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Miranda Smith's avatar

As a small child, in the late 1950s, my family were Catholics in small town Britain.

We were Irish/English.

On the outskirts of the town was a 'camp' which was home to Italian, Polish, Latvian refugees.

All Catholics.

My junior school was full of children of different nationalities, it seemed quite normal to us.

As Catholics, we were out of the mainstream of the town anyway.

My parents took over a small hotel.

Many of our guests were visiting priests, but we also accumulated a small number of young men, Irish, who had started training for the priesthood, but who had fallen by the wayside .

Their migration to Britain was forced by the shame that would fall on their families if they went home as failed seminarians.

In brief, I grew up surrounded by immigrants, and thought little of it.

Going to tea with friends was often exciting, because of unfamiliar food.

I did notice cultural differences. My best friend's father was Polish, and he maintained a magnificent vegetable garden. No English people I knew would work so hard to produce food.

Once, the Duke of Edinburgh came to visit our town .

All the schoolchildren in town were herded to meet him where his helicopter landed, and the children of all the schools but ours waved Union Jacks.

We were encouraged to stand still.

I expect we were told to pray.

So, although I was born in England, I never felt totally English.

I have lived as an immigrant, in Ireland and France, for much of my adult life .

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annie holland's avatar

So looking forward to that post. So sick to death of the spin, the demonising, the generalisation, the dehumanising of a group of people I think of as assets. Sock it to us; I welcome the facts even if it makes me feel worse.

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