The days before Eid

In the days leading up to Eid we've been working hard on Different Moons. Preparations for the exhibition at the Whitaker are well under way. The opening may be over 6 weeks away but with printers deadlines looming up the designs for information boards and other things are only a few weeks' away. We're having meetings about the mushaira and the mela to be held at Haslingden Community Link too, planning seating and stall arrangements...

Today we recorded Mr Ullah, originally from Bangladesh but living in Rawtenstall since 1964. We heard many fascinating stories of Mr Ullah's early years in the Valley; sometimes funny, sometimes tragic and moving. Mr Ullah showed us the seaman's documents (above) left by his late father - a record going back to 1918 of his time at sea as a 'lascar', until he jumped ship in Liverpool during the 1950s and eventually made his way to Rawtenstall. 

So with Eid al-Adha this weekend there's a brief period of rest for Different Moons before we start the run up to the opening of the exhibition on 15th November. Eid Mubarak!

Moving here

There's a very interesting website 'Moving Here' which documents the main groups of people who have migrated to England during the past 200 years. There's an extensive section on South Asian communities and it begins to explain some of the features of the groups that came to Lancashire and other small milltowns in the  period after the end of the Second World war. You can visit the South Asian pages by clicking on this link, http://www.movinghere.org.uk/galleries/histories/asian/asian.htm

The site includes some fascinating photographs. The one above is an early photograph - an on-board prayer time on SS Bengalen, taken in 1910 when south Asian seaman were know as lascars, a word I associate with Victorian novels. It also has a 'trace your ancestors' facility.