My name is Umm Mohsin and I am an aalima. My parents are from Gujarat in India. I think with the Pakistani community something that always touches me is despite whatever happens within them, they’re very close compared to the Gujaratis. We’re not that close. What I see with the Pakistanis is regular trips to Pakistan. With Gujaratis I think that has drifted away.

I come from a very large family – of several sisters and two brothers. I was born in Yorkshire. My father was working in a factory as a welder and mum was a housewife. I went to primary school to the age of 10, then alongside my older sisters, I went to India to study the aalima course. That was actually the first boarding place of its kind in the world at that time and it's been running over 40 years now. I really don't know how my father afforded it but I really think it was the barkat of his halal income. He was working so hard and I’m sure they struggled. I stayed there for five years and I didn't come home in between. Some of my older sisters did not study further but the rest of us all attended boarding school. I remember the first time that I went to the school. It was midnight, pretty dark. We were offered some food which was yogurt curry and fried roti. I had to sleep in the communal hall – everyone slept on the floor – as I picked up my pillow I remember I saw a little cockroach underneath it and screamed. And that was my first experience at the boarding school.

After I graduated in 1988, after five years of study, I came back home. I was wearing full burkha by then but I didn't have the confidence of going out with my burkha. I’d been wearing it in India but I wasn't used to seeing so many non-Muslims around.