Ugandan Asians at Plasterdown 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 Plasterdown Camp

The Box
Tavistock
1972-10-17
Sound
4m

The plight of refugees expelled from Uganda is highlighted.

TV reporter Lawrie Quayle reports from Plasterdown Resettlement Camp at Okehampton in Devon on the arrival of Asians from Uganda. In August 1972 the then President of Uganda and brutal dictator Idi Amin gave Ugandan Asians ninety days to leave the country. Amin supported ethnic Ugandans and felt threatened by an educated Asian elite many of whom were bankers, civil servants, factory and land owners.

The Resettlement Board aimed to help the displaced population find work and housing and an integration programme was set up. An estimated 27,000 Ugandan Asians were resettled in the UK with some returning to Africa many years later. Others went to host countries including Canada, America, India and some European countries. The military training camp of prefabricated tunnel-shaped Nissen huts was built at Plasterdown at the outbreak of the Second World War and served as a hospital, a prison and a refugee camp. In 1976 the camp was demolished. The 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention and 1967 protocol extension to non-European refugees seek to protect the rights of displaced populations.

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.