Sikh Matron
From the collection of
From the collection of
Kartar Surinder Singh describes the Sikhs as travellers and it is that spirit of discovery and adventure that has brought him via Malaysia to a nursing role in a hospital in West Bromwich. He is a nurse manager, a role still then popularly known as a matron, and also a preacher at the Sikh temple in nearby Dudley. This profile for the Here and Now series reveals that his is the only Asian family in the large village of Kinver in Staffordshire, where he continues his pioneering zeal.
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.