The little Nepal in Aldershot

By Iain Hollingshead

Outside McDonald’s in Aldershot, Hampshire, “the home of the British Army”, the scene is more redolent of a street in

the Nepalese capital of Kathmandu. Two elderly women no taller than 4ft shuffle silently down the road, their thin shoulders covered by colourful blankets. Behind them a group of equally wizened men sporting a curious combination of Dhaka topis (a traditional Nepalese hat), and Puffa jackets, greet each other with smiles and cries of “Namaste”, their

hands pressed together, their heads slightly bowed.

Nearby, Dave Chamberlain, is cranking up his sales patter on the “Five-a-day” grocery stall. “Susti, susti,” he calls out in Nepali. “Cheap cheap.” As a Nepalese woman approaches, he jokingly puts an empty basket on her head; she retaliates by punching him playfully on the arm.

“We love the Nepalese,” says Chamberlain. “They have great banter, they’re really patriotic and they buy a lot of tomatoes. They’re proper hagglers, and they don’t always understand the concept of queuing. But still, we have a great laugh.”

Not everyone in Aldershot is so relaxed about the arrival of Nepalese following the 2009 campaign led by the actress Joanna Lumley. After memorably ambushing Phil Woolas, the then immigration minister, in a television studio, Miss Lumley’s intervention was a key factor in forcing the government into abandoning rules that prevented members of the Gurkha Brigade who’d retired before 1997 settling in Britain.

The campaign attracted widespread public support for the Gurkhas, who have been an integral part of the British Army for almost 200 years – Miss Lumley’s father was an officer with the 6th Gurkha Rifles. They have lost more than 50,000 men in combat, and received 26 Victoria Crosses (13 to Gurkha soldiers and 13 to British soldiers serving with them).

Today, one in 10 of Aldershot’s 90,000 residents hails from Nepal. Gerald Howarth, the local MP and a defence minister, recently raised the issue with David Cameron, claiming that public services are at risk of being overwhelmed.

One surgery in his constituency has had to take on an extra GP after Nepalese incomers, many of them elderly and unwell, swelled its patient list from 6,000 to 9,000. Some 800 children with Nepali as their first language have arrived in the constituency and must be accommodated in schools. Overall, there has been a 280 per cent increase in Nepalese households in the past year, with 20 new people arriving every week.

The local authority, Rushmoor Borough Council, describes a one-off £120,000 grant, used to pay for two full-time translators, as “peanuts” – especially in the light of a £2.4 million funding cut to their budget.

Mr Howarth’s intervention has unleashed a torrent of previously suppressed opinion, with 70 per cent of his constituents backing his decision to raise this sensitive issue at the highest level. On the website of the local newspaper, gethampshire.co.uk, one resident notes that it “reflects what very, very many people in Aldershot are saying under their breath”.

There’s certainly no shortage of anonymous grumbling, some of it bordering on racist. A posting on the Army Rumour Service website complains about Nepalese children thinking they are “living in a Jet Li film and having scraps at every opportunity” (a police report states that this is due to playground bullying). A taxi driver tells me, with barely concealed prejudice, about Nepalese men “spitting and p–––––– in the street”. While other residents share tales of frail, elderly men rooting through rubbish bins.

“I can see Gerald Howarth’s concerns,” says Major Tikendra Dal Dewan (retd), chairman of the British Gurkha Welfare Society. “But it is a shame that they have re-opened some negative comments in the community, diluting the good relationships we have been putting in place. “You’re bound to see more Nepalese faces in the town,” he adds. “They are more visible and like to go for a walk or a bus ride.”