"I am a TV reporter and documentary maker and I was filming in the Gujarat in India following an earthquake when I had an epiphany: I had been born not far from the disaster zone but knew very little about the village where I grew up or my early childhood. I understood the local language but I was almost a foreigner in my own country. Despite this I had a deep sense of belonging here, even though I had become ‘English.’ I had been taken out of India but India could never be taken out of me.

Over the next decade I asked my family questions and uncovered many stories, not just about myself but about their own struggles. I had travelled across three continents by the age of eight and had lived through the challenges faced by early Indian immigrants. I did not want the memories to die, so I collected them on scraps on paper until I had enough to write a book. In it I have tried to recreate the lost world of Africa and England in the Sixties and Seventies, whenever possible through the eyes of small of boy." Bharat Patel, 2019