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Mr Hussain was part of a large group of Indian and Pakistani nationals who were encouraged to come and work in our local mills throughout the post-war decades of the 1960's and 1970's.
These men came to Britain because of a severe labour shortage existing during that period across the whole country.
As someone who now makes up a dwindling generation, Mr. Hussain has agreed to be interviewed for the Kirklees Faith Network's ‘Heckmondwike Stories In A Suitcase Project’.
Over the last few week’s Mahmood has talked of his journey to England in February 1966 and how he struggled with adapting to the weather on his arrival to the Heavy Woollen District . In this week's third feature Mr. Hussain reflects on what he did after leaving school.
Speaking to the Reporter Series, Mr. Hussain said: "I came to England in February 1966 at the age of 11 and began attending what used to be the old 'Heckmondwike Secondary School'.
“The school was known to most local people as 'White Lee' because it had been built on the White Lee fields situated near the Dale Lane estate. There were not many Pakistani children going to this school around the years when I was there between 1966 until 1969.
“I can remember we were only about twenty pupils at that time. But as a small group, we used to be very close knit due to our common ethnicity. Life at the high school was also made easier to begin with as all the 'Asian' pupils were put in the same class. So, we spoke the same Punjabi-Pothwari dialect both during our school hours - and also outside school.
"But these conversations in our heritage dialect began to concern the teachers. The staff were getting worried we were not communicating enough in the English language. It was not long afterwards when all of us got split up into different classes. At the time, I thought such an idea of separating me from my friends was a harsh move.
“Yet I later realised the school had actually made the correct decision. The staff wanted us to quickly get into the habit of speaking fluent English - and their idea was to place us in classrooms where there were white-English speaking children. This approach worked in the long-term! Our verbal English improved.
"My school - 'White Lee' - also went a step further and held 'English Language Support' classes for all the Pakistani pupils. I also sat in these classes. I suppose our teachers realised we needed the extra support because of the fact English was our second language - not the first. The school's thinking was way ahead of its time! Today, every school across the country is doing what Heckmondwike Secondary School did over fifty years ago!
"I left 'White Lee' school in the summer of 1969 with sufficient enough knowledge of the English language to help me find work. In fact, I got my first job at Fox's Biscuits in Batley where I worked for a year until 1970.
“My work involved standing next to a conveyor belt and passing on assorted biscuits to a group of senior female employees whose task was to pack them into boxes for distribution. It was a tiresome role. I worked at 'Fox's' from Monday to Friday. The start-time of my shift was 7.45am in the morning until 4.45pm in the afternoon. My weekly wage was £ 4.25 a week!
"As a second-generation migrant, I was astonished at the beautiful sweet smell of biscuits around the factory's precincts. I was just as much surprised everyone - women and men - had to wear aprons, gloves, and hair-coverings whenever they were on the production line.
"Besides my long hours at 'Fox's', the workers also had the luxury of taking home three full carrier bags of broken biscuits - for only 50 pence!
"I enjoyed my time at Fox's Biscuits despite the long tiring hours. Yet, I decided after working there for only a year to look for another job offering more money. The amazing fact about that era was there seemed to be no shortage of work! There were plenty of jobs available. In fact, a person could easily work in at least two different places because there were so many mills in our local area!
“The factory managers were always desperate to employ more and more workers. I can actually remember a time when buses being driven through Dewsbury and Batley went past countless mills and factories stood on either side of Bradford Road. A lot of these mills have now been demolished - and the Bradford Road area looks far more spacious. There is also more light.
“But this was not the situation during the Sixties. Because of the different types of big mills, medium-sized factories, and even smaller workshops existing at that time, Bradford Road seemed a much more narrower and darker place in those days.
"A large number of these workplaces were textile mills. Yet, there were other factories as well manufacturing woollen garments, carpets, plastic products, and glass. So, I had the opportunity to choose wherever I wanted to work which was the beauty about that era.
“The only thing to be done was to walk into a mill to fill in an application form - and a job would definitely be given to anyone!"