17 October, 2017
George Alagiah’s parents, Donald Alagiah, a civil engineer and Therese, were Sri Lankan Tamil. They left in November 1961 when the future for Tamils there seemed bleak and moved to Ghana. In 1967 George started his secondary education in Portsmouth after which he read politics at Durham University. He is a renowned British newsreader, journalist and television news presenter.
‘So many of our family photos in Ghana have a car as backdrop. I suppose it was a kind of shorthand for showing our relatives back home the progress we were making.’
19 July, 2017
Mother, great-aunt and maternal grandmother wait for the groom on the day of his shaadi (wedding). The women were born in Pakistan/pre partition, India.
British-Born, Khurram Ahmad is outside his family home in Leicestershire. Khurrum values and upholds the tradition of living with his parents and taking care of them in their old age.
He is discussing the final arrangements of his wedding day with friends. While this is the official day of the wedding, Muslim weddings are often celebrated for several days, including: mehndi (henna party), civil ceremony, nikah (religious ceremony) and a walima
(reception).
6 July, 2017
The symbolic bonfire of the 33rd day of the Omer.
Members of the Charedi community of Stamford Hill originate from a worldwide diaspora.
There are people who have migrated here from places such as Brooklyn, Manchester, Israel, North Africa and Eastern Europe.
17 October, 2017
As one of my photography projects I decided to take photographs of influential Polish people in Coventry. Polish society is very religious so an obvious choice was the priest in the local Polish church. After taking his portrait he gave me the keys to the church. I found a stand with old songbooks and picked a random one, opened it and found a commemorative card from Christmas in 1959. That is when I realised the emigration wave from 2006 is not the only one. Many Polish people came to England after the Second World War in 1945 to find a new, safe home. Since then I met a lot of those incredible people and I’ve heard their amazing but mostly very sad stories. Over half a century old piece of paper has so many different meanings – for me it’s a reminder, for someone else it might be a memory of a coveted calm Christmas.
Many Poles that settled in England after the war were soldiers and pilots that fought for the United Kingdom so it is very unfair when these old immigrants have to suffer because of new immigrants causing trouble today.
