A question of ethnics

Two elderly men and a woman sit on a jagged rock beside a limpid pool of water in the green hills of the Lake District. They are Indians, wearing shalwar-kameezes beneath layers of cardigans, coats and scarves; the men wear white Muslim topi caps. On the next page of Visits to National Parks — a Guide for Ethnic Communities a group of windswept Chinese men and women stand smiling, cameras round their necks, in the Yorkshire Dales. In the Broads National Park, meanwhile, members of a large Afro-Caribbean family laugh as they trip through a field of long golden grass.

These pictures were taken on a series of experimental outings to the British countryside for city-dwelling black and Asian Britons. Alongside are snatches of encouraging blurb: we learn that a group called Bolton Asian Elders were able to bring their own food to the Lakes; while the Chinese, hailing from Manchester, were delighted to find that their youth hostel had ensuite bathrooms.