Hazel Burke arrived in the UK in 1955, one of thousands of Caribbean men and women who came to post-war Britain to help rebuild a nation shattered by war. Although she passed away in 2020, her story lives on through her grandson John Batteson, Labour Councillor for Newington Ward.
“She was very caring and could also be very funny. She was a very big influence on me and everyone in our family – an amazing woman”, John says.
Hazel was born in 1934 in Port Antonio, the picturesque maritime capital of Portland, a state in the north-east corner of Jamaica. John said: “They were probably from pretty moderate means. She was one of seven brothers and sisters who either went to London or America.”
With a labour force gutted by the horrors of World War Two, Britain need skilled labour. Major British industries were in desperate need of maintenance and there were serious shortages in the construction sector. Staff were also needed to run the trains and the NHS.
A qualified nurse, and fully-fledged British citizen under the 1948 British Nationality Act, Hazel arrived in the UK in 1955. She came by boat, landing at British shores just seven years after the HMT Empire Windrush made its famous voyage across the Atlantic.
As equal subjects of the British Empire, the Caribbean people who came to Britain expected equal treatment. Instead, they were often the victims of both veiled and explicit racism.
Historic documents that emerged during the Windrush Scandal have revealed that politicians across the spectrum sought to make Britain a ‘hostile environment’ for the Windrush generation and other non-white migrants.
Papers revealed that Prime Minister Clement Attlee had enquired about preventing the HMT Empire Windrush’s embarkation. He even suggested the boat be diverted to East Africa where the passengers – qualified electricians, plumbers and machinists – could work picking peanuts.
Winston Churchill, re-elected Prime Minister in the early 1950s, even suggested making “Keep Britain White” an electoral slogan, according to one BBC documentary. ‘KPW’ graffiti could be seen daubed on the walls of some UK streets.
John Batteson said: “She and my mum would often speak about the overt racism – like walking down the street and people shouting at her.”
“There were challenges to things like housing. When she first came here there was overt racism whereas now the racism people go through is structural racism in organisations and social structures.”
Despite these obstacles, Hazel settled in Crystal Palace and later Hither Green, having a distinguished career as a nurse. She even ended up managing care homes, all while raising four children as a single mother.
Her grandson said: “She was a nurse and then later on in life went into care. That’s why she came – to work. One of her cousins who is now back in Jamaica worked on the London Underground.
“She loved looking after people and she was good at it. She was a people person. I saw it first hand when she was looking after elderly people in the care home. She was a great cook and would cook jerk kitchen and Jamaican food for all the people who lived there.”
When John was born, Hazel insisted on rushing down from London to Tonbridge Wells to meet her first grandson. John says she was an “amazing” grandmother and that she had a “unique relationship with all her grandchildren”.
Hazel had a vibrant community of friends and family around her through both her Church and the family and friends who had also emigrated from the Caribbean. “She had lots of brothers and sisters and if you count the cousins, up to twenty siblings. People came over from the islands and even if they weren’t family, they felt like family. She had lots of friends from the islands who she would call aunties and uncles.”
But in 2018, the Windrush Scandal broke after it emerged that Caribbeans who had legally arrived in the UK were being threatened with deportation and, in some cases, successfully deported. On arriving in the UK, they were often not given any official documentation. In 2010, the Home Office even destroyed landing cards.
Hazel was not directly affected because somebody from her church had advised her to get a passport but the scandal had a lasting impact on her. “I think she was outraged by it”, said John.
“She went to one of the Windrush memorial days in Westminster Abbey with my aunties and mum. It definitely hit her. I think it felt like a personal attack. You feel like you’ve been playing by the rules and you’ve been contributing to society in different ways and then to be treated like that…”
Hazel passed away in the summer of 2020, aged 86, after a battle with cancer. At her funeral, John read a eulogy written by her cousin, Patrick Allen, governor-general of Jamaica. “Everyone looked up to her”, said John.
Reflecting on the legacy of Windrush, John said: “I think we need to be a bit careful celebrating Windrush when there are still so many issues. Members of the Windrush generation are still being deported and that wasn’t an accident but a deliberate policy.
“They’ve announced the compensation scheme but some people are waiting quite a long time to receive the actual money or are dying before they receive it due to their age. One reason people are scared is because the government is pursuing hostile environment policies like the Nationality and Borders Bill which will impact the Windrush generation and non-white British people disproportionately.”
Asked about his own identity, as a man born in the UK with Jamaican heritage, John said: “I see myself as British but whenever I go back it feels like you’re going back to your roots. It’s such a big part of who I am.”