Who Do You Think You Are? A Family Legacy Across Two World Wars
- ada Studio
- 30 minutes ago
- 7 min read
Despite being his carer, I never truly knew his story. He would not speak of it. And now I am piecing together the life of a proud man, from medals, photographs and databases, because the man himself kept his silence to the end.
Most of us know the phrase Who Do You Think You Are? as a TV staple, celebrities tracing their roots, tears in archives, revelations about ancestors who survived wars or crossed continents. But in the Bahra family, it is not a question. It is a conclusive answer we were searching for.
My grandfather was Company Quarter-Master Havildar Ram Singh Bahra. Born in 1897 in the village of Lohar, Jalandhar, Punjab, India. A carpenter’s son. A farmer. And exceptionally a British Soldier, twice over. But perhaps that last part should come as no surprise. Because his father, Natha Singh, was a soldier too. His oldest son, my uncle Joginder Singh, would follow them both. And today, my own son, Yuvraj, serves in the Army Cadets.
Four generations. One family. One unbroken thread of service stretching from a small village in Punjab to the British Army of today.
CQMH Ram Singh Bahra remarkably served in both World War One and World War Two. Let that sink in. Two world wars. The same man. He was 18 when he was first called up in 1914 as a Mason. An entire generation later, having survived the first global conflict, rebuilt a life, and emigrated to Kenya, Africa he made a remarkable decision, in his late forties, he voluntarily re-enlisted, voluntarily into the King’s African Rifles, where he rose to the rank of Company Quarter-Master Havildar (Company Quarter-Master Sergeant). This was not conscription. This was conviction.
Historians and genealogists will tell you it is extraordinarily rare to find a soldier who served in both world wars, the numbers who did so are vanishingly small. I am proud Ram Singh Bahra was one of them. That alone makes him an exception.
He lived until the age of 94. Which means there was a man in our family, in our home, who had marched through Mesopotamia, built roads through the desert, re-enlisted in East Africa, and risen to Sergeant Major across two world wars, and he was there, present, alive, living in the UK.
At the age of 15 I cared for him when he lived with us in Leicestershire. I was in the same house as this extraordinary man, this living piece of history. And yet despite all of that, despite the closeness, the daily care, the years spent under the same roof, I never truly knew him. We the family, all tried. But like so many veterans of his generation, who had witnessed things no human being should witness, he kept it locked away. He carried it quietly, and he took most of it with him. His Bahra pride would never have permitted it. Would this be acceptable, now in 2026?
It is one of our greatest regrets and it is why we are having to piece this story together now, from medals and photographs and databases and the patient, brilliant work of researchers like Dr Tejpal Ralmill at the UK Punjab Heritage Association. Every fragment feels precious. Every confirmed detail, a regiment number, a village name, a father’s name on a database feels like a small act of recovery. Having heard so many stories about the bravery of our grandfather.
He was one of 500,000 soldiers from Punjab who served in the First World War and one of 63 men from his own village of Lohar who became British Soldiers. That number stops me every time I think about it. 63 men from one small village. Neighbours. Relatives. Friends. All of them answering the same call.
In WW1, Ram served as a Mason in the Works Directorate, a unit of Indian Military Works Services, deployed to Basra, Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq). The Military Works Services units were the engineers and builders of the war effort, constructing the railways, roads, and infrastructure that kept the Allied advance moving through punishing terrain and heat. Ram’s skills as a carpenter’s son would have been put to hard use. He was not just a soldier, he was a builder, keeping an entire campaign operational behind the front lines.
Ram Singh was not unusual in serving. Although Sikhs accounted for less than 2% of the population of British India at the time, they made up more than 20% of the British Indian Army at the outbreak of war. From the blood-soaked trenches of the Somme and Gallipoli, to the deserts of Africa and the Middle East, Sikh soldiers fought and died alongside their British and Commonwealth counterparts, helping save the Allies from early defeat on the Western Front. The British Indian Army’s contribution was, in total, as large as all the forces of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa combined. And yet almost nobody knows their names.
Until now. There, in the Punjab World War One database, a painstaking project of UKPHA and the University of Greenwich is Mason Ram Singh, son of Natha Singh, from Lohar, Jalandhar. Military Works Coy no. 8636. A name. A number. And beside it, his father’s name, a soldier too. Proof that this was a family for whom service ran in the blood.
And then there are the objects and here is where we Bahra’s know how truly fortunate we are. Across migrations from Punjab to Kenya to England, across a century of upheaval, displacement and loss, this family somehow held on to something precious: the photographs and the medals. The British War Medal and the Victory Medal, their rims engraved with Ram’s rank, name and number, are still in family hands today. Framed alongside them: three chevrons, the rank of Sergeant, a crown above them, and two brass KAR shoulder titles. A photograph shows him wearing his medals with quiet, dignified pride. To retain such artefacts across generations and continents is itself remarkable. No one knows which Bahra was had the foresight to retain them. Whoever you are, we are all so grateful. For so many Punjabi families, these pieces of history were lost, due to partition, to poverty, to the simple chaos of moving lives. We have ours. We do not take that lightly.
Moving to Nairobi was not simply an economic decision, it would prove to be a defining one in ways Ram could not have anticipated. Asians working on Kenya’s railways were considered Citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies (CUKC) under the British Nationality Act 1948. Kenya was a British colony, and its residents were eligible for British, not Kenyan status. When Kenya gained independence in 1963, Ram Singh held a British passport. A man who had served the British Empire across two world wars was now, formally and legally, British. It was perhaps the least the Empire could do.
The thread continued. His oldest son, my uncle Joginder Singh, served as a Sepoy (a private) in the Indian Army Ordnance Corps, his role recorded as a fitter. The Ordnance Corps kept armies equipped and operational, maintaining the weapons, vehicles and machinery of war. A fitter by trade, a soldier by duty, just like his father before him, and his grandfather before that.
Natha Singh. Ram Singh. Joginder Singh. And now Yuvraj.
Four Bahra generations. Four soldiers. A lineage of service that began in a Punjabi village over a century ago and continues today on British soil. None of them seeking glory. None of them written into official histories. Just a family that answered the call, every single time it came.
UKPHA is a leading heritage charity, passionate about Punjab’s arts, literature, history and traditions. Through their Empire, Faith & War project they are working urgently to record these stories before the last living connections to that generation are gone. There is probably not a single Sikh family in the UK without a military connection in their history. It is often because of those very links to the armies of the British Raj that many Sikhs now call Britain home.
So when someone asks me who do you think you are? I know exactly who I am. I am the granddaughter of a man who answered the call not once but twice, who survived two world wars and lived to 94, who sat in our home and carried his silence proudly, like armour.
The legal directories describe me as a “fearless advocate” someone who stands firm in the face of adversity. People sometimes ask me where that comes from. How do you stay fearless when the pressure is on? How do you hold your ground when everything is against you?
I know the answer now.
It comes from a man who at 18 left everything he knew to serve in the deserts of Mesopotamia. Who came home, rebuilt his life, crossed a continent, and then when the world went to war again, chose to re-enlist. Who raised a soldier, whose son raised a soldier, whose grandson is now a Lieutenant in the Territorial Army today.
Fearlessness in the face of adversity is not something I invented in a courtroom. It was handed to me. Quietly. Without fanfare. Across four generations of the Bahra family who never once asked for recognition, and never once backed down.
Ram Singh Bahra had it first.
I am simply his granddaughter. Carrying it forward.
The Bahra’s are now written into the history books.
Narita Bahra KC, Managing Director of Garrick Law and barrister at 33 Chancery Lane, is a finalist of the Diversity and Inclusion Award and Leadership in Law at the LexisNexis Legal Awards 2026. She is recognized for her visible leadership, mentorship, and efforts to create an inclusive firm culture.
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Do you have a grandfather, great-grandfather, or ancestor who served in the British Indian Army or the King’s African Rifles? You may be closer to finding them than you think.
Dr Tejpal Ralmill & The UK Punjab Heritage Association has the expertise, the databases and the dedication to help you trace your family’s military history. Don’t wait. These stories are precious — and time is short.
Get in touch at ukpha.org and search the Punjab WW1 database at punjabww1.com
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