ON Thursday, June 22, we celebrated Windrush Day, the anniversary of the arrival in Britain of about 500 Jamaicans on that date in 1948.

Arriving on a vessel called the Empire Windrush, the first of many Caribbean migrants who arrived at Tilbury to make a new life in Britain.

Their work was much needed in a Britain recovering from the war.

The story has a curious local connection. Not so well known is the fact that after leaving Jamaica the Empire Windrush first went to Mexico to pick up 66 Polish people – the wives and children of Polish servicemen who went as refugees to a village called Santa Rosa in 1943.

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They had survived terrible hardships in the Soviet Union on their way to the West.

The Empire Windrush docked at Tilbury on June 21, 1948, and its Polish passengers disembarked the next day.

Of the 66 women and children, three went to Shobdon Polish Camp – Stefania Nowak, 28, Stefania Poznys, 33, and her daughter Anna Poznysk, eight.

Eudakia Folta, 46, and her daughters Emilia, 14, and Janina, 12, went to Barons Cross Camp.

First, however, they were met at Tilbury by Eudakia’s husband Jozef and his son. They had not seen each other for five years.

What a reunion that must have been!

Jozef died at Barons Cross Camp, which was also a Polish military hospital, and is buried in Leominster cemetery. In 2018, we met his grandson, Andrew, and Andrew’s wife Jane, who visited Jozef’s grave and we have been in touch ever since.

Through their efforts, Jozef’s grave now has an official Polish Resettlement Corps headstone.

JOE COCKER

Leominster

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