Britain’s First Desi Pubs
Words by David Jesudason
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Britain’s First Desi Pubs by David Jesudason
“I must admit I’m a bit nervous. There will be a few difficult customers, no doubt, but I think I shall be able to manage.” Few remember the modest man who spoke these words about the Leicester business he was about to take over in 1962, but unknowingly he was to become a British-Indian trailblazer who paved the way for many others.
His name was Soham Singh and he was being interviewed by local newspapers because he was deemed Britain’s first “coloured innkeeper” after he started running the Durham Ox pub with his wife Janet (described as an attractive 28-year-old English woman, “whom he married in a Sikh Temple five years earlier”).
The Ox was to also become the first of what many of the diaspora were to call a “desi pub”, a British-Indian boozer run by a brown landlord. Today there are hundreds of similar bars serving mixed grills, curries and pints to a wide demographic of customers and it was a pleasure to visit many researching the first nationwide desi pub guidebook and my weekly substack.
Singh was begrudgingly given the pub licence by the brewery Ind Coope, after the Ox’s white custodian, Ron Mellors, left the trade. The British-Indian, though, came with excellent references - he had been in the country for seven years working for £30 a week as a crane driver - but the brewery really agreed to his stewardship because the working class pub was “frequented by coloured people - Jamaicans and Indians”.
“I know that many of my friends will be drinking in the Durham Ox,” he told the Leicester Mercury. “However people from any race will be welcome.” His words made it sound like an easy trade but for the first desi pub landlords in the 1960s, 70s and 80s it wasn’t a simple job of welcoming all races as the “difficult customers” Singh mentioned could often be racist and violent.
During this time, far-right organization, the National Front, targeted desi pubs, leading to many landlords to keep baseball bats under the bar. The Red Lion in West Bromwich was taken over by Jeet Purewal in 1997 and he would often say to these racists: “Come in have a drink at the bar. If you’re not pleased with our service, then you have the right to complain. If you’re happy, then stay and have a drink, but we want no trouble.”