South Asian diaspora recall gnawing loneliness in post-war Britain

The first generation who came to post-war Britain from the Indian subcontinent arrived with as little as £3 in their pockets - all the money they could bring in under strict currency controls. Their descendants, in their millions, are part of the make-up of contemporary Britain, but many of their stories are still to be told - and they reveal so much about the process of migration.

Mohammed Ajeeb arrived in Britain in 1957 from Pakistan with a battered suitcase. His first home was in Nottingham with 28 other men from Mirpur, in Pakistani-istered Kashmir. He'd had a clerical job in Pakistan but could only find work in a factory.

"I cried at night in my bed," he confesses. "I wanted to go back but I didn't want to be seen as a failure. I thought, 'I'm a determined young man, I want to succeed by hook or crook in this country,' and that carried me."

Over the years, he fought many battles for equal pay and against racism - but he stayed and went on to become the mayor of Bradford.

The 1948 British Nationality Act meant people who came from the former colonies or the empire automatically became British citizens. Britain needed workers to rebuild the country after World War Two.

Many who came in the early years from the Indian subcontinent were single, young men. They mostly worked the difficult shifts in the factories, foundries, and textile mills in places like Birmingham, Bradford, and West London. These men thought they were coming for only a few years: they never imagined generations of their family would one day live here.

Gnawing loneliness, and missing family, was part of life for these pioneers, the so-called £3 generation. Many wrote to their family on blue aerogram letters.

Gunwant Grewal came over from Ludhiana, Punjab in 1965. Life wasn't what she had imagined. She had been a teacher in India, but could only find factory work when she arrived.

She lived in a room in Southall, west London, with her husband and daughter in a shared house, a far cry from her spacious home in India. She desperately missed her father who she wrote to regularly.

"My tears were on my letter as I was writing. My father said, 'Why was your letter damp":[]}