'A tall and broad fellow with a very graceful, military personality': Punjabi Sikh men, military service and belonging in Southall 1947-67.

In the 1950s, Southall became home to a Punjabi Sikh community, largely due to Sikh men arriving for work in local factories. Their migration from Punjab followed the Partition of India and Pakistan. In Southall, these men faced significant hostility, often framed in exclusionary and racialized terms tied to the Second World War, to define who belonged in post-war Britain. A local mythology developed around the first employer to hire Punjabi men in the area: Woolfe's Rubber Factory. This article argues that Sikh male identity in Southall drew on their military service to link their imperial past to their British present. Imperial connections and identities travelled from India to gain new meaning as expressions of political belonging in Britain.