First published in 1985, it is about the Caribbean diaspora exemplified in the lives of a young family from a small island of the British West Indies who decide to join the 1950s exodus to the mother country.

Leila's boyfriend Michael, who is in his early twenties, is an irresponsible young man whose main interests are sex and drink.

He does odd delivery jobs on his scooter for his friend Bradeth, but most time of the day the two men can be seen outside one of the small bars getting drunk on beer.

Rather than wait for Arthur, who has declared his love for her but left the island promising to come back soon, Leila has set her eyes on Michael, who before long agrees to become her husband.

All they can go on, however, are snippets of pseudo-information, misconceptions, things they picked up when they were at school, exaggerated stories told by returnees, and second- or third-hand advice on how to tackle life in England.

"[3] After a two-week voyage, Michael, Leila and Calvin finally set foot on English soil, have "nothing to declare except their accents",[4] and eventually arrive at Victoria on the boat train from Dover with only her mother's address and some money to start a new life with.

As newly arrived immigrants belonging to a visible minority who are looking for suitable accommodation and a regular income, Leila and Michael experience the kind of racism, petty and otherwise, prevalent in a city inhabited almost solely by whites which is suddenly being flooded by dark-skinned "foreigners".

[5] They fall prey to unscrupulous estate agents, and Michael soon returns to his habit of coming and going whenever he chooses to, leaving all household chores to Leila.

Basically narrated in chronological order, it does contain a series of flashbacks mainly outlining episodes of Leila's past life in the Caribbean island.

[6] In 1996 The Final Passage was turned into a made-for-TV movie starring Michael Cherrie, Natasha Estelle Williams, Diane Parish, Oscar James, Carmen Munroe, and Carolyn Pickles.