"I'm heartbroken I can't rejoin my children in Britain": Windrush gran blocked from UK after living here for 59 years

Gretel May Gocan with children Wilton and Pauline

For 59 years, Gretel Gorcan lived in Britain believing she was free to come and go as she pleased after arriving with the Windrush Generation to start a new life here in 1960.

But the 81-year-old was stunned when she tried to return from a trip to her native Jamaica but was denied access – despite her paying taxes, raising a family and having a regular job in London.

Sick Gretel was told she needed a visa to come back “home” – and now feels abandoned by the UK, who invited her over here in the first place to help boost our economy.

She has been stuck in the ­Caribbean since 2009, cut off from her children and grandkids, broke and relying on relatives to put her up. And the sick pensioner is being hounded for £19,000 in UK ­benefits officials claim she must pay back.

As the scandal over the pulping of landing cards from the Windrush immigrants grows, Gretel is human proof of the suffering the situation is causing.

She said: “From the life, I once had surrounded by my children in London to having been made homeless in Jamaica has broken my heart. I travelled to Britain to help out on the promise of a new life but now they have turned their back on me.

"My ­children are still in London but I am left here. It is not how I wanted to live my final years. I miss my family so much. I want to return to my home in the UK but can’t.”

When Gretel arrived at Tilbury Docks in East London, aged 24, all those years ago, she had a Jamaican ­passport with a stamp inside giving her indefinite leave to remain.

But that document was stolen in a 2006 burglary at her house in Lambeth. She applied for a new one and her daughter Pauline ­Blackwood immediately filed a police report.

The authorities told Gretel she would not be given a UK passport and if she left Britain she would need to apply for a visa on her new Jamaican passport.

Her worst fears were confirmed when she went to the Caribbean for her sister’s funeral in 2010 and to try to ­reconnect with other family members.

As she tried to board the flight back to Britain, she was told her ­passport did not contain the correct documentation and she was refused the right to travel.

Pauline, 56, said: “To say she was ­heartbroken, would be an understatement. My mum had devoted most of her life to the UK and now they were saying she was no longer welcome. She was completely lost.”

She has poor chronic health ­conditions one of which is diabetes. And Gretel has had no means to pay for her medication, and has fallen into two diabetic comas.

Her worst fears were confirmed when she went to the Caribbean for her sister’s funeral in 2010 and to try to ­reconnect with other family members.

As she tried to board the flight back to Britain, she was told her ­passport did not contain the correct documentation and she was refused the right to travel.

Pauline, 56, said: “To say she was ­heartbroken, would be an understatement. My mum had devoted most of her life to the UK and now they were saying she was no longer welcome. She was completely lost.”

She has poor chronic health ­conditions one of which is diabetes. And Gretel has had no means to pay for her medication, and has fallen into two diabetic comas.

She has still been receiving benefits from the UK which Pauline has been sending to her in Jamaica to live on. But officials are demanding she repays £19,000 in social security payments they claim she was never entitled to.

Pauline added: “Mum is ­penniless. She has nothing except for the money I send over. What do they want her to do? Be homeless again?

“She has been left with absolutely nothing by authorities when her entire life is in the UK.

“My mum has six children in the UK and she has grandchildren and some of them she hasn’t seen or even held.

“Her family is here and it is for her to make that choice whether she chooses to stay in Jamaica or come back to the UK, but that is not an option for her, she is forced to stay in Jamaica.

“My main fear is we’re going to lose our mum. She has no money, all her pension’s been stopped and her medication too, that’s all been denied to her.”

Gretel’s family have applied for a visa for her to return to the UK to gather the evidence required by the Home Office to support her claim to be able to return.

Her children have tried to gather the evidence of her residency on her behalf but at every turn, they say, they have been blocked. It took a year for Pauline to get a meeting with a Lambeth council director who promised to help as they hold her housing records but she claims nothing has happened.

After Gretel arrived in the UK, she had eight children and worked in a Lyons syrup factory.

But after struggling with racism and unfamiliar living conditions, it resulted in a breakdown as she was unable to cope.

Some of her children were placed in the notorious Shirley Oaks ­Children’s Home.

Kids in its supposed care suffered sexual, physical and psychological abuse by paedophiles who were ­legitimately working as house parents for this ­establishment.

As her children became adults, they reconnected with Gretel.

The Government has apologised to the ­children of Commonwealth citizens, known as the Windrush Generation - after the name of the first ship bringing them to the UK in 1948 - for the way they have been treated by the Home Office.

Despite being in the UK legally, many have been threatened with deportation, denied access to NHS treatment, benefits and pensions and stripped of their jobs. Hundreds of others have, such as Gretel, been refused entry.

Today a rally was held in support of the Windrush generation and their families in Brixton.

Asked about Gretel’s case, a Home Office spokesman last night said: “The Home Secretary has been clear, we don’t want anyone who has ­contributed so much to our society to feel unwelcome.

“She has apologised for any distress caused and we are urgently reviewing these cases.

“The Windrush helpline is open to individuals who are concerned about documenting their status.”

Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott said: “Far too many people have gone back for a wedding or a funeral or a holiday and could not come back.”

Grenada’s Prime Minister Keith Mitchell added: “People lost a lot, people suffered a lot of pain, and they must be given an opportunity to correct this immediately, some serious ­compensation.

“If not the person, if they’ve gone, then the families who have suffered too.”