Between 1947 and 1949 the British government, desperately short of workers in the 'essential' industries of agriculture, coal mining and textiles, turned to the millions of East Europeans living in Displaced Persons camps in Germany. Nearly 100,000 were brought here as 'volunteers', and those who stayed founded the East European communities of Northern England.
In the early 1980s the Bradford Heritage Recording Unit (a pioneer of local authority oral history) interviewed dozens of Ukrainians, Latvians, Estonians and Yugoslavs about their often difficult early days in Britain. The interviews they gave form the basis for this programme.