in the first world war. once in britain, they worked hard, offering their skills to rebuild a country during peacetime and seeking opportunities to forge a better future for themselves and their families. when they arrived on our shores with little more than what they were able to carry with them, few could hardly have imagined then how they and those that followed them would make such a profound and permanent contribution to british life. if you ever feel like you re in a room and you re the only one in the room, that s the way i feel, at that time. but then you start to meet friends, you know, and here and there, and little bit and that and then they get them together. and then they say, well, it s time we have a little thing about my people now, because lots of people didn t believe that. they didn t believe their dream would be such a horrible time. but we survived. big john has been a pioneer and the work that he has done to challenge some of these stereotype images th