Windrush: The Irresistible Rise of Multi-Racial Britain

For the 2023 edition, see 9780008609702

Broadcaster Trevor Phillips and his novelist brother Mike retell the very human story of Britain’s first West Indian immigrants and their descendants from the first wave of immigration in 1948 to the present day.

Windrush opens with the memories and impressions of the survivors of the voyage of HMT Empire Windrush, the troop ship which brought the first West Indian immigrants to Great Britain in 1948. Fifty years on, the migrants tell an epic tale of British life in the twentieth century, through the witness of their descendants, friends, neighbours and colleagues and the testimonies of politicians who made the key decisions alongside those who were then opposed to the presence of the black settlers.

Windrush moves through the crucial events of British social history in the second half of the twentieth century: the great riots of the late fifties and early sixties, the hysteria of Powellism, the remodelling of England’s inner cities and the current passionate debates about the meaning of Englishness. Concluding with a portrait of multi-racial Britain in the present day, Windrush is a celebration of the black British and of the new heritage Britain will carry forward into the twenty-first century.

Trevor Phillips is a journalist and business leader. As an ITV executive he won three Royal Television Society documentary awards, including for Windrush in 1998. He was founder Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission in 2007. He is a Times columnist, is the host of Sky News’ The Great Debate and chairs the global freedom of expression campaign Index on Censorship.

Mike Phillips is a writer and academic. He is the author of an award-winning crime fiction series and winner of the Crime Writers’ Association Silver Dagger. He served as a Trustee for the National Lottery Memorial Fund and was a member of the independent ‘Windrush: Lessons Learned Review’ commissioned by the Home Secretary and which reported in 2020.