‘I think attention is going to be drawn no matter what,’ Billy pointed out. ‘We’re three – well, two and a half – Indians walking through a town that hasn’t seen a foreigner since they hanged a monkey 150 years ago thinking it was Napoleon.’

In 1943, as war rages across Europe, Britain’s Great Western Railway (GWR) Works’ labour force is comprised of a few men too valuable, old or infirm for active service and thousands of recently recruited women. With critical skills in short supply, the British government looks to the empire to provide vital expertise in the run up to the D-Day invasion.

And that is how railway engineer Imtiaz ‘Billy’ Khan, logistics supremo Vincent Rosario and maths prodigy Akaash Ray find themselves in Swindon, lodging with the well-intentioned Mrs A, hilariously navigating bland food, faulty toilet cisterns, secret assignments and a mutual distrust of each other.

Sparkling with wit, Mrs A’s Indian Gentlemen is a rollicking tale of misadventure that delightfully portrays what happens when cultures collide.