Interview with Sonia Winifred

Photograph of Sonia Winifred (copyright: Dr Juanita Cox)

"So my father left first, in 1957, left for the UK, and my mother was left in St Lucia with us and our grandparents, and my mother followed about five years later, leaving us with the grandparents. And subsequently they then sent for us gradually as they raised the money, they sent for us. In fact it was, we laugh at this because it seems we came two by two, almost like Noah’s Ark. We laugh at this all the time. And I actually came by sea with my brother. I was just about 11, I think just 11, and he was 12, 13 years old, so he was my sole carer on board ship, and it took four weeks. We arrived at Southampton in September 1965. I remember very little of it, all I do remember is grey, everything seemed grey. The water, the sea, the air, everything seemed grey."

Title
Interview with Sonia Winifred
Description
Sonia Winifred travelled from St Lucia to the UK with an older brother to join their parents in 1965. Her family, like many others, moved to the UK in stages due to the financial impossibility of travelling together. Some Caribbean families remain divided: unable to reunite due to the UK’s changing terms of immigration.
Associated dates
1965
interviewee
Sonia Winifred
Location
St Lucia
Collection
Travelling to Britain
Source
Find out more on the Windrush Scandal project website
Provenance
This oral history excerpt has been drawn from the three-year AHRC-funded project ‘The Windrush Scandal in a Transnational and Commonwealth Context’.
Rights
This material, including photograph, cannot be reproduced without permission.