Windrush: A Family Divided - Episode 1

Seriously...

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary

4.1 • 885 Ratings

🗓️ 23 June 2023

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Robert and Jennifer Beckford are married and agree on most things - apart from one issue; was the Windrush Generation better off after coming here or should they have stayed in the Caribbean? And ultimately, whether they should take their teenage children to live in Jamaica. The question is simple, but the arguments are complex and multi-layered, but what about the consequences for the Beckfords?

Robert feels that moving to the UK for the Windrush Generation was an overwhelmingly good thing and that they should be seen as pioneers, who broke frontiers. . Jennifer disagrees, the Windrush migrants would have been better off going back to the Caribbean and using their skills to help re-build their own countries. To make amends she wants to take her family to Jamaica for a new life there, something Robert can't fathom.

This authentic argument is the driver for a critical examination of the legacy of Windrush 75 years since it docked at Tilbury. Each episode will examine a different key quality of life indicator to critically evaluate the legacy of Windrush. Through speaking to family members as well as people both in the UK and Jamaica, Radio 4 listeners will be immersed in this - very personal - debate. In the first of the four-part series the couple look at the Windrush generation’s success in terms of work and money.

Producer: Rajeev Gupta

Transcript

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0:00.0	This was an impregnable fortress. The only way you get out was in a wooden box.
0:05.0	The controversial maximum security prison impossible to escape from.
0:09.0	And one of the duties of a political prisoner is the escape.
0:12.0	The IRA inmates who found a way. of a political prisoner is the escape.
0:12.5	The IRA inmates who found a way.
0:14.5	I'm Carlo Gableer and I'll be navigating a path
0:19.5	through the disturbing inside story of the biggest jailbreak in British and Irish history.
0:25.0	The narrative that they want is that this is a big achievement by them.
0:28.5	Escape from the maze, listen first on BBC Sounds.
0:35.0	BBC Sounds.
0:34.0	BBC Sounds, Music Radio Podcasts.
0:39.0	Hello and welcome to Seriously from BBC Radio 4.
0:42.0	I'm Regie Gupter and I'm
0:43.8	the seriously from BBC Radio 4. I'm Rajib Gupta and I'm the producer of a new
0:45.4	series called Windrush of Family Divided, which explores a genuine argument
0:50.6	between Robert and Jennifer Beckford, a husband and wife from Birmingham who have very different views on the legacy of the windrush generation 75 years on.
1:00.0	They both have Jamaican heritage.
1:03.0	Jennifer believes that when people first arrived in Britain after facing the
1:08.0	hostility they did, they should have gone back to Jamaica and the Caribbean and rebuilt the countries there.
1:15.2	And Robert, well he thinks the opposite.
1:17.4	He thinks that Windrush has been a good thing overall for the people that came and the
1:22.4	generations that followed.
	...

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