Platinum Jubilee.
He told how the royal family has been a
constant presence in his life since he sang
God Save the King at school in Jamaica. He
decided in his twenties to move to the UK
and recalls being in a taxi to his first home
in Hackney, east London, hours after
arriving at Southampton docks, and
thinking of the old Hollywood film Water-
loo Bridge as he was driven across the
Thames to start his new life. “I remember
bursting into tears ... tears of joy. I
thought, ‘My God, here I am — and it’s not
a film.’ It was the real Waterloo Bridge.
“London was still reflecting some of
the celebrations of the coronation, I saw
some rather desultory-looking flags. In
Kingston it was impressed upon us to be
respectful to the mother country, as we
thought of it at the time.
“I came to Britain to test the waters
because of the opportunities that were
available for me to become settled. It was
fulfilling a dream.”
In almost 70 years as a Londoner, he
says he completely absorbed himself in
race relations. The Windrush scandal,
which affected friends, was “a blight”
and something the government should
be “ashamed of ”, but he has always
admired the Queen.
“She’s so diminutive and I’m short as
well, so when we met I wasn’t looking
down at her but I wasn’t looking up at her
either. She was kind, she welcomed me. I
congratulate her on her steady hand. I
am proud to be British.
“The celebration we had today was
sparkling. There is a humanity and hon-
esty that prevails at our club. It is a genu-
inely happy place.”
Windrush-
generation
Britons at a
jubilee party in
LondonHugo Daniel
Respect for the Queen unites
immigrants past and present
Recently arrived refugees were also
celebrating the jubilee. Britain signed the
UN Refugee Convention — making it a
legal duty to protect those fleeing perse-
cution abroad — in 1951, the year before
the Queen came to the throne.
Britain’s foreign-born population has
grown during her reign. According to the
Migration Observatory, in 2019 the num-
ber was approaching 9.5 million: about
14 per cent. Census data for 1951 shows
that about 1.9 million of the population —
then 50 million — were foreign-born, or
4 per cent.
Enver Solomon, chief executive of the
Refugee Council, said: “When Elizabeth
came to the throne 70 years ago, this
country made the commitment of a
warm welcome to refugees.
“Ever since, for as long as she has been
our Queen, the UK has offered safety to
people from across the world fleeing war
and oppression, making refugees a cen-
tral part of who we are as a nation.”
Recent arrivals include 113,000 Hong-
kongers under a scheme that began last
January in response to China’s national
security crackdown. And since Russia’s
invasion in February, 65,700 Ukrainians
have arrived in the UK.
Last Tuesday, Hong Kong refugees
enjoyed afternoon tea and cake — and
tea-leaf eggs and pineapple buns — with
locals in the south London borough of
Sutton, where about 2,000 people from
the former British colony have moved.
Janet Lo, 39, her husband Edwin, 37,
and sons Bohr, 5, and Zachary, 8, who
arrived in the UK last August, were plan-
ning to attend today’s Platinum Jubilee
Pageant at Buckingham Palace. Edwin
said: “We came here for the freedom.
We’re enjoying the freedom.”
He added that many Hongkongers
affectionately refer to the Queen using a
Chinese term that means “our boss”.
Across London in Camden, Anya
Abdulakh, 47, who moved to Britain 16
years ago from Kyiv, runs Fami-
lies4Peace, a charity set up to help
Ukrainian refugees arriving from the war.
She organised a jubilee celebration for
150 Ukrainian families, where attendees
were taught about the Queen over straw-
berries and cream, cakes, scones and
cucumber sandwiches.
“Most people were very keen to learn.
They think it’s wonderful [for the coun-
try] to have such a long consistency of
history because Ukraine unfortunately
had a lot of ups and downs in the last dec-
ade,” Abdulakh said.
“We run a WhatsApp group for Ukrain-
ian families and they have been asking
where the street parties are happening
and about the London parades.”Also there was Winston Belgrave, 87,
from Wandsworth, who came from Bar-
bados in 1956 to be a bus driver. He
worked at London Transport until retir-
ing in 1992. “There was a lot of respect for
royalty in Barbados. We knew about the
monarchy and the Queen,” he said.
“I remember the Silver Jubilee in 1977.
I bought a commemorative LP with the
Queen on it. I still have it.”
Patricia Phipps, 70, from Tooting,
came to Britain in 1964 to join her par-
ents, who had moved from Jamaica eight
years previously. Her father, Raphael,
was a chef at the Savoy before they
moved to Manchester, where he became
a bus driver. Her mother, Enid, worked in
a hospital.
Phipps, who was briefly in the army,
gained a degree as a mature student and
became a development manager at hous-
ing associations. She said the Queen’s
long reign was “fantastic” but she wished
more black history was taught in schools.
“The racism and all of that was part of
that was my upbringing — I came to a
strange land and that was quite traumatic
in a sense,” she said.
“The British Empire does have slave
connotations. I admire the Queen. I do
feel for her, at such a young age, having to
take on the mantle. I think the older Win-
drush generation probably hold her in
more reverence ... it’s all very well saying
we’re sorry about slavery and sorry
about the Windrush scandal. Give us the
money and compensate us for it, because
words are cheap.
“I think there is lots more to be done
for the Caribbean countries and even in
this country lots more to be done for the
curriculum and educating people.”
ROB PINNEY FOR THE SUNDAY TIMESANDREW MILLIGAN/PA; CARL COURT/JEFF J. MITCHELL/ANTHONY DEVLIN/GETTY IMAGES;PHIL NOBLE/REUTERS“Look to the future with confidence and
enthusiasm.” Those words last week
from the Queen on the eve of her
Platinum Jubilee celebrations became
the theme running through the
festivities marking the monarch’s
record-breaking reign.
From her two heirs standing in for her
at Trooping the Colour, with another
future king, Prince George, also front
and centre over the weekend, the
Queen’s message was clear — for a nation
that has endured a pandemic and
seismic political upheaval in recent
years, the monarch’s family, like her, will
continue to be a bedrock of stability.
We have not seen as much of the
Queen as some of us would have liked,
but something tells me that might be
exactly as she had planned it all along.
Delight the crowds with beaming smiles,
royal waves and a spirited great-
grandson from the Buckingham Palace
balcony on day one, and then, knowing
they have an impossible act to follow in
the future, let the focus turn to the
future: the Prince of Wales and Duke of
Cambridge.
If there is one thing the Queen will
have been relieved to see it is that after
more than two years of tumult and
tension, her family, for the most part,
put duty before drama throughout her
jubilee.
There will always be endless
speculation about royal pecking orders
and perceived snubs in processions and
seating plans, but the Duke and Duchess
of Sussex, with their children Archie and
Lilibet firmly out of sight, kept to their
pledge to “keep it simple” and did not
overshadow the historic occasion. Harry
and Meghan were given a moment with a
solo entrance at the St Paul’s service of
thanksgiving on Friday on the Queen’s
direction. They are, after all, still “much-
loved” members of her family.
That there are clearly still unresolved
matters and a froideur between two
princes who were once the closest of
brothers may be the one source of
sadness to the sovereign as she
celebrates 70 years not out. In her
jubilee message she spoke of “many
happy memories” that she hoped would
be created during the celebrations,
although as those who know her best
always say, the Queen is a realist. Shewould never have assumed that her
jubilee would be a miracle salve for the
still-fresh family wounds of Harry and
Meghan’s departure from royal life, but
the head of the Windsor clan will hope
that time may yet prove to be the great
healer for William and Harry.
As the Queen said in her 2002 Golden
Jubilee speech to the Houses of
Parliament: “If a jubilee becomes a
moment to define an age, then for me,
we must speak of change — its breadth
and accelerating pace over these years
... Change has become a constant;
managing it has become an expanding
discipline. The way we embrace it
defines our future ... the monarchy and
parliament ... must continue to evolve if
they are to provide effective beacons of
trust and unity to succeeding
generations.”
It is hard to comprehend the scale of
change seen during this second
Elizabethan Age, with a head of state
who has counselled and encouraged 14
prime ministers, and may yet come to
advise more during her reign. If the
Platinum Jubilee and all the national
celebrations and street parties that
accompanied it have shown us anything,
it is that the majority of her subjects are
deeply thankful for their one constant,
unchanging figurehead. As Prince
Charles said in his personal tribute to the
monarch last night, the Queen is a
“mother” to the nation, who “continues
to make history” and “continues to
deliver” on a “lifetime of selfless
service”.
After the Queen let it be known that
she “greatly enjoyed” her birthday
parade on Thursday but felt “some
discomfort” with her mobility,
prompting her to pull out of the
thanksgiving service, who could not be
moved by her appearance on the
Thursday night? Walking into the
Windsor Castle quadrangle aided by her
stick, every step clearly an effort, at 96
the monarch was determined not to
deploy a royal understudy to light the
Platinum Jubilee principal beacon. Why?
Because Her Majesty had a personal
message for us as the touch of her hand
triggered illuminations around the
nation and the Commonwealth — the
future is bright.
@RoyaNikkhahRoya Nikkhah
She’s a hard act to
follow, but she’s
smoothing the way
Her
family
put duty
before
drama