One of the first Punjab Indians to emigrate to England has returned to his former country to give a charity hospital nearly £100,000 in memory of his late wife.

Makhan Roy, who ran Roy’s newsagents in Tolworth Broadway, met his wife Catherine at a dance after settling in Gresham as a young man in 1949.

They moved to Elgar Avenue, Tolworth, in 1967, when Mr Roy became a founding member of the Kingston Racial Equality Council.

He said: “I first met her when her brother was working with me in a newsprint making mill.

“We met at a dance on a Saturday night, and then life has just gone on from there. I did not have too bad a life.”

The couple spent 58 happy years together and had a son and two daughters, five grandchildren and two great grandchildren, before she died aged 73 in February.

Mr Roy’s experiences, and those of other early immigrants, were recorded in a book Coming to Gresham, published earlier this year.

He said: “I was the first Indian from Punjab to come. I was one of the earliest immigrants. I came very, very early on.

“There was a lot of discrimination in those days, but gradually it all fizzled out.”

A charity fundraiser and keen cyclist, the 86 year old travelled to India on September 23 for a temple ceremony in memory of Mrs Roy.

The following month he made the 7.6m rupee donation to the Guru Nanak Mission Hospital in Jalandhar, north west India, to help its appeal for new equipment.

He said: “I consulted my family and they said OK. It’s for poor people who can’t afford expensive MRI scans.

“They said we are looking for someone to contribute that money, and so that’s that. They were thrilled, of course.”