We Sheikhs are naturally business-minded people. All my brothers were businessmen. I’d watched them bring home sackfulls of money and I was their sister. I knew me and my husband had to work hard if we were going to make something of ourselves in England, and I was ready. I had the grandest shop on White Abbey Road!

We had a house in Weston Street just off White Abbey Road. No Pakistanis then, just us! My husband was a manager in a factory, working on the looms. You know I’d come from this big tight-knit family and I was all alone when I got to England. I only had two children then. One day a friend took me to a Hindu woman on Leeds Road, Kohli we called her, to get some fabric. This Hindu woman had rolls of fabric laid out on a bed and she was selling it. And she was really sweet tongued she was, persuasive you know. I noted each and every detail about her. I thought, ‘What a clever woman! She's selling dupattas worth 10 or 20 shillings to our Mirpuri women for a pound apiece.’ I knew my prices you know, and I had a really good head for maths, so I came home and did a few sums.

I said to my husband, “Please get me some fabric like she's got so I can sell it too. If that Kohli woman can do it, I definitely can.” And he goes, “Have you gone mad? Got some money, have you?” And I told him, “Yes! I’ve got a thousand pounds in the bank actually!” I’d been drawing the family allowance and putting it straight in the bank, and getting by on whatever my husband brought home. He earned about £17 back then. And I told my husband there's eight or 10 Pakistani women that come to drop off their kids at our son's school.