The UK Nepali cultural and social heritage information resource project has where the Sherpas of the UK are concerned, required a proper background to their story and characteristics, which of course lay in the Solum Khumbu, Sagarmatha districts of far away Nepal. It was felt through liaison with the UK Sherpa community, Sherpa Association UK that the particulars detailed above be provided for anyone to have a proper understanding of who the Sherpa people are and their story in the world and uniqueness. Here we turn to the UK chapter, a developing, growing one, of this famous people.
On the occasion of the Gyalpo Losar Festival 2047 (Nepali and Sherpa Calendar: 2020 in the Western/UK Calendar) – Sherpa New Year (this particular Year being the ‘Year of Male Iron Mouse/Rat’) – celebrations of the UK Sherpa community on Saturday 29th February, facilitated by the Sherpa Association UK at Ashford [The Norton Knatchbull school] in Kent, video interviews were made to record the perspectives of the Chair of the Sherpa Association UK (Mr Sana Sherpa) and other respected community leads on the purpose and importance of the Losar Festival and more generally on the Sherpa community in the UK and that of the Gurkha and broader Nepali community. In the interview with Mr Sana Sherpa it was related that in fact some 90% of Sherpa community members in Nepal apply for registration to become British Army Gurkha Brigade members. This shows the extraordinary record of connection of the Nepali Sherpa People with the British People and state through the British Army.
NOTE: On the Gyalpo Losar Festival 2047, please also see the rare and precious footage of ancient ceremonial rites and dedications, as well as a set of exceptional dance, music, and songs performed at the festival. Links to these are provided at the end of the cultural festivals, concluding part of this section of the UK Nepali cultural & social heritage resource.
Ashford in Kent is the main location for the Sherpa community in the UK, although smaller numbers are dispersed across the other established UK Nepali community locations: Ashford is midway between Maidstone and Folkestone which have Gurkha Brigade regiments (and in the case of Folkestone, even the base of the Band of the Brigade of Gurkhas) – the Gurkha Engineers and Royal Gurkha Rifles (and the Band). Although very small in number (an estimated 1000+ people) compared to the broader Nepali Gurkha community (at time of completing this information resource, 65%+ of the total UK Nepali community) which is estimated to be in the area of 150,000+, the Sherpa community. As detailed in the video interview with Mr Sana Sherpa referred to above, probably in terms of the percentage of the Sherpa population of [main location] Solu Khumbu in Nepal seeking to become Gurkhas, the Solu Khumbu Sherpas have the highest percentage of any given Nepali ethnic group seeking to enlist in the Brigade of Gurkhas, albeit numerically much smaller than others (such as Tamu/Gurung) because of the very small size of the Solu Khumbu Sherpa population.
The migration to the UK of the Sherpas was initially, with very few exceptions, linked to the British Army Brigade of Gurkhas connection, and began in earnest in the latter part of the second half of the first decade of the 2000’s when partial settlement rights were granted to Gurkhas and retired Gurkhas and some members of their families. The intervention of the British actress Joanna Lumley OBE, born in Srinagar in 1946, tipping the balance on these rights accorded by Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s government through the major long-term campaigning work of Gurkha ex-servicemen organisations, such as the British Gurkha Welfare Society [Major Dewan]. Subsequently as with the vast majority of Gurkha ex-servicemen, Sherpa retired Gurkhas deployed their legendary expertise in their time of military service, by seeking frontline to manager and increasingly owner level employment in the security sector, and in more recent years broader employment occupations.
Parallel to this, and for not a few female members of the Sherpa [and broader female population of the UK Nepal community] community along with other UK Nepali communities began to engage in the UK social/residential care private sector and in the NHS on roles from nursing and healthcare work to ancillary, but in some cases at medical specialist, consultant and GP levels too. The Nepali national characteristic of friendliness, and its attributes of good listening, compassion, humane warmth fitting Sherpa and broader Nepali communities for the care and healthcare sectors and NHS in the UK: something reflected in the considerable 2500+ cadre of RCN (Royal College of Nursing) Nepali nurses.
In the spring and summer of 2020 in the context of the unacceptable reprehensible Anti-Asian/Anti-Nepali-Gurkha attacks and racist hate crime incidents of the period, it was noted in Kent and broader UK news media the fact that Nepali NHS and social care frontline workers, including Sherpas in Ashford, Kent, were often facing en-route to and from their places of work where they were saving lives, such abuse: https://uknfs.org/kent-racist-anti-nepali-gurkha-representation-update-response-from-sherpa-association-uk/ and https://www.kentonline.co.uk/maidstone/news/demand-for-action-after-ex-gurkhas-car-torched-226001/ ‘… Ms Grant [MP for Maidstone and the Weald] expressed her condemnation of the “abhorrent and deeply upsetting” incidents in Barming, whose victims included a retired Gurkha soldier and NHS staff working at Maidstone Hospital. One of the families targeted expressed their belief that they had been victims of a Covid-19-inspired hate crime.
Some Sherpa community members (very small in number) have also settled in the UK through becoming graduates and postgraduates/PhDs (some of these UK Nepali community members playing key roles in the founding of and continuing work in a number of areas, of the UKNFS itself at Board Member to Expert Adviser levels).
In brief, the above constitutes the story of how the Sherpas came to the UK and their continuing and further developing of the story of the UK’s socio-economic and broader multicultural/diverse communities, development.