A BORDERS family stranded in India during lockdown are desperate to get home.

Rosemary Singh flew out to Punjab with her husband Manny and their one-year-old son Jason at the start of March for a family wedding.

But since India imposed measures to curb coronavirus, the trio have been anxiously waiting for the chance to return home to Galashiels.

Rosemary, originally from Innerleithen, told us: “Through the whole thing my emotions have been all over the place – one minute I’m happy, the next I’m crying and homesick."

The family were supposed to return on April 3, but then a raft of flights were cancelled. They are currently staying with Manny's parents in Punjab.

Rosemary said: “We obviously knew about coronavirus before we flew out, but we made the decision to travel as we were attending Manny’s brother’s wedding.

"We saw on the news that flights were being cancelled but we didn’t think it was going to happen during our stay.”

The family became faced with a dilemma – fly home and miss the wedding, or stay and risk not getting a flight.

Explaining the final decision, Rosemary said: “We couldn’t leave. There were flights home that I could’ve travelled on but it would’ve just been for me and my son and I wasn’t leaving without my husband.”

Chartered flights have now opened for bookings to fly Brits back home, but the Singh family remain nervous.

“We will be told 24 hours before we are due to fly if we have a seat on one of the flights next week,” said Rosemary.

“I’m not building my hopes up. We might be lucky, especially as we have a baby and both mine and Jason’s visas have expired.”

And getting a flight home is not the only hurdle the family face. “If we do get a seat on the plane, it will be flying to London. I’m worried about how we will get back to Edinburgh to collect our car,” said Rosemary, who added network issues make it difficult to speak to people back in Scotland.

Movement within India is currently very restricted, Rosemary said.

“Things are not too bad where we are staying but the lockdown rules are much stricter than Scotland.”

The UK Government is working with the airline industry and host governments across the world to help bring back British travellers.

The Foreign Office’s Minister of State for South Asia and the Commonwealth, Lord (Tariq) Ahmad of Wimbledon, said: “We are doing all we can to get thousands of British travellers in India home. This huge and complex operation also involves working with the Indian Government to enable people to move within India to get on these flights.

Over 300 people arrived from Goa on Thursday morning, 1,400 more will arrive over the Easter weekend and these 12 flights next week will bring back thousands more.”

Borders MP John Lamont said: "I’ve been assisting a number of Borderers to get back to the UK.

"My team and I have been in regular contact with this family. Earlier today one of my team spoke to Rosie to let her know about the new flights that the UK Government is providing from India, including one covering the Punjab where this family are currently located.