The Empire Windrush, formerly known as the Monte Rosa, was built in Germany and launched in December 1930 as a passenger cruiser serving the tourist route from Hamburg to Buenos Aires. She was used as a German troop and hospital ship in the Second World War, and, after Germany's defeat, was refitted in Glasgow as a British troop carrier. She was relaunched with her new name in 1947. Her arrival in Tilbury in June 1948 marked the end of a voyage that had begun in Australia. The passengers who boarded at Kingston included returning servicemen along with 492 civilians who had been attracted by an advert in the Daily Gleaner offering cheap transport for those wanting to work in Britain. A passage on the troop deck cost £28 10s. The Windrush's career ended in 1954 when she suffered an engine room explosion off the Algerian coast en route to Southampton from Japan. She sank while being towed to Gibraltar.

The following extracts from interviews with passengers on the ship are taken from the BBC's Windrush - Arrivals website and the book Windrush: the irresistible rise of multi-racial Britain by Mike Phillips and Trevor Phillips.

Jamaica in 1948 was all right to me, it was quite calm, not like now. Anyway I was living in Port Antonio, that's 60 miles from Kingston, so we were all living happily with everyone. If my husband had not sent for me, I would not have come at that point, maybe later. It was a big troop boat Empire Windrush and you have lots of soldiers, and lots of people coming to England, and the reason why it took such a long time, was something happened to one of the engines.

They went to Tampico and spent about 3 or 4 days there and after that we pass by Havana but we didn't dock. Then on to Bermuda and we spend another 4 days there, where we did land and the people there were very nice, they received us and they had a party and took us places. There were lots of men, more men than women, what I can remember now, there was a woman that stowed away on the boat, a woman you know, they found her and, she got VIP treatment, I saw her and spoke to her. She went to Birmingham. Lucile Harris

There was hope. People were concerned, especially those people who have never been out of Jamaica before, but there was an attitude of comradeship. We were Yard People, we didn't use the word Yardie, we used the word Passieras, we were going to club together and we were going to survive.

It was, by the way, a former German troop ship, actually made for the SS. It was very clean, very nice. We had dinner, some people sick, and we had a few stowaways, so the stowaways would use the sick peoples' tickets to get lunch. And we cooperate, we had a little entertaining like boxing and bowl...

After about a week, people were asking questions about England. About eight of us had been in England before, and I said, "Well, I'm not going to answer questions here and there." In the evening, about five o'clock, we went below deck and we discussed England. Jamaicans left on the ss Empire Windrush to seek a living. And I tried to explain to them that there is no problem finding work in England, but you have to have documents... And I didn't do a good job, because I think about two days before we were landed, somebody said, Sam, you know, I'm not worrying about them papers, I just want the work. Sam King who later became Mayor of Southwark

It took me about three days to wrap up everything in my case. Ah, people there laughing, joking, and a lot weeping, you know, their loved ones leaving, some think they would never see them again and all that sort of thing, because, remember, it was just after the war.

But people were glad that their relation - whether it be a husband or sweetheart, a brother, or any relative - going abroad, because that's the only thing Jamaicans had, you know, to export, was manpower. And they were glad if a relation going abroad, they would be helped one way or another, they always look forward to that.

Well, me, myself, I play cards the whole journey. We stopped at Cuba, I didn't go ashore. This is where, the fellas, they came alongside the ship and sell things, fruits and drinks and things like that, and I bought up some stuff, and sell it back to the chaps as we travelled. I had a good time. A woman stowed away, so we paid for her. That was the only thing that was rather strange. I can't remember anything as strange as that. On the boat it was just, you know, how it is. A load of men. I doubt if there were half a dozen women. I think about one wife. Oh. I can remember a fellow from my town, two brothers and a sister, they were coming to work with Tate and Lyle, the sugar barons. Oswald 'Columbus' Denniston who worked as a street trader until his retirement

One of the things that I liked on the boat, they had some boxers that came over... And that was about the most exciting thing on the ship, except when we went to Bermuda. And we disembarked and went in the cinema and we were told we had to sit in a particular place, you know. And, of course, Jamaicans, although you had this kind of hierarchy of colour in Jamaica, this was a new experience, to be told that you couldn't sit where you bought your ticket to sit, you had to sit in a particular place. And, of course, this led to a fight, and we were, you know, told to leave the cinema and sent back to the ship. And, of course, the other thing was people were saying that there's a British warship that was shadowing the Windrush, and there was talk that they might blow us out the water, that they might sink the ship. Because there was some people didn't want black people coming to England. And there was fear that they might very well sink the ships, so that there was an element of danger. Vince Reid who, at 13, was one of the few children on board the ship

And the boat reached Tilbury, the water was brown and red. Well, it's the time I really realised that people are really brave. All those stowaways jumped from the ship into the water and started swimming ashore. And I was wondering if these fellas are not afraid of alligators, because that water seemed to me that it must have some kind of reptile in it. Anyway, they went ashore, and we took the train from Tilbury to London. About a week after, I went to a place called the Paramount, where they could dance, there was a lot of dancing there. To my surprise, many of the stowaways were in the Paramount jiving, dancing and what-have-you. I had to laugh, I couldn't believe it. A man just stowaway and, after a couple of days, he was in a dance hall jiving and dancing around.

But entering England, when the boat had about four days to land in England, I get this kind of wonderful feeling that I'm going to land on the mother country, the soil of the mother country. And I started to compose this song, 'London is the Place for Me'. Aldwyn 'Lord Kitchener' Roberts, the grandmaster of calypso, who returned permanently to Trinidad in 1962.