When two-year-old Alan Kurdi drowned on a Turkish beach, the world was appalled and the little seaside resort of Aberystwyth became one of the first trailblazing British towns to accept vulnerable Syrians. But how do an Aleppo blacksmith and his family settle down to life in small-town Wales? Tom Rowley has spent seven months following the Karkoubi family as they gradually build a new home on strange shores

As the last amber light drained from the sky above Manchester Airport, the plane carrying Britain’s newest family came in to land. The Karkoubis – Ishraq, Mohamad and their three young children – knew just how lucky they were. Not only had they escaped the bombs in Aleppo and borrowed enough money to flee to Lebanon, but now they had crossed the Mediterranean – not, like so many of their countrymen, in a leaky dinghy, but on a charter flight, paid for by the British Government.