In this week’s edition of In Search of West Indies Cricket, Roger Seymour profiles the 1986 film “Playing Away”, which is based on a play by Caryl Phillips. The film follows the circumstances surrounding a cricket match between a pick-up team of West Indians living in Brixton, London, who are invited to play a cricket match against the Sneddington Cricket Club in Suffolk County, in eastern England. The film is set in the early 1980s.
By Roger Seymour
The Windrush Generation
Five years ago, the story of the children of the Windrush Generation dominated British headlines, and the heavily embarrassed UK government apologised to thousands of people who had arrived in Britain as children decades before, and had become victims of the tightening immigration system. These adults, some of whom had migrated to Britain on their parents’ documentation, or never had their births registered, had never formally applied for citizenship or a passport. Despite, in most cases, having spent almost their entire life in Britain, they suddenly found themselves incorrectly identified as illegal immigrants, and unable to work or have access to health services. The situation was further compounded by the fact that in October 2010, the Home Office had destroyed thousands of landing card slips on which the arrival dates of many of the Windrush Generation had been recorded.