Chapter 8: Out of her depth

Linh Vu who arrived, aged seven, from Vietnam in 1979.

Linh Vu escaped Vietnam by boat with her father, leaving Linh’s mother and siblings in Saigon. They were picked up by a British boat, stayed in a refugee camp in Singapore and were transferred by air to Britain in 1979, staying first in a refugee camp in Sopley and then on Thorney Island on the south coast.  After five years the family were reunited in Hackney. The film Passing Tides, illustrated with Linh’s drawings, charts this journey. Linh feels the positive welcome she received contrasts with today’s treatment of refugees.