BY the time sailing ships from London reached Gujarat in 1608, the region had been a centre for international trade for more than 3,000 years.

With a coastline already studded with ports connecting India with the outside world, it was the crossroad for sea routes between Arabia, Africa, southeast Asia, Indonesia, and China.

When Gujurat became the first point of contact between Britain and the Indian subcontinent it was the start of an extraordinary relationship that changed the region and its people, who in turn have had a significant impact on the fabric of modern-day Britain. More than half British Indians can trace their roots back to Gujarat.

The port of Bombay, once part of Gujurat in north west India, was for centuries the subcontinent’s main maritime link with Britain, playing a fundamental role in the migration of Gujaratis and other Indians here.

Bradford-based photographer Tim Smith spent ten weeks working in Gujurat and in Mumbai, India's biggest city. His book, India's Gateway, weaves together his photographs with people's stories, exploring the fascinating story of Gujurat and Mumbai as age-old centres of trade and migration, focusing on their links with Britain.

Accompanying the book is an exhibition at Cartwright Hall, while the University of Bradford's Gallery II is showing Tim's photographs of Gujarat and Mumbai’s textile industries alongside work by local artists. The exhibitions are part of a national tour, assisted by Bradford based Oriental Arts and supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council England’s Strategic Touring Fund.

The book features the stories of Bradford Gujaratis including Kaushy Patel, who grew up in the Navsari area and migrated to Bradford where she and her husband founded vegetarian restaurant Prashad.

“From food, film and fashion to trade and industry, interest in India is booming, and Gujarat and Mumbai are leading the way," says Tim. "My work is inspired by the region’s vibrant mix of cultures, and glimpses everyday life in a landscape shaped by a rich history of trade, seafaring and migration. I’ve really enjoyed working with many different communities both here and in India. Although the photographs were taken on my own journey, it was one guided by hundreds of different people.”

The book contains nearly 160 vivid images of daily life in Gujurat and Mumbai. A woman is photographed shelling prawns with her baby at Sassoon Dock, Mumbai's first cotton trading harbour, now a busy fishing port and seafood market. Another charming photograph is of a man and his grandaughter chatting outside their house. A man sitting in the entrance to a 12th century temple has looked after its holy fires for over 50 years.

A woman dressed in the distinctive fashion of Mumbai's Bohra Muslim community stands outside a second-hand shop in the city's Do Tanki district, the vinyl rock records on sale reflecting the city's cosmopolitan mix.

As well as the bustling communities of the region, the book captures its stunning architecture, including a complex of temples scattered across holy hills, home to Jain pilgrimages.

The European influence is reflected in photographs including a Dutch cemetery in Surat where wealthy families competed to build the grandest tomb; a Portuguese fort guarding a tiny trading island off the Gujurat coast; and the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, Mumbai's grand railway station, the largest British-built edifice in India when it opened in 1887, now handling three million passengers daily.

Statues erected by the British in colonial Bombay now stand in the gardens of the Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum. They include a figure of Queen Victoria with her nose hacked off, one of several statues attacked as symbols of British rule.

The region's textile heritage comes alive in vibrant images of a cotton picking family; a grandmother making denim on her veranda; a weaver watching over his looms in a backstreet weaving shop; workers preparing silk screens and colours in the dyeworks

Each year Gulab Patel travels from his Bradford home to Navsari, where he was born in 1934. "A few friends were living in England and I thought I'd go. My brother-in-law was in Bradford so we went there. My first job was as a bus conductor, then I got a job at Croft's Engineering and ended up making tractors at International Harvester," he says. "In the beginning it was difficult to meet people because there was only one Gujurati Samaj. Nowadays there are a lot of temples, samaj and so on."

Bradford has been home to Tim Smith for more than 30 years and he is inspired by people "with extraordinary life stories that connect where we live to the rest of the world".

"Bradford has strong links with the Indian subcontinent, particularly Bombay and the Gujarat region," he says. "In a region that mushroomed during the Industrial Revolution, Bradford dominated a British textile industry spanning the globe. Many of the designs and techniques were copied from Gujarat’s ancient and hugely influential textile industry.

"It was not only ideas and technology that forged close connections between Britain and India, but migration too. When Britain needed labour to work in its factories, large numbers of people made the journey here, including professional and business people."

Since the early 1980s Tim has been photographing Bradford’s Indian communities, among many others in Britain with origins overseas.

"I’m fascinated by individual life stories that often depend on chance and circumstance, but are also shaped by the broad sweep of world affairs," he says. "I’m particularly interested in how the textiles industry and international networks created via trade and the British Empire have brought many people to Britain. The remarkable relationship between Britain and India is a slice of history that has had a profound effect on our country and its cosmopolitan communities.

"Gujarat is about the same size as Britain, Most British Gujaratis originate from the coastal belt from Kutch in the north to southern areas closer to Mumbai. Towns and cities in Britain have close links to regions over there."

The India's Gateway exhibition and book are sponsored by Prashad. "Gujarat is home to people with a vast range of lifestyles, but one thing uniting them is a love of good food," says Tim. "They're not the only ones - Gujarati cuisine is now enjoyed all over the world."

* India's Gateway is at Cartwright Hall until July 3. The textiles exhibition is at Gallery II, University of Bradford, until June 2.

India’s Gateway is published by Northern Arts Publications. Visit jeremymillspublishing.co.uk