| Gursharanpal Boy Chana |
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 Gursharanpal was born in Uganda, Africa where his parents had located to find work from India. His family then came to the UK where they settled at the Army Barracks in Gaydon, Warwickshire. Health reasons forced the family to move to Birmingham where they settled in Handsworth. At that time there were a lot of Asian families in the area. Gursharanpal remembers the colours of the area and the greenness. He was a scholarly student who always enjoyed learning about things. He went to Lozells Junior School and this coincided with his first experience of snow! Every summer the school was involved in collecting unwanted books that were then sold on cheaply to those who might not otherwise be able to afford them. Gursharanpal remembers this clearly and enjoyed selling the books and collecting money for them. His commitment to the community was born. His parents were already involved in community service where his mother worked in the Sikh Temple. While at Holte School he had ambitions to be a lawyer, although he really enjoyed drama and cookery! Later, he changed his mind and wanted to be a policeman. He moved to Handsworth Wood Boys School which really changed his mindset where he became more culturally aware. It is here that he really got into Bhangra music, which at this time was only heard at weddings and functions. He also got interested in other arts like ballet after a ballet company came to the school and got the boys dancing! The Handsworth Riots in the mid 1980s and what he saw during the days immediate after it in Lozells put him off being a policeman but started his interest in journalism and writing. This was the foundation for his passion for writing. He started a school magazine called Exit and went on to be a feature writer and photographer for other magazines, always writing about and promoting Bhangra and Bhangra events. He was instrumental in the development of the Bhangra scene in Birmingham in the 1980s, where day and night events took place with hundreds of young people attending. Events took place in some of the biggest clubs in Birmingham with coaches full of people coming from all over the country. Gursharan would often DJ at these events. In 2005, Gursharanpal developed a multi-media exhibition called ‘From Soho Road to the Punjab’ which chronicles the history of Birmingham’s role in the Bhangra music industry using much of his own photographs, writings and materials.
Elaine
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| Gursharan, well done. I am so pleased to see that you have made such wonderful strides over the years. I am glad that you used the opportunities you had at school - some of them were a little wild, like working with the Ballet company and doing crazy dance and drama things- to enhnace our understanding of what it means to live together and to respect each other. I do hope this experience will help others along their own journey. |
boy chana
said:
| would like to thank all who have put together this site and included me in this roll of honour - to be linked together with Mrs Foster my ex-head teacher and people whom I have looked up to like Sarinder Sahota with whom i work with on SRB6 and Bob Ramdahie whose centre I used to frequent and pass on the way and back from school. This is a great honour and i hope all who acces the histories have as much pleasure as i did showing this to my children |
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