The poem describes the arrival of the Empire Windrush in 1948 carrying 492 hopeful immigrants from Jamaica to Britain with their British passports in hand. They came for what they thought would be a few years to help rebuild Britain and provide a better future for their children, but ended up staying for a lifetime. However, upon their arrival they received cold stares as the native British people did not see them as truly British. Now their British-born children know no other home than Britain.