Interview with Alift Harewood MBE

Photograph of Alift Harewood

"You came to England because you were British, and because there was that kind of aggressive recruitment anyway. I came to England only because of these adverts, and I just wrote a letter, and was accepted. I landed in England at the end of January 1965. I came by a ship called the SS Oranjestad, which was a Dutch ship, and we embarked… there were not enough for the ship to go into port, so we came by a smaller boat and just landed. I knew no one, no one met me, but I knew where I was going. At that time there used to be, like, volunteers and students who would tell you what train to catch, and so I was told what train I could catch, and went down to a hospital called Horton. Horton is near Epsom. I landed at ten in the morning and I was at work at two in the afternoon."

Title
Interview with Alift Harewood MBE
Description
Alift Harewood MBE was born in 1930s British Guiana and moved to England in 1965. The Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962 restricted the entry of Commonwealth citizens to those with work permits and these were typically for highly skilled or in-demand workers. Harewood practiced in England as an agency nurse and midwife for 59 years.
Associated dates
1965
interviewee
Alift Harewood MBE
Location
Guyana
Collection
Travelling to Britain
Source
Find out more on the Windrush Scandal project website
Provenance
This oral history excerpt has been drawn from the scoping project ‘Nationality, Identity and Belonging: An Oral History of the ‘Windrush Generation’ and their Relationship to the British State, 1948-2018'.
Rights
This material, including photograph, cannot be reproduced without permission.