Superb piece about the reality without the racism. My experience of an Eritrean was of a teenager making his way down Africa, being refused entry to Zimbabwe, but finally being granted passage to the UK and safety.
A lot of the nastier policies were devised in Australia, Under PM John Howard then Scott Morrison to raise their ratings and get voted. We have watched the UK copying them. We know it's copying, because the slogans are the same. Morrison had a background in public relations / advertising so he knew how to do this.
Thank you for this uplifting story, despite the awfulness of the UK's current approach. My grandmother escaped from Nazi occupied Vienna on a Kindertransport boat aged 15 and, like B, just wanted to contribute and work once she was 18. She was taken in by a lovely English couple who had to pay £50 up front and sign paperwork to promise that they wouldn't ask the state for any financial support at all. Thankfully, there were people in 1939 who were just as generous and kind as you clearly are, having read B's story. Thank you!
Thank you Christina for B’s history. It makes me angry to think how such people are treated. I wish the PM could hear about this story. What might B have achieved if he had had the right to English lessons and been able to work straight away.
Reading this was so heartwarming . To hear of kindness, compassion, openness, generosity, humanity and more, is so rare now. In a time when everyone is 'othered'.
I’m so glad you were able to go to B’s citizenship ceremony. In my other job as a registrar, I conduct citizenship ceremonies, and we try to make them really special. People have come a very long way (in all senses) to get citizenship and it’s a huge privilege for me to be part of that final step.
Sadly the UK had adopted more or less the Australian immigration policies on asylum seekers equally inhumane and largely at odds with legally binding international conventions. Asylum seekers and refugees are denied citizenship if they arrive “ illegally”. A dystopian fiction if ever there was one as the vast majority satisfy the conditions for protection. Notwithstanding thanks for sharing the story of B….and his painful journey to citizenship and right to exist.
Thanks for this inspiring and depressing read. You have my complete admiration for your work on health, Covid, etc, which kept me sane during the worst times, and now for this. Very best wishes.
Genuine Q.
Asylum hotels seem to be split into two.
One is single women/mum/babies/kids...the other is single men.
Case in point the hotels in Epping and Diss..were originally women/kids, then converted to men only.
Can anyone tell me why these hotels are not mixed?
Why in a hotel of 100 there aren't 50, or even 20, women/kids, the rest men?
But just men. Or just women.
Because there was very little dissent up in Diss, and likely Epping, when the hotels were originally women/kids only.
Uproar started when those were moved out and the hotels converted to men only.
Superb piece about the reality without the racism. My experience of an Eritrean was of a teenager making his way down Africa, being refused entry to Zimbabwe, but finally being granted passage to the UK and safety.
A lot of the nastier policies were devised in Australia, Under PM John Howard then Scott Morrison to raise their ratings and get voted. We have watched the UK copying them. We know it's copying, because the slogans are the same. Morrison had a background in public relations / advertising so he knew how to do this.
Bless you Christina Pagel and family.
Thank you for this uplifting story, despite the awfulness of the UK's current approach. My grandmother escaped from Nazi occupied Vienna on a Kindertransport boat aged 15 and, like B, just wanted to contribute and work once she was 18. She was taken in by a lovely English couple who had to pay £50 up front and sign paperwork to promise that they wouldn't ask the state for any financial support at all. Thankfully, there were people in 1939 who were just as generous and kind as you clearly are, having read B's story. Thank you!
Thank you for sharing.
Thank you for giving the issues of immigration a human face, a beating heart.
Thank you Christina for B’s history. It makes me angry to think how such people are treated. I wish the PM could hear about this story. What might B have achieved if he had had the right to English lessons and been able to work straight away.
Reading this was so heartwarming . To hear of kindness, compassion, openness, generosity, humanity and more, is so rare now. In a time when everyone is 'othered'.
I’m so glad you were able to go to B’s citizenship ceremony. In my other job as a registrar, I conduct citizenship ceremonies, and we try to make them really special. People have come a very long way (in all senses) to get citizenship and it’s a huge privilege for me to be part of that final step.
that is awesome!
Sadly the UK had adopted more or less the Australian immigration policies on asylum seekers equally inhumane and largely at odds with legally binding international conventions. Asylum seekers and refugees are denied citizenship if they arrive “ illegally”. A dystopian fiction if ever there was one as the vast majority satisfy the conditions for protection. Notwithstanding thanks for sharing the story of B….and his painful journey to citizenship and right to exist.
And, your telling of B's story helps me further see narrow comprehensions in me.
Thanks for this inspiring and depressing read. You have my complete admiration for your work on health, Covid, etc, which kept me sane during the worst times, and now for this. Very best wishes.
Great piece, thank you for the story and all the useful links.
Absolutely lovely story of B.
Thank you for writing about this. I’m not in the UK so it was good to learn more about how it has been possible in the past and what has changed.
Another white country flopping around in a puddle of racism like tadpoles as the puddle shrinks in size.