In 1998 The Kuumba Project in Bristol published Origins: personal stories of crossing the seas to settle in Britain with Redcliffe Press. The following extracts are from that book:

"I had no fear whatsoever of coming to England [from Antigua] on my own. In those days, I thought I could do everything on my own! I was in my early thirties and it was September, 1961. I came by boat as I couldn't afford to come by plane. It was a harrowing experience! I am not a good sailor - I am afraid of the sea, and I didn't know I could be so sea-sick! I was sea-sick for the whole journey - nearly two weeks. You do make friends on the boat, they were all people from the Caribbean and for me it wasn't a problem. I just didn't like feeling sea-sick. When in England, I kept in touch with one or two of the people from the boat until I got lost in what I had to do, I had no time to look back...

What of my impression of the people, especially the nurses I worked with? They were from all over the world, I didn't stop to notice the difference. Differences in race never bothered me. I think it has bothered me as time has gone on, but in those early day - no, I made friends with just about everybody and I got on with everybody. I got along with senior staff and new staff, I didn't care who they were, I just accepted them for what they were. That was the way I was brought up. People were people, and there were nice people and not-so-nice people, and you liked someone or you didn't. I didn't have enemies. The differences in nationality never, ever bothered me in those early days.

But over the years you cannot but be aware that people think differently about different people, we just have different values, different expectations, different perceptions of people... in those early days people were just there, and I was there to do one thing - to get on with my studies, to get on and to get back home to Antigua - oh yes, that was on the cards very much. I wanted to go back...

But I didn't. I got married."
Olive Lack

"When I arrived in Bristol [from Kenya], I had to share a flat before we bought a house. I was on my own when my husband went to work. Immediately, I tried to find out if there were any Asians or some sort of organisation for us in Bristol. There was an Indian Association, but not many members. To start with there were very few families settled in the area. Of Asians, there were hardly four Gujerati families. So, I began networking! When we had our home I invited families to a regular gathering, so we could retain our culture and traditions, especially our mother tongue. We used to enjoy this very much. Everyone would bring a dish... we would sing Bhajans, talk, tell jokes, and we decided to meet every fortnight and take it in turns to host it. I had set up a shrine and a library in my house which people made use of. Everything began to fall in to place, and the worry of being lost was almost gone. For the very first time I had managed to organise an Indian folk dance for the St Paul's Carnival...

At the moment, it seems as if I have always lived in Bristol. There are a great many difficulties and every day is another challenge: racism and discrimination seem to have grown. I don't know whether it was hidden then and is open today.

But I feel I have been lucky - with people and their kindness, understanding and accepting me with respect as I am."
Yashu Amiani MBE

"[Black men] took up with London Transport in the early days. It was more secure. Actually, it was they who started a lot of the migration to England - they came over to Barbados in the mid-1950s to recruit people to work on the buses. Other companies came over and recruited people to work in hotels, nursing and also in textiles. It was recruitment, and the reason black people took [the jobs] was because it was secure - not only a secure job but accommodation as well. Even before leaving Barbados, we had to sit exams and have blood tests and everything. They were making sure you were educated and healthy before you came to England...

I can't say I have ever regretted it. There were times, when things weren't going too well, and as I said, most of us came there saying it would be for five, ten years at the most. But then you get commitments, and ten years have passed before you even think about it! That's how most of us have got stuck here... but I wouldn't say I have any regrets. I know that a lot of people who stayed in Barbados are now doing very well, very well indeed. As a matter of fact, I would say better than many of us over here...

In some ways, you've been living in another country for so long you find you have different habits and your culture fades a bit. I'm not saying it completely goes, but you've got to say you change a bit - living in another country for more than half your life. Once you get back to Barbados, though, it doesn't take long for your birth culture to come back."
Theo Sobers

"My children think England is their homeland. They have a better life here and better education...

When I came to England, I didn't come here to live for ever, for always. I was a student first, and then I started work. When I first came here, I weighed only seven stones, I used to run and play football, nobody could get the ball from me! I didn't know about heart problems, and I used to eat meat three times a day in my curry... eventually I had a massive heart attack.

I have full respect for England because I have spent 40 years here, but now because I have not been well for twenty years, and have had twenty years of not being active, what can I do? One part of my life has gone - work. Now I feel that all my children have been educated and can live anywhere in the world, that's OK. But I don't want somebody to insist that I stay in England. My heart is in Bangladesh."
Feroze Ahmed

"I came to England in 1957, when I was 15 years old. We came by boat from India as in those days aeroplanes weren't that common. I was going to England to get married, so we had brought lots of luggage with us. I got married a year later in Doncaster.

It wasn't possible in those days to get much here that was Asian. In those days there were no gudurahs [Sikh temples] so we got married at home. My mum had the fives of us, we've all seen a lot of hardship, but not as much as our parents went through to come to England. They sold their houses and possessions and with teenage children came to settle in another country. The English - some were good, but there were also not-so-nice people among them. There were many who were prejudiced, many good, but mainly prejudiced. When you stood next to someone, they would say they smelt curry and garlic. At the time, you couldn't even get garlic in England!"
Kishan Kaur

"My first Sunday lunch in England was an opportunity to meet my ex-girl friends' family for the first time. Well, everybody arrived, said 'hello, nice to meet you,' lunch was ready so everybody took theirs and went to different rooms in the house! Some took their plates to the front room, some to the garden, some to the bedroom. I thought what is the point of having a Sunday lunch when everyone is sitting in a different room? In my country, when we get together for lunch - we get together! There is a common belief that Chile is a disorganised country, but we are very organised over something like this! We have very large families, and when three families get together there will be about at least twenty kids - enough to make more than one football team. All the children will eat first, and then we send them out to play, and it's time then for us, the adults. And it's more friendly. We talk, and every now and again there is a big fight, that's within us as well. We don't refrain from throwing a punch at anyone because it's just the way we are! And I think somehow it's better...

When Chileans came here as little children, say at five years old, they forgot everything. Now they are becoming teenagers and reaching adulthood, they are living in a culture that is not alien to them - it's the only culture they know, and they go with it. Fortunately, for them, their parents are there to remind them about their own country. It's not a question of making them study Chilean history, but putting in their minds that there is another part of them they don't know about.

I know a lot of teenagers who go on a Friday and Saturday night to a club and dance this very British or American dance music, but on a Wednesday they will go and dance salsa! I think this is very encouraging, they are not denying their culture."
Carlos Laprida

"The ferry was an amazing place, much bigger than anything on earth. We watched nervously, in awe of the other passengers and crew; of everything. Pressing our faces through the heavy metal gates which divided first from second class, containing us - as I had seen in a film about the Titanic, all the poor Irish people in third class were locked in the lower decks and died screaming and praying. I concentrated on our exploration of the ship. We climbed to the highest point, overshadowed by the towering funnel, and sat for most of the journey, free and windblown. We watched Ireland recede into a diminishing thin line, framed by the widening furrow of white water behind us...

I felt I was already a different person by the time we arrived in Fishguard...

From the first time I set foot in England, I never felt I really belonged. Once we left, I felt I couldn't belong in Ireland any more, either. I had joined the ranks of the displaced. Like thousands of others, I struggle to find my place."
Trish McGrath

" My children are Vietnamese, but their thinking is 90 per cent British. There is a conflict between the two cultures but they know what is wrong and what is right. When my children visit Vietnam, they become truly Vietnamese, but then of course back in England they become British!...

My children think like British children, but they are Vietnamese too. I say to them that they must keep our culture because there are many good things in the Vietnamese culture. For example, they worship their parents and ancestors and look after each other. Parents in Vietnam are not friends, they are advisors, not like here. Children here think their parents are friends, yet they put their grandparents in nursing homes - this would be a very cruel thing to do in Vietnam!...

In the end, if you want to have a better life, you have to work hard. I always tell my children that. If they want to live comfortably they have to study and find a job. I tell the other Vietnamese in Bristol that they cannot sit around and moan about the weather - there are millions in Vietnam suffering. Here you have to go out and study English, find a hobby, or support a football team as I do - Liverpool!"
Mai Van Thong

"It started in Kingston, Jamaica. I was staying with a cousin of mine, and that is where my future was being planned. It had been settled for me to attend a school of hairdressing. Then, out of the blue, there was a letter from my mother telling me that her brother, my uncle, was in England and had been there a few years. He said in the letter 'why don't you send Joyce over to England for a few years?' as they would be returning in two or three years' time and I could return with them. My mother said yes. In Jamaica, and maybe here as well sometimes, they don't really ask the children - the children go along with the decisions...

I missed Jamaica. I missed seeing the stars. In Jamaica you could look up at night and there would be the stars and a dark blue sky. You could see the stars run across the sky. I used to look for them as a child: a star would run with a tail...

... I never settled. I talk about nothing else but that I am going home. Am I really going home? It's so difficult. I wish I had gone when my children were very small. But it didn't work out like that - they were born here, but I pine to go home. I retired last year, and went home to make up my mind. I have a house in Jamaica that belonged to my parents. I am divorced, and so I have worked to bring up my children properly and then to return. I have always gone shopping - and if I buy a blouse I will buy something else to put in the trunk - to go back. I'm always putting back things. Just the other day I said to myself - some of those things you have in boxes you should take out and leave. You are now over 60! All these years I'll have one tablecloth out for the table and four upstairs in the trunk. It's madness!

That's how my life has been - split! All the time looking in shops and thinking of things to put back... You see, we weren't welcome. You always feel you must do it right. You must dress properly to tell them you are clean and have nice clothes, always. You are never free from that. The children had to be turned out properly. Everyone does this, but it was a burden for us, because the white people were always ready to say 'look at them, dirty, filthy!' I have heard it. But if you're too nicely dressed it's a problem again - 'they come here and get all the jobs.' We are never right."
Joyce Anderson

"When I was thirteen years old I lived in Somalia in a town called Buro... We were a happy family and Buro was a nice little town. People in the town were working and they were happy.

Suddenly, everything changed. We had a war in Somalia. People were fighting and killing each other. Many people were leaving the country because they were not safe in Somalia. Many people from my town, too, were going; some were killed and some lost their house and family.

One day, my dad came home looking very sad. Mum said,' you don't look very happy. What's the matter?' My father replied, 'we have to leave this house because it is not safe here.' My mother started crying, 'how can we leave this house? We built it and our children were born here.' My father said, 'we have to go to another country to save the children.' My mother agreed, and starting packing all our clothes and some food in bags...

Now I live in Bristol and go to St George Community School. I would like to go back to Somalia as soon as possible when I finish at school, I hope. The war in Somalia is stopped, now everything is normal. I would love to see my house again. It might have been destroyed, but I hope it is alright."
Saeed Ahmed