WHEN Yusuf Pate tells people his name they think there must be some mistake. Surely it should be Patel? Well, it used to be until Yusuf decided his business interests would be best served with a more indigenous-sounding surname.

He simply followed the example of generations of American immigrants and changed his identity slightly.

Abbreviating Patel is not something he has heard of before but he does know of a gentleman called Khan in the Midlands who now spells it Kahn to make it seem more Jewish.

Yusuf Pate, aged 38, who is married with a son and another baby on the way, has been proprietor of Bex Computers of Broadhurst Court for two and a half years.

"On one occasion I rang a Bolton company and when I said I was called Patel I could not get past the switchboard," he said today.

"When I rang back and gave my name as Pate I found myself speaking to the managing director."

Yusuf, a Muslim, officially changed his name to Pate last July and rather enjoys explaining it to friends, relations and customers.

"When I give people my business card they ask me if I have missed the 'L' off.

"It is a talking point."

Yusuf, who has stood unsuccessfully as a Conservative candidate in Bolton Council's Derby Ward, is a magistrate and a non-executive director of the Community Healthcare Trust in Bolton. Recently he has started writing the popular East Meets West column in Friday's Evening News.

All this is some distance from the time he arrived in Bolton, aged eight, on Christmas Day, 1966.

He found Bolton somewhat different to the hot and dusty Indian village of Barbodhan in Gujerat state which his father had left six years earlier for work in the textiles industry here.

The seeds of a business career began when Yusuf started selling yoghurt door-to-door at the age of nine.

Initially he could not speak a word of English when he went to Clarendon County Primary School and attended special language lessons with other children at the former Victoria School in Bridgeman Street.

By the time he got to Hayward Modern School he was helping out as an interpreter here and there.

After leaving with seven CSEs he served an apprenticeship in tool-making in Blackburn before deciding to spend three years full-time at Wigan College studying for "O" levels and an OND in engineering technology.

After taking a year out to work with Bolton Community Relations he went to Bradford University for a BSc honours degree in industrial technology and management.

Afterwards he worked in the careers service in Oldham for three years, had a spell as a training development officer with CLEEA Training in Bolton and ran a newsagent's shop in Bridge Street.

All this experience proved invaluable when he established his computer repair and maintenance business aimed at schools, solicitors, doctors and companies.

"There are four of us now and I am taking on another person," Yusuf said.

"I am a Bolton lad through and through."

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