Stories from the past

Zafran had never been on a plane before his first visit in 1974 to their home village in Pakistan with his family at the age of ten. He recalls that they stopped off on the way in Kabul, capital of Afghanistan and remembers seeing guns along the runway with snow covering the surrounding hills. It was a very bleak but fascinating scene, and thankfully the stay was a short one. It was only a short flight from there to the city of Lahore in Pakistan, but they arrived late in the day so had to stay in a hotel overnight because it was too late to travel on to the village that same day. However, some major events and conferences were being held in the City so all the main hotels were full. They had to search around in a taxi for what seemed hours until they found somewhere that could accommodate them, by which time everybody was exhausted and just wanted to sleep. The next day, refreshed from a night’s sleep and some breakfast, they hired a minivan to take them to their father’s village, Shadikhan, which was a very long journey in those days.

They finally arrived at Shadikhan late at night, after 12 hours of travel. It was dark so difficult to get a good impression of the surroundings and few people were about or lights on due to the lateness of the hour. Zafran recalls the minivan was parked on the main road and they were lead along a narrow passage between houses, into what he later found out was their Grandfathers house. They entered through large wooden doors into what seemed a courtyard, then into a very spacious room with ornately carved wooden doors and frame and a carved central wooden pillar. It was all very exciting and at the same time confusing, as here they all were, many thousands of miles from there home in England in the middle of what seemed like a different world.