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Alexander tells us about why he came to Cardiff: “There was not a lot of work and opportunities back home. I was a young man when I came to Cardiff in 1955 with my friend. Arriving in Cardiff was like going on a blind date, I didn’t know what to expect.”

Between 1948 and 1971 an estimated 500,000 people came from Caribbean countries to the UK and they are often called the Windrush Generation.  The name 'Windrush' comes from the name of the ship, the Empire Windrush, which was one of the first ships to arrive in the UK with people who had travelled from the Caribbean.

Many of the ‘Windrush Generation’ had answered calls from the UK Government asking for help to rebuild the country following the end of the Second World War and to fill a post war labour shortage.  In 2017 a scandal affecting the Windrush Generation came to light.  When they had arrived in the UK, documentation was not needed nor was it given, and as British subjects they could permanently live and work in the UK.  However when there was a change to the immigration law in 2012, people were wrongly detained, deported and denied legal and medical rights.  Many of the documents which had recorded their arrival in the UK had also been destroyed by the Home Office.