Barrel Children: Windrush families and the emotional burden of migration

Growing up in Jamaica, all my cousins, my aunt’s children, knew their mother because they grew up with her,” says Jennifer Pringle. “I was the only child that didn’t really have her mum around and it was an isolating experience. You know, I still haven’t overcome it fully.”

Pringle’s mother left Jamaica for the UK when she was a toddler. She has few recollections of the woman who gave birth to her and, instead, viewed her maternal grandmother as “mum”. Then, months before her 15th birthday, Pringle left her grandmother to join her mother in the West Midlands, in Britain.

That journey in 1975, flying into Heathrow airport, was made by tens of thousands of others – children raised by their extended families then “sent for” to join their estranged biological parents in Britain, often finding their new home hostile, grey and cold. They became known as the “barrel children”, after the parcels and barrels of goods their parents would send home, from novelty food and gifts to essentials such as clothes and stationery.

But for many, the years of separation took an emotional toll – and some of these “barrel children” are still dealing