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took youth from Bury Park to the town centre. All the Asians got together in support. Luton is known and mentioned
for both good and bad things, for example the 12 people that were arrested in Bradford for defending their places of
worship were eventually found not guilty because they were provoked by skinheads to react the way they did, and this
was happening everywhere.

New communities have always come to Bury Park, as it’s always been kind of an area that new communities feel
welcome in. We have refugees in Luton and certainly lots of Afghan refugees. I’ve noticed a lot of asylum seekers
especially after the Afghanistan situation. People fleeing war, poverty, extremism find refuge in Luton.
I think within Bury Park we have the ingredients to do a lot. I don’t think it gets kind of value it deserves, from the
authorities. It is a potential tourist attraction; we get visitors for Bury Park. I know it from other towns cities who come
and do their shopping, I have heard that people visit the area in large coaches fully booked from Milton Keynes.

I want to talk about the Bangladesh Youth League; BYL as I have distinct memories of someone called Ansar Ullah,
whilst I was at Barnfield college 1978, and they were very few students in Barnfield College. I think in 1978 punk music
was just emerging and we were like teenagers. Ansar used to be quite distinctive as he used to come to the college with
a Bangladeshi flag on his head band, I remember thinking that he’s not an art student. At the time we didn’t know each
other. Later we found out he was involved with the Bangladesh Youth League and anti-racism movement. I found out
that Ansar was a very active young man, and he was involved in setting up the BYL. It was nice working together as the
communities were facing the same issues; families were being attacked, like in East London you know the similar issues
so we kind of hooked up with the BYL in the late 1970s, and the 1980’s and started that dialogue with them. We gave
him some advice and help, going through what we went through.
Fahim Qureshi

I came to the UK, in 1977, from Bangladesh, my life in the UK started in 19th April 1977. I settled down in the country
within two years, I had no problems in living with my husband’s maternal uncle. My husband was unemployed at the
time, and we started our life claiming social welfare benefits. I was in university in Bangladesh, and I passed my master’s
degree. After my husband became unemployed, I started looking for a job. My English was okay, because I was a teacher
in the University of Dhaka for 5 years before coming here. I applied to Vauxhall for a job however they refused me due
to my height.
After a visit to the hospital for which I was offered a translator. After I refused a translator, a lady approached me and
requested that I contact the Luton Council Adult Learning team as I may be useful to them for the purpose of being
able to communicate well in two languages. I made contact with the community learning programme after which my
career took a different path.

Initially I started out simply to support the community by being able to bridge the language gap and provide a service
however very soon after receiving advice from my friend, I became recognised in the community and so pursued
the passion as a career. For many years I worked as a volunteer after which I started interpreting for the police and
immigration services as well as the hospitals. It is unfortunate that I do not have an interpreting certificate therefore
would not be able to work as an interpreter now however at the time I was the only interpreter around. In 1985, I got a
full-time job and so as a result I had to give up interpreting. Interpreting as a volunteer had its perks for example in 1981
up to 1985 my bus travel was free.

I passed my driving test in 1982 after sitting the test for a third time, people used to say to me that you can’t pass your
test wearing a saree as you need to wear trousers, but I was adamant as I thought let me try and pass this test and
help others realise their potential. I used to also teacher my native language to people, so worked as a teacher. My son
was born in the year 1977 however this did not cause me to give up my job as my husband was very supportive, he
encouraged me, so I continued to work. My first full-time job was with Councillor Rameez Ali, who was the first ever
Bengali councillor, I was an advisor for one year and then I became a school liaison officer.

Main difference back in those days was that there were no black people, no Bangladeshi, no Pakistanis only the white
people; be they from kitchen staff to the head teacher. The schools were hesitant to allow parents to work there
however I provided every school with my details and told them to contact me if they needed any person for work.
One time one of the welfare officers, from Stockwood High School required support so he contacted me, and we
visited the home of a lady who otherwise was unresponsive. The welfare officer was surprised at the hospitality of the
lady and shocked at why he wasn’t able to gain contact with her before, I explained to him that women from South
Asian communities are hesitant to open the door to a man and now that he is accompanied with a lady that is why she
opened the door.

I found the whole process of how schools engage with parents quite interesting, so I asked the Welfare Officer how
he was engaging with the child’s parents when they did not speak a word of English and he explained that he had been
relying on the child as an interpreter. The absurdity of the situation was explained to him to which he explained that
there was a need to have interpreters to engage. The officer advised me that they would open a post called Liaison

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