Episode Details

In an exclusive bonus, Mishal Husain tells us about the chance discovery of her grandfather Shahid's passport.

It may seem a small, insignificant thing, a old irrelevant document from another age. But Shahid's passport tells us so much more – about the past but also about the present and perhaps even the future. Because it declared this man born in Lucknow who had lived all his life in British India to be a 'British Subject By Birth'. So when he travelled to England in the 1930s, it was not as a tourist. Not as a foreigner. Not as an immigrant. But as a British man.

This was also the route taken by so many from the Caribbean in the 1940s and 1950s. They were coming 'home' as part of the so-called Windrush Generation and had no more need to prove their status than someone who lived in Tunbridge Wells or Greenock.

It's a fascinating listen – and if you've not had the chance to hear the full episode, head over to trappedhistory.com for more.