A HARROW mother has been awarded runner up position in a photographic competition coinciding with the national census.

Shashi Desikan has been selected as a runner up in the Then and now: family stories online photographic competition run by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

Launched by the ONS, with camera company Olympus, in October last year the competition asked contestants to tell a family story using just two photographs and up to 500 words.

Ten finalists, including the winning entry, were picked by a celebrity judging panel including BBC broadcaster Kurt Barling, television presenter Hardeep Singh Kohli and musician Jason Yarde.

Mrs Desikan’s entry told the story of her move from India to the England to marry a man whose father was a diplomat from the Tea Board Government of India.

She describes her disappointment with the atmosphere created by the recession when she arrived in the Eighties.

In 1995, she was racially attacked while pregnant and eight years later her husband died in 2003.

She has two daughters who she has described as “angels sent by God to be the balm of her life forever.”

As a runner up, Mrs Desikan won a digital camera from Olympus as well as the chance to see her pictures projected in Wandsworth Town Hall, in London, last Friday.

Helen Bray, head of census communications at ONS, said: “The census includes everyone – it is a snapshot of all communities at a national and local level, including Harrow.

“The aim of this competition was to celebrate the personal histories behind the changing face of Britain in the last 50 years and we were delighted to receive entries from people eager to share their favourite family stories with the country.”