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https://www.mylondon.news/news/west-london-news/we-were-bussed-out-because-21897361 ‘We were bussed out because we were brown’: The Southall kids sent to schools miles from home because of the colour of their skin EXCLUSIVE: Ealing was one of 11 local authorities in England which implemented the racist policy of 'bussing' in the 1960s and 70s By Neha GohilReporter 17:11, 24 OCT 2021 UPDATED18:05, 24 OCT 2021 Dalwinder Kaur Lakhan (left) and Amandeep Singh Madra OBE (right) were 'bussed out' to schools away from where they lived in Southall (Image: Dalwinder Kaur Lakhan/ Amandeep Singh Madra OBE) It was early September this year. Amandeep Singh Madra was having dinner at a house in Heston with his friend of 10 years, Dalwinder Kaur Lakhan, as well as their respective families. During a flow of conversation, reminiscing about growing up in Southall, the friends realised they were both ‘bussed out’ to Northolt in the 1970s. “It came up at a dinner, we were chatting and Amandeep said ‘I went on a coach ’ and I said ‘I went on a coach ’,” Dalwinder recalls. “You don’t realise, you meet people along the way and these people were also on the coach.” Amandeep, along with his two siblings, and Dalwinder were part of a generation of kids in Southall who were ‘bussed out’ to schools in the 1960s and 70s. 'Immigrant' and ethnic minority children in 11 local authorities were dispersed to various schools around their area in the 60s and 70s. ‘Bussing’ mostly affected children who were of South Asian, African or Caribbean descent after nearly a dozen local authorities in England declared there should be ‘no more than 30% of immigrants at any one school.’ According to Balraj Purewal, author of Indian Workers’ Association 60 Years of Struggles and Achievements 1956-2016 , ‘bussing’ was a 'racist policy' introduced “in response to opposition from white parents and residents that the large numbers of ‘coloured and immigrant children’ undermined the education of their children and that they should be ‘dispersed’. "Over 50 coaches descended on Southall on a daily basis to pick up hundreds of ‘immigrant’ children mainly Asian from designated ‘pick up’ points. No white child was ‘bussed’ in or out of Southall.” Amandeep Singh Madra, 51, is the youngest of two siblings, born to Punjabi parents in Southall. Amandeep Singh Madra OBE is a writer on Sikh history and a founding member of the United Kingdom Punjab Heritage Association (Image: Amandeep Singh Madra OBE) His father and mother were both teachers in Punjab before they moved to the UK in the mid-1960s and began working in factories in Southall. Despite being born in Southall, Amandeep never attended a school in the town. Instead, Amandeep, along with his older brother and sister, would walk to the end of Beaconsfield road where a coach would be waiting to take children from Southall to other schools within the Borough of Ealing. The bus would drop ‘mostly South Asian’ kids to various different schools away from where they lived. Amandeep, then aged 4, was initially ‘bussed out’ to the Viking Primary School in Northolt, before moving to Northolt Combined and Middle primary school. He said: “Northolt was not a particularly welcoming place in the early mid-70s for non-white people. In our school in Northolt there were very few Indian kids. “I remember being very conscious of there being white kids and very few brown kids and, when you grow up in Southall, of course you’re constantly surrounded by ‘your own’.” Amandeep’s parents eventually grew 'fed up' of having their children moved outside of Southall on the buses and decided to move to Northolt in 1977. Amandeep, along with his siblings, spoke Punjabi at home and joined school without English as their first language. Then four years old, he wore a 'jura' (a topknot of long unshorn hair worn by Sikhs) and recalls the discrimination he faced at the school in Northolt. “It was all the usual things you get, hair pulling - I had a jura," Amandeep said. “Words, language and attitudes that are completely unacceptable now were completely normalised. Language like p*ki. We had a shop in Northolt later on and kids called it the ‘p*ki shop’. “Not to get to you but that was the normal language that you had, that’s what people referred to shops owned by Asians.” And, despite this overt discrimination, Amandeep remembers how teachers would often disregard the problem. “Teachers will never do anything about it. [I] could never say anything, it was your own private problem. You had to protect yourself,” he said. “Most of us protected ourselves by keeping our heads down and not being too visible and trying not to get into trouble. The kids who fought back got the worst end of it.” The 11 councils in England which adopted a bussing policy in the 1960s and 70s were Blackburn, Bradford, Bristol, Ealing (Southall), Halifax, Hounslow, Huddersfield, Leicester, Luton, Walsall and West Bromwich. For Amandeep, the policy was clearly an act of racism, and only something he truly acknowledged when he was much older. “We were discriminated against so clearly, it was an act of racism. Completely unacceptable now,” he said. “I definitely did not understand it at the time. I remember the revelation much later on. “I remember when I found out about it, thinking it was a jaw-dropping moment, thinking we were bussed out because we were brown… I definitely did not have any consciousness of that [at the time]. You just think it's normal, you get on a school bus and you get sent out.