Thirty-seven years of paying taxes and I got a
letter saying that I was an illegal immigrant.
I am sweating!
Haven't stopped from morning.
And I'm still going on.
I know it's voluntary, I've been doing
this for a long term now, over six years.
How can I be illegal?
I don't understand that word at all.
When I got the letter I thought,
'Am I British?'
What am I?
And I couldn't even answer that in my head.
'They came at the invitation of the
British government.'
'They were citizens of British colonies
or newly independent
Commonwealth countries.'
'Their passports were stamped
"indefinite leave to remain".'
'But for some who were children then,
that was a false promise.'
I came to England at the age of 10
and I've lived here all my life for 52 years.
I knew I was sent for a better life.
My mum is a very loving
mother, grandmother …
Our bond is absolutely strong.
I opened the letter and I saw
'illegal immigrant'.
It just begs me, man,
I just threw the letter down.
I sat at home and I thought,
what do I need to prove
that someone was in this country?
I need to get as much information
on my mum that I can,
like pictures, letters …
So I tried to gather
all that information together.
Do you remember what I had to go through
to get all these photos?
There is my mum
with all her care home friends.
This was the man and the lady that owned
the care home who absolutely loved my mum.
Two years attending the Home
Office and my phone starts ringing.
It's my mum.
And she's crying and I said,
'mum, what's wrong?'
and she says,
'They've detained me, they've detained me.'
And I just dropped down the stairs.
I was there for six days
and on the sixth day,
they told me to pack my things.
And I ended up at Heathrow airport because
they were going to put me on the plane the next day.
Who knows what would have happened?
A grandmother from Wolverhampton
has come within hours
of being wrongfully deported to Jamaica.
Paulette Wilson came to the UK as a
little girl back in the late 60s
before immigration laws were in place,
so she was entitled to live here freely.
After a week in detention, officials
finally released her from Heathrow this lunchtime.
So she's literally just got
off the train and it was, well,
one hell of an emotional reunion.
There were tears,
they were hugging each other …
I've not seen anything quite like it, actually.
Going into detention centre is not nice,
you see people in wheelchairs,
on walking stick, old people, you know, 
and you get thinking to yourself,
what's gonna happen to them when they 
go back to their own countries and that?
When I think about it, it just brings heartache,
I don't want to talk about it anymore.
It just brings … Sorry.
I don't want to cry, man.
This is my second time coming
on a plane since 1968.
Fifty-three years later.
And I'm actually going home
to the land that I was born.
I'm going back to my roots.
You have made it.
Oh my God, Jamaica!
There is no British history
without the history of the empire.
The Windrush story begins in the 17th century
when British slave traders
stole 12 million Africans
from their homes,
took them to the Caribbean,
sold them into slavery,
to work on plantations.
The wealth of this country was built on 
the backs of the Windrush generation's ancestors.
We are here today because you were there.
My ancestors were British subjects.
But they were not British subjects
because they came to Britain,
they were British subjects
because Britain came to them
took them across the Atlantic,
colonised them, sold them into slavery,
profited from their labour
and made them British subjects.
That is why I am here and that is why
the Windrush generation is here.
As the late great Stuart Hall put it,
'I am the sugar, at the bottom
of the English cup of tea.'
And good evening from the island
of sugar, rum, perpetuous sunshine,
and, of course, genuine calypsos.
Can't believe I'm here in Jamaica.
1968!
As a child, to myself,
was I there? Was it for real?
I've got five brothers.
But I don't know these people.
Something happened
I got to go to England to my grandparents
but when I left as a child,
I heard babies, I remember babies
and little kids, you know what I mean?
But I don't know these people like that.
That's why I'm here,
getting to know them.
But tomorrow is going to be emotional.
Try to get that for me.
Look how beautiful this place looks!
Wow!
Sure.
Yes!
Mum, you said o ne!
It doesn't matter!
Let me pick more than one.
Yes, baby!
I got two mangoes!
Thank you, sir!
I hope you enjoy.
I will! Thank you.
Oh! The smell of Jamaica.
' … bananas too, thousands of them
just waiting to be picked.'
'Oh, yes, it looks like paradise.'
'It makes you wonder
why so many Jamaicans come to the cold
and damp of Birmingham and Liverpool
and London.'
'There is a reason, of course.'
I came to England on the British
regime in Jamaica.
Of course I'm British!
I was born British.
'The Empire Windrush brings to
Britain 500 Jamaicans,
many are ex-servicemen who know England.'
'They served this country well,
citizens of the British empire coming to 
the mother country with good intent.'
May I ask you your name?
Lord Kitchener.
- Lord Kitchener.
Now I'm told that you are really the king
of calypso singers, is it right?
Yes, that's true.
Would you sing for us?
Right now?
Yes.
Singing: London is the place for me,
London this lovely city.
Singing: You can go to France or America, India,
Asia or Australia but you must come back,
to London city.
Labour, Diane Abbott
becomes Britain's first black woman MP.
The good race relations in Britain
depend on ending immigration as
we've known it in the last two decades.
Singing: Believe me, I am speaking broadmindedly,
I am glad to know my mother country.
Singing: I've been traveling the country years ago
but this is the place I wanted to know, darling London.
And this is not just about making the UK
a more hostile place for illegal migrants,
it is also about fairness.
[Paulette] Just imagine:
being sent back to a country
with no money, no clothes, nothing.
Oh, my gosh.
Yes mummy, I've heard of it
but don't remember it.
I was a baby, man.
Up there, they're pointing at you …
Oh my God!
I got to get out.
They even walk the same!
This is so wonderful!
Oh Lord, no, don't, don't, don't!
My daughter
and my granddaughter over there.
Yes, James,
come and meet my family.
My daughter.
I can't believe this, sister!
I'm home.
Oh, God.
I remember the trees,
the breadfruit trees …
Everything!
This is where I was born.
Come back now and
I never think this was going to happen.
I will never forget
dem words, man, ever.
Climb trees, get mangoes, coconut …
Oh God!
Coconut trees.
Is that your grandson?
- Yeah.
You saw the wasps?
They don't look not like the wasps
there are in England.
They are not going to trouble you
if you don't trouble them!
I don't care.
Now you've met the family, my girl,
and there's plenty more.
Are you meeting more?
It's amazing I'm here.
I'm a survivor that's the way I'm made
and that's the way I'll always be.
A survivor.
I always thought one day
I would come back here
but I have, yeah.
Not forced, being forced
to put on a plane without nothing at all
and come drop off, me not knowing
whether me going north, south, east
or west, that wasn't right, man.
My daughter and granddaughter,
they've got to experience my life,
they have had to experience their lives,
now they've got the experience of my life.
Is there internet here?
I doubt it.
I don't think so.
I could ask.
I doubt it.
I don't know.
There must have internet for you.
Granma! We are like
in the middle of nowhere!
There's no signal!
There has to be!
The last time I saw my mother was the
day she put me on the plane to come to England
to my grandparents.
And I never ever saw her again.
Oh, Lord, oh gosh.
I'm here.
After all this time, I'm here mummy.
This is your grandmother's grave.
I'm home mummy.
Mummy always said that one day
Paulette would come back.
Yeah.
It's a shame that my mum ain't here.
But the way of life, you know.
She never stopped talking about her,
it's her first child.
Yeah, she would be here
for us.
And look at us now.
Her spirit is still here with us.
I did not know I wasn't going
to come back.
Well, I was a child, I didn't think
about holiday I just …
I remember I had on a bright orange
dress, socks that would come up on here.
when I reached London,
my body just went purple,
I thought the snow was salt,
but it was snow.
But my body wasn't used to the snow
and it just went purple
and I was like that for six months to a year.
You know, to get used to England.
I wasn't used to coolness.
Now I'm used to coolness.
For black people in England,
it's hard.
Really hard,
to live a life comfortable
and, you know,
and you're still getting called names.
You have to struggle to survive,
I'll be walking down the street,
you calling me 'black nigger',
'wog' and all this, 'go back to Africa'
'You're a monkey.'
I'm not a monkey, I'm a human being.
Get it all the time even where I live now.
'Oh, that black bitch, you shouldn't be here.'
And it's still happening.
So do you want me to feel
about England?
It hurts, yeah?
You know, it really hurts.
In a few months we are coming back, OK?
OK? In a few months.
Give me a kiss.
Same to you.
I love you so much!
Me too, baby.
You've got my number,
make sure you keep in touch with me, OK?
I'm going to send you some
clothes, baby , OK?
Love you!
I love you!
I love you too, cousin.
I felt home because I remembered certain
things about where I was born.
Where to go.
What I did as a child, I remembered
all that even before I went back to …
Before I went, it was always here on my mind.
I always used to think,
'is this a dream I'm dreaming?'
But going back, it's reality.
It was a way of life then.
It felt like I was around my own people.
But I have the same thing here in
England, baby.
My life is here with my daughter
and granddaughter.
For those who have mistakenly
received letters challenging them,
I want to apologise to them
and I want to say sorry to anyone
who has been caused confusion
or anxiety felt as a result of this.
