In this first episode, Dr Yasmin Khan tracks down passengers who travelled from Mumbai, known previously as Bombay, to Britain in the 1930s on the luxurious P&O liner The Viceroy of India. Yasmin discovers the challenges faced by these new arrivals as they tried to build a life in a strange land and reveals how their individual stories reflect the increasingly strained relationship between Britain and its Indian Empire.
Dr Yasmin Khan reveals the stories of passengers coming to Britain from Bombay in the late 1940s following Independence, including Anglo-Indians, Sikh and Polish families. Yasmin returns to the passenger lists held at the National Archives to unearth the stories of those travelling on the Asturias, including Anne Tilley who was three years old when she boarded the Asturias with her family.
Dr Yasmin Khan unearths stories of those travelling on the great ocean liner The Batory in the 1950s, whose arrival in Britain changed the face of the country. Yasmin uncovers the extraordinary story of Bachan Singh, an ambitious young man from a village in the Punjab, who found freedom in the pubs and clubs of 1950s Liverpool, before making it big in the local ice cream trade, while Ahmed Takolia takes her to the heartlands of 1950s manufacturing in the Midlands.
