How Suffolk helped Uganda’s Asian refugees thrown out by dictator Amin with resettlement camp at RAF Stradishall
It was almost exactly 50 years ago that 12 year-old Akbar Vohra stepped off a plane at Stansted airport into the bitter chill of an English autumn. He wore only shorts and a shirt and his knees were knocking from the cold.
Akbar and his family were among tens of thousands of Asians thrown out of Uganda in 1972 by the military dictator Idi Amin.
Given just 90 days to get out or face dire consequences the families – many of them successful business people – fled their homes to find refuge abroad.
More than 28,000 were flown to the UK. Some arrived with just the clothes they stood up in, because the few belongings they were allowed to take were stolen before they left.
The refugees went to hastily prepared resettlement camps where they stayed until homes could be found for them.
One of the biggest was at the former RAF Stradishall, where local volunteers played a crucial role.
The camp operated for six months until spring 1973. In that time more than 3,000 people passed through.
But this unique piece of Suffolk history risked being forgotten until local historians got involved in a national project to mark the 50th anniversary.
When the call went out for help with BUA50 (British Ugandan Asians 50), one of the first groups to sign up was Wickhambrook Local History Society.
Their village is just a few miles from the old Stradishall camp which is now Highpoint Prison.
Not only did they add 10 inspiring interviews with ex-refugees, volunteers, and their families to the BUA50 oral history archive, they staged an exhibition telling the story.
Society member Ruth Seal spent a year tirelessly doing the research, compiling information and photographs. Sixth formers from Stoke College did the video interviews.
A school was set up at the camp for Asian children, run by head teacher Roger Gillingham. “The older children went to local schools, while 461 went to primary school on the camp,” said Ruth.
Some were scarred by their experiences. Roger’s daughter Deborah Sheridan tells how one little boy drew a sad face with a red mark in the centre of the forehead.
It turned out a gun had been pressed to his head to force his family to hand over jewellery. The picture was his only way of expressing what had happened.
The WI sorted out donated clothes. The WRVS was responsible for accommodation. Items required at the camp included 2,000 mattresses, 4,000 blankets, 6,000 clothes pegs and 250 pie dishes.
Chefs were appointed to feed 2,000 people three times a day. But the curries they cooked seemed tasteless to the refugees, prompting a trip to Cambridge to pick up the right spices.
Chairman of BUA50, Alan Critchley – son of Uganda Resettlement Board director Tom Critchley – said the people who came to the UK had since made a fantastic contribution to this country.
“On the 23rd of August 1972 the Resettlement Board was set up and the first plane landed three weeks later. It took only three weeks to commission 16 reception camps.”
But it was a difficult time with racism rife in parts of the country. “It was four years after Enoch Powell’s ‘rivers of blood’ speech and the National Front was marching in the streets,” said Alan.
“Many of the Asians had British passports, but Enoch Powell didn’t want this to be acknowledged, and at this point only six per ent of people wanted them to come here. But the government decided to accept responsibility.”
Akbar’s story
Professor Akbar Vohra has had a distinguished medical career as an anaesthetist and international teacher and speaker.
“My dad was the manager of Michelin Tyres in Kampala. We lived in an apartment, we had a maid, it was a very good life.
“The area was very cosmopolitan, but I did see violence. We had night guards in the apartment building. I saw someone shot dead and a policeman standing on him like he was a trophy.
“I used to walk to school near the Houses of Parliament and would see President Idi Amin in his jeep driving around.
“We also saw him at a celebration of Eid at the mosque. Everyone clapped and smiled at him ... less than a year later he was kicking us out.”
Statements from Amin were laced with cryptic threats. “He was saying ‘if you choose to stay, you will find out what it is like’.
“Dad was very pragmatic. By September 16th he had a strategy for leaving the country. We landed at Stansted on the 27th. We left with a suitcase each and £50 for the family.
“I was strip searched for valuables. I only had a precious magnet and a blue marble, that I still have.
“When we got to Stansted my first impression was it was freezing. I had on shorts and a shirt and my knees were knocking. We were taken from the airport to Stradishall. At the admin building I got a really nice blue duffel coat.
“ I think we were among the first to turn up. At first we lived in a hangar. It was cordoned off for each family, with mattresses on the floor.
“We were there two weeks, then we were offered a house in Peterborough.
“I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, then my sister lost her baby at less than a year old, and that made me think I will have to go into medicine.”
Akbar trained at Manchester University where he now holds a professorship. He specialised in intensive care and cardiac anaesthesia, retiring this year after staying an extra two years to help during Covid.
“They were opportunities that if people hadn’t helped when we came here, might never have happened. I’m grateful for everything that was done for me and my family.”
Rani and Puti’s story
Rani Chohan, and her sister Puti Kuchhadia, are both nurses. They got to England thanks to the courage and determination of their mother, who Rani said was the strongest woman she ever knew.
Rani recalled: “Life in Uganda was really carefree. I remember going out in summer dresses, barefoot, climbing trees and not having a care in the world.
“Then things just changed suddenly. I remember being bundled into a car and taken to Kampala and hidden in a house because we were young girls, and mum was scared.
“It was our home help’s house, and he and his wife looked after us and treated us like family.”
At times the children were hidden in a store cupboard in case soldiers searched the house and found them. Rani remembers gunfire and shouting.
“We didn’t have visas to get to the UK. Mum had to queue for days to get them. My dad wasn’t there – he was in England to see family when it all kicked off. Eventually Mum got the visas just before the 90 days were up.
“I remember coming off the plane in my flip flops and someone put a knitted blanket around me. I remember the kindness. That was very, very important.”
Puti says: “We are just so grateful to the UK for welcoming us and giving us these opportunities.”
Jyoti, Sushila and Neeta’s story
Most Asians housed in Suffolk eventually moved to other towns where they had connections. But one family still has the Haverhill home they were given in 1973.
Jyoti Towers was two when her family fled Uganda. “My earliest memories are living in Haverhill, and both my parents going to work.
“I remember walking home from school in the snow wearing wellies and thick tights. Putting them on felt really strange.
“I felt like a Michelin man with so many layers of clothes.
“I had school dinners, but because we were vegetarian I think that was quite hard for the cooks. I loved the desserts like sponge pudding and custard. At home we had traditional Indian food.
“I picked up English at school, but for my parents going out to work trying to communicate with colleagues must have been difficult.
“Growing up, my family touched on what happened in Uganda, but they were so busy trying to rebuild their lives they didn’t talk about it very much.
“They’d been through such trauma – a lot of the older generation didn’t like to talk about it.
“I think people who went to bigger towns experienced racism, but we didn’t.”
Later Jyoti’s life came full circle when she was a family worker at Highpoint Prison, on the Stradishall site. She now works at Fulbourn Hospital.
But Jyoti’s mum, Sushila, remembers only too well the frightening final days in Uganda, where she had lived all her life. She was in her 20s and married with two young children, Jyoti and Neeta.
“We had a menswear shop in Uganda but we had to leave it all behind. It was a very terrifying time. The soldiers were evil. They would loot people’s homes.”
Neeta, who was seven at the time and lives with her mother in Haverhill, added that in those circumstances ‘life becomes more important than everything. As a child you get swept along. It was a lot of change in a very short space of time’.
Sushila had never been out to work before because her role in Uganda was looking after her family. “It was very hard in the beginning,” she said.
Stephen Poulton
An 18-year-old police cadet in 1972, Stephen helped staff the switchboard at Stradishall. He and colleagues also received busloads of refugees who arrived at night.
“I realised later it must have been quite frightening for these people when the first person they met would be me wearing a police uniform.
“The last policeman they saw would have been in Uganda, who would probably have been robbing them. But this policeman was smiling and saying hello and welcome.
“It also taught me a very valuable life lesson. It doesn’t matter who or what confronts you, if they need help you should give it. And that was an ethos I took into my police career.”
Volunteers who feature in the videos include Sheila Bailey who taught at the camp school, and remembers the children loved art and singing, and Penny Bayman, a WRVS volunteer.
To see the BUA50 videos, including those from Stradishall go to BUA50.org/videos
Penny said she could be needed at any time. “It was a matter of whenever the planes came in, daytime or two in the morning, I got a phone call and had to go and allocate the beds or houses.”
