We must discover the many Windrush stories still waiting to be told

Pioneering lives of people who arrived in Britain in 1948 must be documented before they are lost to history

Whenever I pass a war memorial or even a single gravestone I cannot help but wonder what stories lie beneath each name. Where were they born, what sort of family did they come from, where did they work, did they marry, have children, what did their children go on to achieve, where and how did they die?

Nowhere is this feeling stronger than when I view the passenger list of the Empire Windrush. A series of names - 1,027 of them - but what was their story? Three years ago, I began to research and document the lives of these people before they are for ever lost to history.

Bill Hern is a retired civil servant turned historian, who is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society