OVER 1,000 people attended a Gurdwara’s first open day on Saturday as colour, food, learning and creativity took centre stage.

The Guru Maneyo Granth Gurdwara in Bath Road, Slough, flung its doors open to the public as Sikhs from far and wide flocked to the family day and representatives from other faiths in the town showed their support.

It came on the day of Vaisakhi, which marks the birth of the the tenth Guru of Sikhs, Guru Gobind Singh.

The Gurdwara put on a range of activities for the young as children took part in a Khanda trail (Symbol of the Sikh religion) completing 10 tasks as they went. This included archery, arts and crafts including making puppets and masks, combs, as well as calligraphy. The Gurdwara’s new art exhibition, Without Shape, Without Form, was also opened as children completed a question sheet on Sikh history by going around the gallery and fact-finding.

The exhibition is hosted in the UK’s first, permanent Sikh art gallery and was produced in partnership with Canadian artist, Kanwar Singh Dhillon. The day overall was so successful that organisers kept the Gurdwara open until 6pm, even though the day had been planned to end at 3pm.

Deep Kaur, 38, volunteer at the Gurdwara, said: “It has been a very good turnout.

“We had such a good reaction in November when we opened the gallery with 5,000 people coming that we decided to have our first open day and to do it on Vaisakhi.There were also a lot more non Sikhs than anticipated.”

Ms Kaur said some Sikhs had made the trip from as far as Leeds, Birmingham and Bristol.

She added: “My feeling is we could do this again.” The Gurdwara’s Youth Art Project was also opened for viewing.