On 4th August 1972, the Ugandan dictator, General Idi Amin, served 90 days’ notice on around 70,000 Asians to leave the country. The first evacuation flight of Asians fleeing from Uganda landed at London’s Stansted Airport on 18 September 1972. Each family was permitted to take only £55 and one suitcase per individual. 28,200 of these who held British passports were admitted to the UK. In total 28,606 came to the UK in the autumn of 1972, around half of whom were accommodated for up to six months at 16 resettlement centres around England and Wales. This touring exhibition tells the traumatic story of the expulsion, evacuation, life in the camps, and the challenges of making a new life in the UK.

Hobbs Barracks, near Lingfield, was one of the camps and to accompany this display Surrey History Centre has used material from the collections to research the story of how Ugandan Asians came to the county.

The exhibition has been kindly loaned by the ‘British Ugandan Asians at 50‘ project which recorded the memories of those involved in the exodus of Ugandan Asian refugees to Britain in 1972/73, as refugees, volunteers or officials.