An old family photo album has revealed the story of an expat British family who sailed home on the Empire Windrush – the ship that carried thousands of Commonwealth citizens into Britain.
The ship, famed for bringing West Indians to the UK in 1948 to boost the nation’s post-war labour-market, brought the Williams family to Britain three years later.
Kathy Williams, now 67, was just a toddler in 1951 when she and her family travelled back to Britain from Malaya. They were among the many military families on board.
Kathy Williams’ mum on board the Empire Windrush when the family came back from Malaya to live in England. They spent six weeks on the boat
Kathy was born in Kuala Lumpar in 1950 – two years after her father was sent with the British Army to support Commonwealth soldiers against the communist regime.
The Scottish family made the journey to England, on a trip which lasted six weeks.
Kathy, then aged nine months, and her parents, Agnes and James Keating, left Malaya to travel by the HMT Empire Windrush to Tilbury docks, Essex.
Black and white photographs show Kathy as a toddler smiling into the camera while her parents relaxed on the deck of the famous boat.
The Empire Windrush was originally a German passenger liner launched in the 1920s and named MV Monte Rosa. It was taken as a war prize in the Second World War.
Baby Kathy: The family made their way home after Kathy’s father worked for the Army overseas
The Empire Windrush was most famous for trips form the West Indies which brought people to work in the UK. Their landing cards were destroyed by the Government
Kathy Williams holds a picture of herself as a young nurse after her family came on the Empire Windrush to make their life in Britain
This picture shows Kathy in her pram on the Empire Windrush with military families returning to Britain
After the British Nationality Act 1948 had been passed, British subjects connected with the UK or a British colony were given the right to have citizenship. An advert was put out for anyone who wanted cheap passage to come and work in England, because of the labour shortage.
Then, 492 people took up the offer and headed to the UK along with returning soldiers from Kingston, Jamaica.
Windrush continued to be used mainly as a troopship until March 1954, when it caught fire and sank in the Mediterranean, with the loss of four crew, while transporting 1,500 servicemen from the Far East.
Kathy who sailed home on the boat said she dug out the photos after the details of the scandal began to unfold.
Kathy said: ‘The Windrush went all the way around the world. She was originally a German cruise ship.
‘After the war she was taken over by the British, and transformed into a ship for immigrants, which was used to carry the families of troops.
‘My father was a serving British soldier. There must have been many people who came in on their parents’ passports.
‘I wondered if there were many white British people who came into the country that way. There were other children in pictures taken on the ship.’
The following year Kathy’s brother Tom was born in London.
In 1953, James Keating was assigned to GCHQ in Gloucestershire, then based in Oakley, in Cheltenham.
Three years later, Kathy’s youngest sibling, Theresa, was born.
Kathy was originally given a Chinese birth certificate, and issued another given to children of the Armed Forces, but opted to have British citizenship aged 21.
Now a Conservative councillor on Gloucestershire County Council, Kathy found that the Windrush scandal awoke memories of stories from her childhood.
(Pictured: the SS Empire Windrush which brought the first generation of workers to Britain from the West Indies in 1948)
Kathy said: ‘Mum and Dad told me about it. It was a six week journey. They had to come through the Suez Canal.
‘The soldiers had to get smartly dressed, just to sit on the ship.’
‘I felt very disgruntled that these people who had come over to help us, hadn’t been treated properly.
‘They should have had the paperwork given to them. Successive governments haven’t represented them.
Kathy Williams is pictured on election night in 2015 when she was elected as a Conservative Councillor – decades after arriving in Britain
James Keating, the father of Kathy Williams, was deployed to fight against communists in Asia in the 1940s
These historic pictures show the little-known story of the white families who entered Britain – on the Empire Windrush. Kathy Williams, now 67, can be seen in her pram on the ship’s deck
‘I was very upset to hear that some people hadn’t been able to go home, because they hadn’t got the paperwork.
‘I just hope that like all these things, we move forward.
‘For people who were displaced, like refugees, it must be bad, but for people who were asked to come to the country, to do work, and they aren’t supported, it is appalling.
‘All forces children were issued with a birth certificate and their births were registered locally.’
On the deck of the Windrush families came back to Britain – some who had never been there before after being born to military families overseas
In 1977, when applying for a job as a student nurse at Cheltenham General Hospital, Kathy was stunned to be asked to provide a photograph of herself to go with her passport.
‘They must have thought I was foreign,’ she said.
‘I wouldn’t say I was discriminated against as such.
‘My message would be that other people came into the country on the Windrush, it wasn’t just people from the Caribbean.
‘The paperwork should have started on the island before they left.’