My name is Glenda Caesar. I’m a mother of four. One daughter, my princess, she’s Deaf, and three young men. And a grandmother of 12. I was born in Dominica but raised in the UK. So I came over here when I was three months old.

We lived in between a Pakistani family and an Indian family. Then we had a Mauritian family. Then we had a Grenadian. Then we had Nigerian. It was community. It was.

I had been kicked out of school. I just stayed at home and read books. I literally did my English GCSE myself. I marked myself. Fell pregnant at 15 when I’d met my children’s dad. At the age of 18, I was a mother of three.

I was doing part-time work early in the morning while they’re sleeping. Run up, do the office cleaning, get back down, get them ready for school. I wanted to make a home for them so they wouldn’t go elsewhere for comfort.

I think I was 55 when I decided, I’m gonna retire now. But I wanted to work. Laughs. So, I saw a position nearer home. I applied for it as a receptionist. The lady who interviewed me, she was an interim manager, she said, ‘You’re overqualified for the receptionist, we have got another position as an administrator.’ I said, ‘Okay, yeah, I’ll take it, it’s walking distance. Why not?’

Then she asked me for a passport. I said, ‘Well, I haven’t got a British passport.’ But what I did have was a Dominican passport. I only had that as ID, so I gave it to her. She was like, ‘Oh, okay.’ She went, ‘Yeah, yep.’ ‘Cause she’s seen my work history. So she said, ‘Okay, yeah, I’m gonna give it to you.’

They employed a new manager. So when the new manager came in, he came in and he was like, ‘Well, you ain’t got a British passport.’

I’ve done about 16, 17 years with NHS. But he was adamant. He called the legal department. He called the Home Office in front of me. And I heard the woman literally say, ‘Is she in the job?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ The woman said, ‘Well, there’s nothing we can do.’

That was not good enough for him. I got to stage where I was becoming depressed because of going in every day, I know I have to face this man and he was questioning everything that I did. He questioned my work ethic, he questioned my letters. They were frightened of getting reprimanded because it was £10,000 if you had employed somebody illegal.

On the 6th of November 2009 he writ me a letter and told me they’re terminating my contract under gross misconduct for not having the right to live or work in the UK.

What do I do? I said, ‘You know what Glenda? Go and sign on, you’ll get another job.’ And I went to the Jobcentre, thinking I could claim benefits. They tell me I can’t. ‘You haven’t got a British passport.’

I said, ‘Hold on, I gave birth to four children. I get child benefit for them. I’m a main carer for my eldest daughter. I’ve worked, I’ve contributed my national insurance money and now you’re telling me, you’re not giving me my money?’

I’m lost now. From 2009 I had to depend on my children. I got in arrears. My eldest son had to take out a loan to pay off the arrears.

My daughter would come with her benefit money – ‘You okay?’ Say, ‘Shopping?’ I’d say, ‘Yeah, I can’t do shopping.’ Yeah… hard man.

But then, the worst thing was, now my son’s getting old and he can’t get a British passport ‘cause I’m not British. ‘Cause he’s different father from my children and he had my surname. He caught himself in a situation where he got detained. I thought, ‘Oh my God, my child’s in a situation where I can’t even save him.’

He came home. He became depressed. He started blaming me. I put him in this situation.

I laid down in bed one day and I said, ‘That’s it. I’m just going to take some tablets. If I go to sleep, and if I’m out of the way then things might get better.’

But it’s gonna, look at the grandkids, because you’re the only grandparents on this side. And I ended up going to the doctors. They referred me to therapy and I went to this class and I’m literally sitting down in this therapy room, same people I referred to when I was working in the mental health. And I was like, ‘Wow.’

I got a call from my sister. She said, ‘Glenda, there’s people on the telly going through what you’re going through.’

I said ‘Shut up.’

‘ITV wants to interview you.’

I said, ‘What?’

She said ‘Yeah.’

I said, ‘Tell them give me half an hour and I’ll be down.’

I got a call saying, ‘We’d like you to come into the office with all of your papers.’ They said, ‘You’re now British.’

I said, ‘Oh, I knew I was British.’ But I needed this piece of paper to say I was British.
‘Is there any questions, Mrs Caesar?’

I said, ‘Yeah. What’s the implication on children born to people like ourselves?’

‘Oh no, Mrs Caesar. No, you don’t have to worry.’ And he pointed at me and he went, and he said my son’s name. ‘Oh, he’s British. You don’t have to worry about him.’

And I started crying. It wasn’t about me. It was about him.

Once they had said that this compensation scheme was gonna come in and they were going to compensate, we got invited to the Home Secretary office to discuss the launch. I think I waited like nine months and I got my first offer. And the first offer was for £22,264.

Now I’m not silly. By this time now I’d been unemployed, haven’t been able to get benefits for 10 years. I’ve had enough of these people and I went straight onto social media and I was like, ‘These people are taking the pee.’

I got a call about, ‘Are you okay?’

‘No.’

‘What would you like?’

I said, ‘I’d like a journalist and a cameraman, today.’

‘I’ll get them there in half an hour.’

So I had one waiting in here while I’m filming in there and I literally went on and I said, ‘We are not peasants. We are hungry but you cannot throw breadcrumbs at us.’

I got another call saying, ‘You’ve ruffled some feathers in the Home Office.’ I said, ‘Good.’ Because they didn’t think I was going to put that letter up in public and I did.

People would come forward and say, ‘You’re very articulate in the way that you put things forward. And we’ve interviewed people who are not as articulate as you.’ And I was like, ‘I’ll be the voice, just tell me your story and I’ll put it together and I’ll let them know out there.’

And that’s how my advocacy happened. We then formed a group called Windrush Lives which was of six victims. We had a meeting with the then head of the Windrush Scheme and the permanent Secretary. Threw questions at them. By December 2020 after that meeting, Priti Patel had put the impact on life – it’s like they trebled the amount. So it showed me that these people had the purse because, 500 million to deal with this? To this day, we still haven’t spent 500 million.

Let’s hold them responsible for taking away our rights as British citizens. They tried to take my life away from me, they tried to take my son away from me and my identity. And if I didn’t fight for it, I would have never been who I am.

As a Windrush campaigner, a director of the Windrush National Organisation, which is a collective of organisations across the country, I advocate for those who have been affected. So while I have that freedom to use my mouth, I’m going to use it. Laughs.