The heritage focus of this project is to uncover, record and share the personal memories and distinctive history, culture, and traditions of the Bangladeshi community as it has evolved in Luton between the 1960s and the present day.

Bangladeshi migrants began arriving in the UK from the 1960s/70s onwards as they fled civil unrest in their homeland. While many settled in the boroughs of London and the north of England due to its textile and steel industries, Luton also attracted the new arrivals.

This was largely due to what have been described as the ‘golden years’ of the town’s Vauxhall car plant (offering many job and training opportunities) alongside other manufacturing industries within the town which included companies producing ball bearings, gas cookers, hats, and metres. Post WWII, Luton had also undergone a major programme of re-building with large new housing estates and transport links had been improved with access to the M1 (constructed in 1959).

For the early Bangladeshi settlers, however, life in Luton was complex. While there were opportunities to be had, many found it difficult to integrate in the local community due to language and cultural barriers on their side and prejudicial attitudes on behalf of the local community. Finding somewhere to live was a big struggle because many landlords refused to rent their properties to Bangladeshis, claiming they would destroy the house by cooking spicy foods and not cleaning properly.

As a result, this community was initially somewhat isolated – largely living in the Bury Park area of Luton which was cheaper to rent and close to work and shopping. Families often lodged with other migrant families and many-faced financial difficulties as most earnings were sent home.

Over the years, as manufacturing declined but the Bangladeshi community in Luton grew, many people of this heritage moved into the realm of small business – running tailoring, catering or other enterprises.

Today, the borough of Luton is recognised for its immense cultural diversity and there are now over 13,000 people of Bangladeshi heritage living alongside other communities across the town (many of third and fourth generation). This is now a thriving, successful community and is considered one of the borough’s most cohesive heritage groups.

Many of the younger generation have moved into high profile professions, becoming doctors, engineers, teachers, accountants, lawyers and so on. Whilst proud of this achievement, the older generation is facing some difficulty in not being able to recruit the next generation into the family business (e.g., in restaurants).

Taking an oral history approach, this project will chronicle the life-stories of the first-generation settlers, preserving their memories of their hopes on arrival, their living and working conditions, how they adapted to the local community, what problems they faced and more.

By also collecting stories from across the generations, the Untold Story project will achieve a particular focus: to create a record of the dynamic interplay between the Bangladeshi people’s inherited values, skills and beliefs, those of the indigenous culture and those that are sometimes a hybrid of the two cultures. The project will help to demonstrate how this community’s own heritage has evolved in terms of their personal, family, gender, religious, language and cultural identity during the past 50 years as a result of that interplay.