Ugandan Asians at Heathfield Camp

From the collection of

Established in 1992, the South West Film & Television Archive collection spans from 1893 to the present day containing more than 250,000 items. Formed from a variety of depositors, including broadcast news and programmes material from the Westward and TSW archive. In 2018 the archive collection transferred to The Box in Plymouth.

Ugandan Asians at Heathfield Camp

The Box
Honiton
1972-10-09
Sound
12m

Refugees explain expulsion from Uganda and look at future prospects.

TV reporter Lawrie Quayle is at Heathfield Resettlement Camp at Honiton in Devon to report on the resettlement prospects for the Ugandan Asians. The Ugandan President at the time, the military dictator Idi Amin gave the country's 60,000 Asian population ninety days to leave the country. Many fled to the UK hoping to rebuild their lives. In the wake of the expulsion the Ugandan economy collapsed.

Families arriving from Uganda were housed in resettlement camps before moving on to new lives. Bunty Charles is the Co-ordinator in charge of the Heathfield Camp, Peter Courtier is from the Coordinating Committee for the Welfare of Evacuees and Mr. Patel is from the Asian Welfare Sub-Committee. All are interviewed in this film. The (Women's) Royal Voluntary Service (WRVS) volunteers are on hand to help the Ugandans. Many of the arriving Ugandan Asians were highly skilled and employed by the British government in Uganda. Some held British citizenship. Here they show their frustration at not finding jobs and homes quickly and hope not to be a burden on central government.

South Asian Britain on Film

Discover a rich history reaching back over a century as we celebrate South Asian communities and culture across Britain.

From local news to feature film, through home movies and TV documentaries, this collection showcases South Asian Britons in front of and behind the camera. The contribution of colonial troops is illuminated through the earliest newsreels, while hardhitting current affairs programmes highlight the struggles faced in the 1960s, 1970s and beyond. Public information films produced for South Asian audiences feature alongside Hindi-language films made in Britain and interviews with prominent Asian-British figures. A bold wave of British Asian filmmaking in the 1990s is represented through early works by the likes of Gurinder Chadha and Asif Kapadia.