Windrush legacy celebrated
B Y D AV E H A L L
The River Windrush flows for 35 miles through the picturesque Cotswolds before joining the Thames. It gave its name to the one-time German troopship, which brought more than 1,000 immigrants from the Caribbean to London in 1930. While the original name Windrush meant, ironically, White Fen, the vessel – renamed the Empire Windrush by the British after the war – has come to be known more for the Windrush generation, the Caribbean people who came to work in the UK. “An estimated 500,000 people followed within 30 years,” said Roy Francis, a former BBC TV Songs of Praise producer, music consultant and author of Windrush and The Black Pentecostal Church in Britain, “and the many Christians among them have laid a huge legacy in church worship and bridging the Black-White divide.”
Roy was speaking at the three-day Christian Resources Exhibition at Sandown Park, Surrey (Oct 12-14), during which large sections of each day were used to highlight the way Black-led churches have influenced worship in the UK. The sessions included a celebration of the history of British gospel music, a panel discussion on the Caribbean story, chaired by Roy Francis, and a look at how Black-led churches are now taking a leading role in leading Britain back to God through “reverse mission”. The musical presentation was by the Ken Burton Singers, under their international choral and orchestral conductor, singer and instrumentalist. The singers – regular contributors to BBC’s Songs of Praise – also took part in the opening ceremony. “There are a lot of misunderstandings, and CRE National is the ideal place to celebrate what Windrush Christians brought to Britain and the impact their inheritors – African Christians – are now having on the country,” said Roy. He pointed out that Black-led churches should be seen against the backdrop of the times when Africans were taken as slaves to work on plantations. “Their songs were slave-working songs which became known as spirituals – but they had a dual purpose: they presented an escape plan and marked resistance,” he said. “The two most popular songs were Swing Low, Sweet Chariot and Steal Away. Swing Low, which has been hijacked by English rugby fans, was a coded song telling slaves how to travel undercover and where to find a safe house, in the north or in Canada.” A group of experts explored diversity and difference in the church at CRE. Host of the seminar, Elaine Bowes of the Pentecostal Credit Union, said: “Our discussions were based essentially on John 17:21 – ‘…that all of them may be one’ – and asked if we are mirroring what Scripture is saying, what Christ is saying. I think the conclusion was “Yes and No”. And we looked then at how the Church can join together in practical ways to build unity. Eating together. Going places in groups. We can do lots of things that build community between different people.
KEN BURTON SINGERS ROY FRANCIS
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