Admiral Amjad of the Navy

THE Royal Navy have appointed their first non-white admiral.
Pakistan-born Muslim immigrant Amjad Hussain, 47, was this week promoted to rear admiral from commodore.
He is the highest ranking ethnic officer among the 200,000 men and women of the three armed forces.
The dad of three said yesterday: “I count myself very lucky to live in a country where the opportunities have been beyond my imagination.
“I love life in the Navy, and I am just pleased that they seem to be quite happy with me too, so far.
“I also feel a lot of pride to be a part of an organisation that is more interested in what you do rather than where you’re from.”
The admiral made national headlines in 1989 when he escorted Princess Diana around his ship, the frigate HMS Cornwall.
He also showed the Queen around HMS Endurance in Portsmouth before her review of the fleet during the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar.
The admiral has completed tours in the Adriatic during conflict in the Balkans and on board aircraft carrier HMS Invincible in the Northern Arabian Gulf stand-off with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.
Celebrating his promotion on a family skiing holiday in France with wife Wendy, he added: “The Navy is not the sort of place where you’re made to feel different. It has always been a very close team. I have never thought of myself as anything other than a normal Navy officer.
“Like most people I’ve just got on with my job. I would hate to think anyone would get promoted because of their ethnic origin.”
A Navy spokesman said: “Rear Admiral Hussain beat off formidable competition. He has achieved this rank on his own merit.
“Every sailor is given an equal opportunity regardless of colour, sex or creed.”
Amjad added: “Occasionally you used to get the odd stupid bout of name-calling, but that was more in the early days.
“But it never affected me, or made any difference to my job really. When people got to know me all preconceptions disappeared.”
Amjad moved to England with his mother from northern Pakistan in 1962, to follow his father.
Dad Mazhar worked as a railway signalman before building his own small property company.
The RAF have a black air commodore — one rank behind Rear Admiral Hussain.

The Army’s highest ranking ethnic officer is a full colonel.