Farah Awan

Today I have the absolute pleasure of interviewing Bernice Lata Das also known as Bea Das I’ll be referring to Bernice as Bea in the interview and in Uganda Bea was also known as Lata Solanky. So first of all Bea thank you so much for allowing me to interview today, we're going to be talking a little bit about your journey, so we’ll start at the beginning, what brought your family to Uganda?

Bernice Lata Das

Thank you for having me here. What brought me, my family to Uganda, I suppose my father's sister lived in Mombasa, Kenya and so when he finished his education in Calcutta as a clerk ,because in the turn of the century 1922 around that sort of time, 1922/25, people trained as clerks, clerks were very needed people in administration, administration was very big then in India. So he trained as a clerk in Calcutta and then his sister [Sharda] said “Well why don't you come to Kenya?” so he said “Okay”. So he went over to Kenya to join his sister who lived there, she was married to somebody in Kenya, and actually when he was there looking for a job, and he applied for a job as a clerk for the South British Insurance Company in Kenya, he worked in Kenya for a short while. Then they opened a new branch in Jinja, Uganda and my dad was transferred to Uganda, in Jinja, so that's how the journey took place for us to be in Uganda.

Farah Awan

And is your mother also from Uganda?

Bernice Lata Das

So my father was single when he went there but my mother and my father had a relationship, in those days that was very strange but yes they were an item as they call it today, and so when he had established himself in a job and was doing okay, two years later he returned and he married my mother, and then he took my mother to Jinja.

Farah Awan

He met your mother in India?

Bernice Lata Das

Yes they were teenage sweethearts.

Farah Awan

Wonderful and then he brought her back to Uganda?

Bernice Lata Das

Yes.

Farah Awan

So tell me a little bit about your childhood growing up in Jinja, did you grow up in Jinja?

Bernice Lata Das

Yes so my father's name was Hamilton Solanky and my mother's name was Ruth Solanky, and people when they listen to this might connect to who I am, I’m Lata Solanky known as that in Uganda. My mother was a teacher, my father was working for South British Insurance Company, and I've actually just forgotten the question you asked me to so if you'd like to ask me again please.

Farah Awan

So little bit about your childhood, I'm interested about what made them call you Lata as well.

Bernice Lata Das

So I was named by my Foi, which is my father's sister, and she didn't have any children and I was born to my parents after 16 years of waiting for a daughter, so I was very precious and a gift, so they called me Lata, and from what I understand Lata means, it's a climbing rose that's what it means really, and my first name is Bernice, because I'm a Christian, I come from a Christian home and that's a biblical name and Bernice means victory, so there's a connection there.

Farah Awan

Did you have any siblings?

Bernice Lata Das

My brother Gauis Solanky he's 16 years my senior so I was born as I said 16 years [later] to my parents. Sadly I haven't gotten him anymore but we had a great relationship, he was like a big uncle rather than a brother.

Farah Awan

Tell me a little bit about your childhood in Jinja.

Bernice Lata Das

Yes I was brought up in Jinja. My childhood was very happy, so I remember sunny days, laughter playing with neighbours, and friends. Not too much going out because my mother really was possessive of me and keeping a really good eye on me, having had me after such a long time, but I had a very happy childhood. My mother was very creative so there was a lot of creativity around me, she was a teacher and then a Headmistress, so that education input was always there for me as I grew up. I had pets, I had a dog, I had a parrot, an African parrot that I looked after, and lots of friends, and there was one particular friend, we used to meet up regularly and try and cook on this very old fashioned stove that we used to have in Africa with my mother keeping a jolly good eye on us, but we learned how to cook at a very young age, 8/9 we were, and we were cooking together, and then my father was always so appreciative of what we had cooked, he was so encouraging, and I suppose that's stuck with me, and I still cook after all these years, I love it.

Farah Awan

What was the first thing you learned to make?

Bernice Lata Das

So the first thing I learned to make was khichri which was great and kadhi which some Gujaratis will recognise what I'm saying but those who don't know what it is, it's really a yoghurt based hot sort of soup that you have with khichri, which is made with rice and lentils.

Farah Awan

There’s nothing quite warming like kadhi, especially in winter. What about growing up, so what area did you grow up in, what sort of school did you [go to], was it quite culturally diverse?

Bernice Lata Das

So I went to school, I went to a nursery school first, I went to InderSingh Gill nursery school which was diverse but not so diverse, in those days the Africans didn't send their children to school much, there was a very small portion of their community that sent [their children]. So we had a lot of Indians going to school, the expats, the European expats had their own nursery school, they didn't send them to InderSingh Gill nursery school it was mainly Indians.

Farah Awan

So segregated slightly, because how old were you when you left Uganda?

Bernice Lata Das

I was 15.

Farah Awan

So what was school like after nursery?

Bernice Lata Das

So after that I went to Naranbhai Primary School, which was mostly Indians and a few Africans but mostly Indians, but no Europeans. There was a separate school called Nile Garden School which was for European expat families because it was totally English medium, ours was English medium but the teachers we're all Indians, whereas in Nile Garden though some of them were Indians there were quite a lot of European tutors.

Farah Awan

What sort of curriculum did you have growing up?

Bernice Lata Das

Oh I did Maths, English, Sciences, Physics, Geography, History, we had all of it. Geography we mainly studied about the geography of Africa and in history we studied the history of Africa mostly, there wasn't much that we touched internationally, maybe a little bit here and there, but it was very concentrated on the African history because there was colonialism and Uganda was a colony, and East Africa was a colony, there was a lot to learn so yeah it was all concentrated on that.

Farah Awan

How was society like growing up in Jinja?

Bernice Lata Das

Very Indian, very Indian. Having said that because we were Christians we went to St. Andrews Church, and when we went there it was very diverse, so we had expats and Africans, and a very small portion of Indians because there were not many Indians who were Christian, so there were about four or five families there, but it was very diverse that's where I saw the diversity mostly, but the moment I stepped home it was very Indian.

Farah Awan

Tell me about growing up and your friends, you said your friends used to come over and cook together. As you grew up what sort of activities did you do in your early teenage years and what were your hopes, what were your aspirations at that stage?

Bernice Lata Das

Activities were, well my father encouraged me to read so I used to read all the Enid Blyton books and he helped me, he didn't make me, but he used to encourage me to join clubs. So I had the Peter Pan club and had all the Wendy books and all the magazines that I could actually interact with. Being an only child my parents didn't used to let me go out too much because they used to really keep an eye on me, and I had cousins there and I used to spend a lot of time with my cousin. So I used to spend my time, Nila my cousin who was a year older, and we used to do things like that, so we used to play together and we didn't cook, we didn't cook together my cooking was mainly with Daksha [Trivedi] my school friend, but with my cousin we had dogs that we played with, we played cricket in the grounds football, we had a huge huge field of a garden so a lot of vegetables were grown there and so at lunchtime my father used to give us a tiny lecture on how to grow vegetables and how to pull your carrots and your mooli out of the ground, and I was only about 9/10 learning all that. So yes and my mother was very much into education, so when she became a Headmistress for the nursery school, the nursey school that I went to she eventually became the Headmistress of, she did a lot of activity there and I joined in. I used to join her, they had the end of year performances with dances and diverse dances, they had African dances and Indian dances, and so I used to join. She used to do rangoli once a year we had the celebration of rangolis, so there used to be competitions and mums used to do their own rangolis, and there was a team that used to go around and judge, and so my mother used to love doing that so she did that. Then with her staff to bring them together you know bonding things she did, so she taught them how to embroider saris, and so they all used to bring their saris in their free time to school and they used to sit together and do that, so all that I saw as a child, it was really a community living you know. My mother's school had a bus that used to go and collect children for school and there was a lady who was not, who hadn't educated herself at all because of circumstances, came from India, and she used to look after the children. So whenever it used to come her time of getting her pay at the end of the month she used to put a thumb [print] and my mother used to feel terrible and she used to say, her name was Kashiben, and she used to say “Kashiben you're going to spend every day half an hour with me and I'm going to teach you how to write your name” and within a few months she knew how to write her name and so she said “I don't want to put your thumb [print] anymore you are a woman and I want you to know that this is how you write your name”. So in 1972 when that lady came to Britain she knew how to sign her name and she wrang my mother up and said “What you taught me there in Africa has become so useful because I don't have to put a thumb and I have self pride that I can write my name”.

Farah Awan

So what happened when you got the news [about the expulsion], tell us a little bit about how you got the news, how was it delivered, how did people find out, what sort of actions [were taken]?

Bernice Lata Das

We found it [out] on the television, the news came on, on television and initially my parents…

Farah Awan

What did they say on TV initially?

Bernice Lata Das

It was on the news that President Idi Amin, from what I can recall and it may not be the exact words, that “all Asians are given 90 days to leave” and initially everybody thought it was a joke but then the penny sunk, it was a good month before the penny sunk, and then yeah a level of anxiety happened, and meanwhile we had some lovely friends who had been our friends in the Church out there and they were our pastors, Kathleen and Edward Arnold, and they had returned to England and they heard about it as well that he means it. So my parents used to have Christmas card exchanging and things like that and they kept in touch and they rang my parents up and said, fortunately we had a telephone in the house in those days even to have a telephone in the house was difficult, but we had a telephone in the house and they rang and said “What is going on Hamilton?” my father said “Actually I don't know, I really don't know” but they continued to be in touch and then eventually my dad said “Well we have to leave it is now non-negotiable” because the community, the Indian community, they were trying to negotiate with him the business side of it.

Farah Awan

How so?

Bernice Lata Das

They were Indians who were probably talking and saying “What's going to happen to Uganda if we all leave all these industries?” and basically that's what he wanted, he didn't want the Indians to be holding such a strong position in which he called Uganda his country, but he failed to understand that even though they held the position Uganda was flourishing, it was, but he wanted all the Africans to run it, and there was this tension there.

Farah Awan

And then your dad got the news. So you were saying it took some time for it to sink in, about a month, and then how did that impact you, your family, your friends, your community at that stage, getting preparing, how to deal with this news?

Bernice Lata Das

So my father's friends, I mean I was too little to understand, 15, but I just went along with whatever they said but my mother, the women talk more about these things than the men, and the women were saying “Oh we need to start packing and we need to start doing this, and we need to start disposing things” and you just don't know were to begin because this is home, to you this is home, we've got to leave our home. So my father had a nephew in England in Stevenage, and they just thought “What should we do? We need to do something” so they started putting parcels and sending them to his house so that he could look after these parcels. So it was the basic sort of very close things, you know photographs and things that they valued, they put up in parcels and sent off parcels to him, to store for us, and meanwhile they were communicating with our friends Kathleen Arnold and Edward Arnold and they said “Hamilton we're going to see if we can help you and your family” and that's all we had heard, and then there was another family in Somerset who was trying to help us as well, who knew us from the church. So my father, I mean England is a new place, so he said “Okay what shall we do, we will just go, and then we will find out”. So communication stopped between the Arnolds and other friends and my parents because it was all being tapped and it was dangerous to talk to anybody about this “Where are you going? What are you doing?”, nothing like that. So towards the end, I remember about 2/3 weeks nothing was happening, we didn't know what was happening. Our flights were booked so my father wrote a last letter to the Arnolds saying “We are arriving during this week” but he didn't tell them the flight, and he just wrote to them.

Farah Awan

And what about with the government and the paperwork, I'm assuming you all had British passports?

Bernice Lata Das

We had British passports, my parents had British passports, we all had British passports so that was quite helpful.

Farah Awan

All your documents were up to date?

Bernice Lata Das

Yes everything was up to date, my father was pretty particular, so everything was up to date, and we could just catch a flight, pay for our flights and get out, and flights were booked.

Farah Awan

How soon after [the announcement], so I know it was 90 days.

Bernice Lata Das

So we arrived on the 14^th of October.

Farah Awan

How long after the news was that?

Bernice Lata Das

I think if I'm not wrong it was in August, August the 4^th, so it was pretty close to the deadline. It was just a month before we were supposed to leave, and we arrived at Stansted Airport my father, my mother, my brother, his wife, a seven month old baby, my aunt Lucy, and my cousin Nila, who I used to play with, and so it was eight of us.

Farah Awan

What was your first impressions, you’ve left a lovely warm country. Had you been to the UK before had you been to England?

Bernice Lata Das

No I hadn't been to England before, my aunt Lucy had been to England, my brother had been to England because he was educated here, so he sort of knew about it. There was somebody in the family who knew about England, but not my parents or myself. But you know the night before we left, this is important, our pastor was African then, he came to see us and it was at midnight, and Africans were not allowed to mix with Indians, if they saw them they would say “Why is this African going to an Indian’s house?”

Farah Awan

After the news?

Bernice Lata Das

Yeah and as the days rolled on it was really dangerous, but he came at midnight and he prayed with us, and then he said to my father, in the Bible we have this story in Genesis about Jacob and Esau who were brothers, and Jacob is running away from Esau because he's actually cheated his inheritance, so before he Esau could do something to him he wanted to run away. So Jacob is running away and as he's running away he gets so tired he goes to sleep and God meets him, so he said to my father “Hamilton you don't know where you going but as God met Jacob, God's going to meet you”, on his journey. So my father took that little sort of prophecy in his heart and with encouragement, and we were on the flight and we landed at Stansted, it was a grey morning, and I’m thinking “It’s so cold” but it was not raining which was great. So we entered the airport and that airport I don't know if you’ve been Stansted, it's a small airport, now it's big but then it was small, and it was lovely and we had the most loving welcome by the English here, the people were so kind to us.

Farah Awan

Were you met at the airport?

Bernice Lata Das

Yes, well no, it was just strangers who welcomed us in the reception area, but then they took us to a room where there were lots of coats that were actually donated by the community and gloves, and hats, and it was cold, it was jolly cold. So they gave us a choice “Pick a coat out”, so I picked my first pink coat.

Farah Awan

Were there other Ugandan [Asians], I’m assuming the flight was full of people fleeing as well?

Bernice Lata Das

It was full.

Farah Awan

So all the Ugandan [Asians] were expected to be arriving at Stansted, so they were ready and prepared.

Bernice Lata Das

Oh yes absolutely it was military style organised, and they expected us, because immigration had to be done and all that. So it was very well done, very kind people met us at the airport and looked after us, but we were waiting in the reception to see what's going to happen next because we didn't know anybody, but we had faith in the British government. In those days having worked under the British administration, my parents did, because Uganda got independence in 1962, so they’d worked a long time under the British, they knew that there was a system, they worked under a system, there was a discipline, there was some form of order, and my father and my mother knowing that things will happen, something will happen, and then we had all these prophecies given to us, so we were very encouraged by that. And we were sitting in the reception and on the tannoy comes this message “Is the Hamilton Solanky family on this flight please come to the reception” my father goes “I don't know anybody here, apart from the Arnolds and my nephew” so he goes to the reception and he said “There's somebody here to meet you” and my father goes “Really?” he said “Yes a gentleman called Peter Hill” and he couldn't believe it. Peter Hill used to be a congregational member in Uganda, in our church, and he knew the Arnolds here, and the Arnolds had sent him all that week, because they had said “Sometime during this week they're coming so please go” so he'd come every day with a 10 seater van to pick us up. If God's hand was there, it was there, it was evident that he was guiding us, and that I think spoke so much to us as a family, that we're not alone in this, we're not alone in this. So took our one suitcase and £50 in my father's pocket for us all, we were taken to a Vicarage in Kensington where John [Holden], who was one of our pastors in Uganda, because we had a rotation they were there for three years and left, they had another three years and left, so John [Holden] was one of them, and he was a pastor there and in Kensington ,and we stayed with him for a week. And then Kathleen Arnold came to pick us up after a week and brought us to Sevenoaks, and we stayed in her house for a month, during which time my schooling was sorted, and I went to a boarding school in Sussex and my parents lived with her for a month, and my aunt did as well. My brother and his family were housed with another family who had children so they could communicate with the Salters in Sevenoaks, and St. Nicholas Church where Kathleen and Edward Arnold worshipped, that community prepared a home for us in Sevenoaks, and I call her aunty Kath and uncle Edward, so aunty Kath invested some of the money that she had and with the help of London City Mission bought this house.

Farah Awan

The one where we’re in right now?

Bernice Lata Das

We’re in now, this is the home I came to 50 years ago. It was much smaller and then in 1981 I bought it when I got married and released her of her obligation, and I'm here.

Farah Awan

So you arrive when your 15, everything’s new, what were your feelings and thoughts and settling in, you'd been helped a lot by the church. How were you feeling, sort of emotionally, what about connections, social life, because all of these wonderful things, and your parents that were working in Uganda. How did life and family dynamic change, and what sort of feelings and emotions were accompanied by that when you landed here, in Sevenoaks, in 1972?

Bernice Lata Das

For my parents I would say that the first thing was that they couldn't get the vegetables that they were so used to, so that's how are you going to feed family, we only get cabbages, and cauliflowers, and potatoes, and swede, and things like that. But people were so kind, we had a local butcher, and we had a local greengrocer, and we had a local post office, and this home was bought strategically so that my parents could walk down, because it was all in the village, so they could walk down to different places and fantastically under Kath, because she was a missionary in Sudan for quite a few years, she knew how to adjust people. So she took my aunt, and my mum, and my father, and introduced them to everybody in the community. So all the shops knew us and they were so kind, and wanting to help us really, so that was an easy part. But then my parents, my father and my brother spoke to some friends who they knew who were here, and they said “Oh you will get your vegetables in Liverpool Street in London” so then once a month they used to go to Liverpool Street to get the Indian food, which then was like hallelujah!

Farah Awan

What about things like schools, so you said went to boarding school when you were 15.

Bernice Lata Das

So I'd never been separated from my parents and I had to go, it was a huge challenge, but it was also something that, this house I live in now is larger than what it was, and we all couldn’t have fitted in it, so to put us in a boarding school was a practical thing as well.

Farah Awan

Just yourself?

Bernice Lata Das

And my cousin, two of us. It was a big big big shock because I was thrown into this very English boarding school, but I had a friend from Uganda, so Morna Whiting was a friend who went to the same school, and that's why I was put there because the Arnolds knew her and her family, and she's an Australian, she came from Australia, and we are still friends today. So culture was a big shock.

Farah Awan

Yeah tell me a little bit about the culture, and obviously you’ve had a strong religious background at home a diverse cultural background, and the language, obviously you’d be educated in English.

Bernice Lata Das

English was fine but the English you speak in England is different from the English I spoke in Uganda. So I had to adjust to that, I couldn't understand what they were saying, some of the phrases they used I had to ask them to repeat, but the girls in the school were already told I come from Uganda, I am displaced and they need to be kind to me. So they were all very alert to that kindness shown to me, no one was slagging really. There were a couple of situations, wouldn’t want to highlight them, where after they got used to me, and I had very long hair like you, and they probably got jealous, so one girl threw salt in my hair, but did she have the wrath of others on her.

Farah Awan

Did she?

Bernice Lata Das

Did she! She never did it again. So things like that, but it was straight away stamped out.

Farah Awan

What about community, were you living there for the whole term or?

Bernice Lata Das

Yes and I came on leave twice a term, and then I had my school holidays. We were only allowed to telephone my parents at the weekends, we had to write a letter to them every Sunday, after lunch we had to sit in our common room and write letters to our parents, and parents can write letters to us. It was a strict school, it was a proper girls school, I was not allowed to run, we had amazing table manners. We had to learn, so I was used to eating bananas, peel the banana and eat in Africa, whereas school, no we had to peel it and slice it and then eat, quarter our apples and eat, heads of the table had to start first and then you started picking up forks and knives. Eating with a knife and fork was the biggest problem for me because I'd never done it, I mean I’d eaten with a spoon but not the way we eat here, and to learn that was hard, and my menu was different. We had porridge in the morning or we had cooked food, every day it was different, and I didn’t like porridge and I used to call it the gruel, I didn’t like porridge, I love it now, and I used to cry and I was allocated two chaperones Nikki and Steffi and they’re still my friends, and they looked after me, and when they used to see that I was upset they used to pull me to one side at break times and have a chat with me, or go for a walk with me.

Farah Awan

Was it mostly homesickness?

Bernice Lata Das

Yeah missing mum, severe homesickness, missing mum and dad, and home life, the freedom, Uganda, and the freedom I had at home.

Farah Awan

How was the freedom different, discipline.

Bernice Lata Das

So the discipline was, we got up, the bell went ding ding ding in our houses, we had to get up straight away.

Farah Awan

So everything was on a strict schedule?

Bernice Lata Das

Very strict schedule, 7:40 we walked down, because our house where I lived was about, I would say a 10 minute walk from the school. So in the morning had to wash and get up, no baths in the morning, there was no showers it was all baths in those days. So we had a wash, there was a particular way of washing. I didn’t like changing, I was in a dormitory of eight and I didn't want to change in front of all the other girls, I was very shy, so I used to get up early at six and change in the toilets and then come out but nobody said anything, but they used to just say, they used to call me Bern at school, not Bernice, Bern, it was always a short form the name, “Bern you’re really shy aren’t you? I wish I was a shy as you” and then they used to make it as a common thing but eventually I didn’t care.

Farah Awan

So what about faith because you're part of, you said a strong Christian community, they greeted you when you came to the UK, how is that different when you arrived, so how did that impact your faith going forwards?

Bernice Lata Das

It actually got stronger because there are times when God is the only one you rely on, and my faith got stronger, and the school I went to had a strong Christian faith going through. So in the morning once you get dressed, so 7:20 I remember the bell would go again, and we all had to sit down quietly, we had to be very quiet no matter what you do, you can be reading your own book, you don't have to read the Bible, but 10 minutes you have to read the Bible and be very quiet on your bed before you start going to school. So that has stayed with me, even today in the mornings I'm very quiet, and I have my quiet time I call it, and then the bell would go again at 7:30 and you start walking to school, by 7:45 you’re at school, and sixty of us would walk together to school in a crocodile, and then there would be breakfast, and then there would be the lessons, then there would be break, then there would be lunch, then there would be lessons in the afternoon, then in the evening would be tea and supper, and then you’d walk back to the house. And then you would have your chores, whatever they are, prep would be there, so once you're in the seniors, A-Levels, you have to invigilate prep time for the younger ones, so that took place in the house, and then it's the shower rota and the bath, so you had your rota which days you had to have a bath, then wash your hair etc. very organised.

Farah Awan

How did that impact how you related to the bigger community, you said you were from a big community, so when you came home would you participate in religious or cultural events, because your family is from India. So did you keep in touch with other Ugandans or is it just your immediate family? How was your social life impacted by the move and going to boarding school?

Bernice Lata Das

Because I went to boarding school I didn't have too much time to think about anything else. I made new friends and we all came higgledy-piggledy, all our friends were dispersed, Daksha my friend who was very close to me went to India, she didn't come to England, she later came to England many years later. So I lost contact with a lot of them, and I made new friends, and my life changed, my education became very important. I had new friends and I just accepted the fact that this is how I have to go forward, and living in Sevenoaks it's a bubble, there were no Indians here. My parents had no Indian friends but the church family was so supportive so we made new English friends, and yes of course they missed their Indian friends, so they used to go frequently to India, once a year at least they went to India and saw all the family, and then slowly slowly they started finding friends from Uganda had settled in London, different places. So my parents, my father was in his early 60s when he came and my mother was late 50s, so they didn't want to travel too much here, there, everywhere, but occasionally I can remember they would say to me “Oh so and so visited us” and “Oh we met here in London”. So there were these occasional trips where they had a get together, but far and few between.

Farah Awan

Feels like a whole brand new beginning, and you said in Uganda you were really supported by your mum educationally. Before you came to the UK what sort of aspirations did you have about your future?

Bernice Lata Das

None, I was 15, and funnily enough my parents, because they knew that once I was 16 that they’d have to decide, just like my brother, what they're going to do with the education. So they were toying whether to send me to Britain or to India in a boarding school, so they’d already found a place in Pune, a boarding place, and they were sort of thinking “What are we're going to do?” but they kept it very hush hush from me because they knew that I might not like the idea of going into a boarding school. So when this happened there was a big tossup, because we have a home in India, in Gujarat, and my father said “Well that's where we will go because we have a home” and my mother said “No we're going to go to England, even though we don't know where, we're going for Bernice’s education” and so really I was the driving force for my parents to come to England.

Farah Awan

Did your mum go back to teaching when she came to the UK?

Bernice Lata Das

No she never worked after that because my mother had grandchildren.

Farah Awan

And you said she was in her late 50s when she came.

Bernice Lata Das

Yes my brother had a son, and then he had two more sons, and my mother was the main keeper, and my brother and his wife went to work.

Farah Awan

And they were also in Sevenoaks?

Bernice Lata Das

Yes they lived here in this house.

Farah Awan

You used to all live together, and what about when you came to school, how did it impact your education and where you are right now, how did that send you on your journey?

Bernice Lata Das

Hugely I think it was the best thing that happened to me, I really do believe it was God's grace that he brought me here and I went to the school that I did, because I had an amazing art teacher and she straight away picked up on my creative ability, and my passion, and then I also was quite good at maths so my maths teacher was pushing me for going into something scientific, and my art teacher was pushing me into going to that. My passion was art and so I decided that I’m going to go to art school, but before that, when I landed here I went to my school and I was enjoying art, and within the first six months there was this competition that came up for all schools and my art teacher said “Maybe you should do something for that, would you like to do something?” and I said “Okay” and it was a composition and I said “Well why don't I do a Ugandan village?” and so I did a Ugandan village and I put forward my entry and do you know I was highly commended by the Royal Society of Children's Art, I've got the certificate I was sent, and my school had never won anything like that in art, so it was like I was a little celebrity then. The school was amazed that I had won a certificate for the school as well, it was a good thing, the arts is really now becoming big in Wadhusrt college. So when I went to college then it was called Wahdurst ladies college, I have to say that because they really made sure that we were brought up as ladies and nothing else, so that took me over and I loved art, and I spent a lot of time doing it, and I did my A-Levels, and then I went and did my foundation course at Rochester, and then I did my degree in Textiles and Fashion in West Surrey College of Art and Design in Farnham.

Farah Awan

Your central education [went] in a totally different direction.

Bernice Lata Das

Yes absolutely but I have vivid pictures of Uganda it hasn't gone. I mean recently I did my life's work exhibition in Sevenoaks and I had to prepare for that, and I prepared for months for it, and digging out all the old photos, and thankfully I've got all these photos. And emotionally it was a rollercoaster for me, it was tough, but it's the first time I have embraced my expulsion in a positive way, I've dabbled into it but it was the first time, and I think everybody whose left Uganda and if they have got struggles they should sit and write about it all and face it, face it, that this happened to you.

Farah Awan

What was your biggest struggle would you say?

Bernice Lata Das

My biggest struggle I just was sad to leave my pets. I left my dog, my parrot, my bicycle my home really, I can still cry today because it was my home, and I think one of the reasons I have not left this house is because this is my stability you know, this home gives me stability, so many people said “Wouldn’t you like to move?” and I said “No this is my stability”.

Farah Awan

It still plays a major part in your life. We spoke about your work, do you still bring a part of your heritage into your day-to-day life or the way your brought up your family, you said your husband's not from Uganda?

Bernice Lata Das

I talk about it a lot, it doesn't come into my work, you wouldn’t see it, I think my Indian heritage comes a lot out into my work, but not so much my life in Uganda. What comes through from Uganda is the diversity, I'm so adaptable with people, I can mix with anybody and I think that's what's happened to me being born in India, and lived in Uganda, educated in England. I can talk to anybody I'm just such a inclusive person, I don't have barriers as such, having gone to a church in Uganda where we were so diverse, worshipping with such a diverse community, I don't have a problem. So I can mix with Africans, I can sit with them on the floor if they are sitting, I can eat with them, I can eat their food, I will eat with Indians and mix with them. And my business that I ran a lot of this was with Indians, because I had a lot of embroidery designs that I did that the artisans in India did for me, very skilled artisans, and when I used to go and see them, a lot of them were Muslims, so I respected them, and so I used to wear my complete garb to go and see them, because I respected that. So I fit in, I fit in with people, because for me people are the value, not my work or where I've lived, people is where I deposit my value in, they are the important things.

Farah Awan

So all the diversity that you've had from young childhood you bring it to the table everyday right.

Bernice Lata Das

Absolutely and when I had my exhibition and I had a private view night my invites were diverse and through that I've met some Ugandans, actual Ugandans in Sevenoaks, they're shocked to meet me and I was shocked to meet them, because they're thinking “Wow didn't expect a Ugandan in Sevenoaks” and we've built up such a fantastic relationship, and through that, all that relationship building I know that there's more with Uganda, I've never been back, it has been a real struggle to go back, what is it that is stopping me. I think it is because I don't want to see the new Uganda, I was so happy with where I was, and people say “It's changed” and I don't want to see it, but having met this new Ugandan recently, she said “I'm going to take you back, I'm going to take you back. You need to go back and see your house, we need to go and see your schools, and you need to go and embrace it” and I thought “Now I'd like that”.

Farah Awan

So moving into the future, it's time for a visit to Uganda?

Bernice Lata Da

Yes absolutely I'm going to go back, and I'm going to take my husband Pradip Ken Das with me, and my sons, and one of them is already wanting to come but I'm not sure about my older son, he has a family so he's got commitment, but no pressure, whoever wants to come. But go back and see Uganda as is, and see it with joy, not with any remorse or sadness, because we've all moved on, and Uganda has moved on, I have moved on, the community in Uganda has moved on, but I hear that there is a new Indian community that has gone and is living there, and progressing in a new way, and I believe in progress, and I believe in not looking back with negativity. I believe we’ve all gone through difficult times, but we are never promised a bed of roses, difficult times will be there everywhere, but you grow in difficult times. Personally I think I've grown in my difficult times, not in my joyful times. So I've grown and I'm thankful for the difficult times because its at those times that I have grown to appreciate what is around me, why it came to me, and where I'm going in the future.

Farah Awan

So we've gone full circle, from a period of joy round to circle and embrace Uganda as it is. I’d like to finish, could you remind our listeners of that one joyous quote that you said father was [told] on the night you prayed together.

Bernice Lata Das

My father was given this wonderful verse from the Bible that when Jacob fled Esau, and Esau  had been cheated by Jacob of his inheritance, and he was fleeing, and so Jacob had run away from home and he was heading somewhere and he didn’t know where he was going, and he fell asleep halfway through, because he was really tired, and God came in a dream to him and said that “As you are fleeing I'm going to be with you, I'm going to be with you, I know what you've done, but I have got a plan and purpose for you” and so that’s how we came here. And we're still in this home, we’re still being blessed, we’re still being used by the community, I mean I'm very involved in the church here in in Sevenoaks, I'm still reaching out to the community in different ways whenever I can, and at the end of this month I've been very very kindly invited by the Jinja Indian community to go and be with their chief guest, so hopefully I can reach up to them and share with them what God has done in this land for me, for my family, and it's still going to do, and I don't believe anybody who lives a joyful life cannot be used by God because he's there for everybody, God loves us all, we are his children.

Farah Awan

Absolutely, that’s beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing with me I value all that I’ve learnt today, and I'm sure our listeners will also listen to your message with joy and hope, and the rollercoaster that you've been through ending again once more with happiness and joy with your visit to Jinja.

Bernice Lata Das

Thank you so much for having me, and thank you for this opportunity to be able to share, and I'm so glad that this whole organisation is there because this is history, this is part of British history that we all need to hear and know about, and we are so diverse aren’t we, which is wonderful.