Now that the religious thread has slowed down can we talk about immigration

[gbb]

My views apparently offend
Shame, because being accused of being xenophobic is ridiculous knee jerking, OTT reactions to a view others just happen not to hold, or see.
Doubtless some of my views are 'tainted a little'...so i'm less than perfect...i'll live and so will we all. Why so uptight ?

Xenophobic does hurt a little...ive worked amongst more immigrants than most of you will ever see in your lifetime. Some are excellent people, some are knobbers...just like us Brits.
I live among them, some are fine, some are a bloody nuisance...just like us Brits.
I've had a pakistani lodger in the past...Abdul, nice fella. Ive spoken warmly in 'give me some of your dialogue' about Rafi, an asian at work who i get on particually well with.
Ive worked extensively abroad, living sometimes (albeit short term) with local families, where I'M the immigrant, so i know how they struggle. I know how communication can be hard...try asking a Spaniard in Spain for a spanner, i don't know the word...so i drew one.
Work in Egypt where very very few understood English. It isolates you somewhat,
Spain, Cyprus, Egypt, Uruguay, i know what it is to be the odd one out.
Xenophobic... utter cr@p. I have views, perhaps slightly jaded ones living in a city thats had more than its fair share of immigration. I have NO truck with immigrants generally, rather the system that lumps so many on a community with little or no immediate thought for housing, healthcare, schooling etc etc. Rose coloured glasses don't hide the fact it does have a negative impact....and thats what this post was asking.

Ask me about Brits, i'll tell you just as many negatives about us as immigrants.
(which reminds me, incoming flight from Barcelona once, i had two foreign gentlemen sitting behind me. As we came into land at Gatwick, one said to the other...'welcome to the land of thieves'
Ooer i thought

Barring the miserable git up the road, none of my observations bear any PERSONAL hatred of immigrants, but i'm old enough, ugly enough and see enough to know they do cause a strain on local communities here. Read the papers, watch TV, live here..Peterboroughs had its fair share of negative reports about the impact of (excess) immigration (locally). Our local councillors have pleaded with government re the subject. I did consider putting a load of links in to back up some of what i'm talking about...but there's no point, i'm not even that bothered. Its not THAT important to me.

We'll all sleep tonight its just a conversation...

 

[Arch]

Facts? Most of your 'comments on immigration' have precisely nothing to do with where the people in question come from. Do you honestly believe the Polish guy moves the bins bags off the bins simply because he's Polish?

There's a house we collect from on a Wednesday, home to several Polish people. Their recycling is always a bit annoying, all mixed materials in carrier bags with the handles tied up tight, and left in the recycling box, on top of the stuff we left behind the week before because it's not recyclable.

On the other hand, we have several dozen houses like that or similarly annoying over the course of the week, with residents of all origins*.

*well, being York, mostly white British/European.

 

[dellzeqq]

I'm just hoping we send everybody home. I quite like the idea of living in Normandy, where some of my ancestors hailed from in 1066. However I'm likely to get moved on to somewhere Scandinavian by the French after that as the reason it's called Normandy is that the Northmen lived there after settling from the err... North.

there may yet be a spare place on the Fridays tour of Normandy

 

[dellzeqq]

This sounds completely bizarre. What/where exactly is the culture you referring to?

Finland. Natch. I blame the mobile phones.

 

[dellzeqq]

as this topic has now become about peterborough, I lived in peterborough for many years, my 3 children were born in peterboroughs PDH,
peterborough is a city build on immigration from the italians in the 1950's, the polish , the indians, the pakistanis, the Irish, when I moved there in 1990 all of these communities were well established....in fact peterborough has one of the largest italian communities in the uk...

I didn't know that!

I lived outside of Aylesbury when they won the world cup in '82. All of a sudden the town was transformed by tricolore flags. Turns out that thousands of POWs stayed on after the second world war to work in the brick kilns

 

[gbb]

I didn't know that!

I lived outside of Aylesbury when they won the world cup in '82. All of a sudden the town was transformed by tricolore flags. Turns out that thousands of POWs stayed on after the second world war to work in the brick kilns

There was indeed a strong immigrant population in Peterborough, albeit nowhere near as large as todays.

Italians after the war ?, same here, many working in the brick pits, plus we had a strong contingent in Salvesens. Many were from the rural south,,,Sebastian could skin a rabbit in seconds ...and see his sandwiches, they were huge slabs of bread, often with what appeared to be raw anchovies hanging out the sides. It used to be 'interesting' at lunchtime .
Polish, again a strong community.
Yugoslavs as well. One of the saddest things I heard was a guy I worked with who didn't dare return there, even in the 1980's...why ? he fought on the wrong side in the war. Not the Nazi side, but the anti communist partisans. He's long since died now, but talking to him made you realise what it is to lose your family, they're back in Yugoslavia, but you can't see them. You could tell it hurt him deeply.

 

[Fab Foodie]

there's a range of opinion within this thread, but, in a general way, I'm struck by the near-absence of xenophobia. Which is all to the good.

I thought Xenophobia was a fear of bright headlights 'till I read this thread ....

 

[Fab Foodie]

None of this is the fault of the immigrants though. Imagine leaving your home, family, and friends, and relocating to a country where the language is difficult and the people are hostile, just to try and earn a living and better yourself. Instead of blaming them and trying to stop people from coming here and enriching our lives in the many ways that they do, we should be putting pressure on the government to put more money into local services to support the communities that are struggling.

That's waaay to smart TMN dearest, you see the poor 5 bed detached-house owning , 2 new cars in the double garage, 2 kids at private school, 10 pints down the footy club on a Thursday night DailyWail reading UKIP & BNP voters of my cul-de-sac would be up in arms about wasting poor their poor middle-class taxpayers money ..... Bless-em.

 

[Tim Hall]

I thought Xenophobia was a fear of bright headlights 'till I read this thread ....

Xenophobia.

Nasty foreign sounding word.

 

[Fab Foodie]

Xenophobia.

Nasty foreign sounding word.

Absolutely! Well spotted Tim.

 

[threebikesmcginty]

f***ing hell, why don't you move?

He's out on licence.

 

[Fab Foodie]

f***ing hell, why don't you move?

One of the chaps who'd lived in this street since it was built 25 years ago or so, decided to move. There was an Asian family came to look at the house. This was a big issue, oh yesss. Imagine the teasing the street was up in arms, his neighbour was going to build a wall along his drive to keep them separate. In the end he announced to us that he couldn't possibly sell it to Asians as we were his friends .... so he sold to a nice white family (actually, they are very nice) and at least he and I are aligned in common decency at least.

If I ever do have to move, I'm ONLY selling to the biggest Asian family I can find with as many BMW's as they can muster. Oh how I'll laugh ... though on second thoughts it would be too cruel to the Asian family.

 

[Maz]

I thought Xenophobia was a fear of bright headlights 'till I read this thread ....

Er, no...Xenophobia is the fear of Warrior Princesses.

 

[mrandmrspoves]

I expect to get shot down in flames for this.....but here goes. Imagine 2 ships. One is pleasant with good facilities and the other less so. If you were living on the less pleasant ship but could move to the other, surely you would do so? Eventually the more pleasant ship will get to a point where it becomes less pleasant. At this stage you might start to say to people who want to move to your boat......."What can you offer if you come to our boat?"
Wouldn't it have been better if the question had been asked sooner -before the more pleasant boat got to the point where it had become less pleasant? The answer would depend on which boat you had been on.

 

[gbb]

gbb, just out of interest, which area of peterborough are you living, by the sounds of it and a very similar story to my womans sister, sounds like the bretton area of peterborough..I have family connections in the ortons and sugar way..

Yep, the Ortons. It does get quite a bit of poor press here but compared with Welland and the like, it's paradise here. The Ortons, there's good bits and bad bits, I'm unfortunate to live in a bit of a worse part. Not terrible, but HMOs have increased here a lot, never a good thing. A cheap mortgage is my downfall. I have a spacious warm house but the surrounding area is slowly falling. One day I may dig deep and move...but it's a hell of an expensive way of improving your lot.