Episode 5
Monday 7 February 2011
In 1948 the British Nationality Act was passed, offering British citizenship to anyone from the Commonwealth and the right to settle here. Thousands of single men from the Caribbean arrived looking for work – the first 400 sailing into Britain on the now famous Windrush boat. With families and sweethearts left behind, romance with local white girls flourished, altering the racial landscape of post-war Britain forever.
George reveals how, in the summer of 1946, Liverpool witnessed a series of dramatic events that would alter the lives of many mixed race families and prove to be one of the most shameful episodes in Britain’s post war history.As a port city, Liverpool had long been a magnet for seamen from all over the world. During WWII, around 2,000 Chinese sailors settled there after serving in the merchant navy. Many had married local women and had started families. They thought they were here to stay.But, as George reveals, the British government had other ideas. Despite their undoubted contribution to Britain’s war effort, Home Office ministers decided it was time for them to go. It made no difference whether that broke up families or not.Some where between 500 and 1,000 children were left fatherless. One of these was Yvonne Foley, who gives George a moving account of her life as one of these Eurasian children, who grew up thinking they had been abandoned by their fathers because they did not know this dramatic and hitherto little known story.
Presented by George Alagiah ; series produced and directed by Fatima Salaria.