Thank you for downloading from our home correspondent.

I'm Michelle Hussein.

In this edition, how the past shapes contemporary life.

Whether it's that of a struggling dairy farmer or the young in Cornwall captivated by the revival of an ancient

festival. On the South Downs we walk an old pilgrimage route and the Somerset Stone stonemason living amongst his raw materials.

First though, the past week has seen commemorations of the 70th anniversary of India's and Pakistan's independence, events that were marred by terrible violence

as British India was divided.

For her series of partition stories here on Radio 4, Kavita Puri travelled from Dundee to Dorset, hearing

from British Asians who lived through that time, including some who had never previously spoken about their experiences.

I have seen this.

Those are the words spoken slowly and deliberately

that people have used to tell me about the most formative

experience of their lives, many for the first time. Take Ifaka Ahmed. I met him

on a rainy morning in Hove.

His street leads on to the seafront.

If Takar's 1930 Sussex home deceptively gives the impression of an ordinary existence. His is anything but. If Takar was a Muslim living in

Delhi in 1947 he remembers celebrating Independence Day, the sky was all lit up he tells me everyone

was on the streets, Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims. We were all Indian, he adds

wistfully. Within weeks that had changed. Many Muslims fled their

homes and gathered in makeshift refugee camps in the city. One day he tells me he was making his way with others to the main mosque.

It became the most frightening journey of my life he confides. His group walked

through a street where Hindu men were standing with weapons.

...