Immigration: the reality

I never thought it wa sscaremongering, but now, am really scared!

sorry about the double ss! Shows how scared I was.

not! Wisbech is one town though, and the conditions may be different in other places, however there are lots of hard working immigrants who can revitalize some places. Maybe however other places would just be overwhelmed [the services I mean.]If jobs need doing then they have to be filled by someone who is prepared to do it.

G'netters in Cambridgeshire, Lincs and East Anglia generally should be able to comment , as there are a lot of Eastern Europeans living there now.

Plenty of Eastern Europeans living around the Greater Manchester area, and fitting in quite nicely. I have some Ukrainian and Polish neighbours - one's a plumber and offered to fit next door neighbour's outside tap and garden hose whilst they were away on holiday - watered their tomatoes whilst he was at it. Practically all the Aldi shop assistants are Eastern European, the delivery man from Ocado (new, couldn't find my lane without phoning me twice), I'm hearing plenty of foreign languages spoken. Must be how our European neighbours experience us emigrating across Europe. I wonder whether their ministers will start insisting British incomers must know their language? We wouldn't do very well, would we?

I think the difference between Greater Manchester and small towns in East Anglia when is that large cities have always been able to absorb immigrants and incomers from a wide variety of backgrounds. I live near a similar city where there has always been a very fluid population. However, I don't think it's for us to comment on how small rural towns are experiencing the large influx of people where services are perhaps not equipped to deal with it, and where employment opportunities were already limited. I would love to hear from gransnetters living in those areas, but I suspect that some will be afraid to comment for fear of being viewed as racist.

We don't usually emigrate to another European country in the hope of finding a job and accommodation when we get there do, do we? Most of those who move emigrate have a job to go to, or have the money to buy a home and/or start a business in their host country.

I agree about the language issue, but DH has a Polish friend who's lived here for many years and who still doesn't speak more than rudimentary English - I suppose just enough to get by.

The United Nations appear to live where I do. I have delightful Polish neighbours who live a few doors away, their 3 year old son speaks more English than his parents! He and his 5 year old sister are fascinated when I am out pruning bushes and I do get some help. Grandmother stands discreetly in the background.

You are certainly true with that comment when the amount of people we met abroad who had lived there for years and made no effort to learn even the basic Spanish even just for politeness was disgusting,they had the opinion that the English language was the be all and end all,after living amongst my many Spanish neighbours I was fluent within the area in about 18mths and felt better for it.

I agree you cannot compare an area like Greater Manchester with Wisbeach. Anyone who grew up in the East will remember what a small, slow to change world it was. Some find that small world stifling, others find it comforting. It's the sudden pace of change that has unsettled the latter. And this has happened at a time when many old factories that generations worked at from school to retirement have closed, relocated overseas.
As there has been no provisions to cope with the rising numbers of people living in these small market towns schools, hospitals, doctors, dentists are full. A friend's daughter has no desk at her primary school for most of the school day, she does most of work sitting on the carpet. My sister is a full time teacher working not so very far from Wisbeach, there are many problems. I believe no planning for an increase of population in a small town causes problems, more so than any racial tension.

Good points, penguin. Blame the MEPS and governments who don't keep pace with changing populations resulting from the policies they make, not ordinary people who just want to make a living.

An interesting aspect to the article is that it does not portray our immigrant population as JUST really nice people, always willing to lend a hand and who want to come here to work hard and better themselves (the preferred image for some Gnetters).

The Lithuanian woman quoted said 'Some are quite annoying. They refuse to work on purpose. They know they can work 24 hours a week and get tax credits'.

There are also fights between different ethnic groups and I can understand how this might lead people being afraid to go out at night.

I don't think it's useful in the long term for those of us who are not affected by a high level of immigration to try to deny that there are real problems for some areas of the country. If we keep on doing this, more people will turn to UKIP.

Very true petallus.In East Anglia it can be a real problem.Hope that some of our G'netters will say on here, how it affects their towns/villages.Immigrants are going to be a mixed bag, wherever they settle, the hard working /lazy/criminally inclined etc just as our own people are.Sometimes just the sheer numbers overwhelm services.In some places immigration will revitalize and in others will only cause problems.

I can't help feeling many of the problems of integration would fade away if there was some decent coaching in English language skills. I know how alienating it can be in a foreign country where you don't speak the language, or only speak it badly - that was me in 1965 in Vienna, where I'd gone to improve my German as an au pair girl. At first I was with a rather nasty family and could only communicate with them in a mixture of French and English as my spoken German was rubbish.

But I went to classes, immersed myself in the language, got a much better position with a lovely family, and within 6 months I was fluent, sounding almost like a local.

Language skills were my key to understanding the society, and fitting in.

I think it must be very similar with the Eastern Europeans.

We all used German all the time back then - even students with the same first language. Maybe we might morph into English occasionally, but the moment you had to use a German word, such as the name of a place, you sort of unthinkingly went back to German.

This is how it should be with immigrants to England. The key is more language classes, and giving people the encouragement and opportunity to access them.

Learning language and culture go hand in hand.

It's certainly a start isn't it? Although even if they all spoke perfect English, would that solve the 'numbers' issue?

I wonder whether their ministers will start insisting British incomers must know their language? - they already do.

Joan I so agree with you- but try and tell that to the 1000s of British immigrants to France, Spain and so called 'ex-pats' in Switzerland- the large majority of which live in a bubble and parrallel society- akin to a ghetto.
Why do Brits abroad call themselves 'expats'- and at the same time call others immigrants???

The only distinction I could draw was that those who had 'retired' there (whether they were retirment age or not) tended to refer to themselves as expats; those who were working there didn't really refer to themselves as anything to be honest (not that I heard them say anyway (I'm talking Spain mainly)).

I'm pretty certain the people of other countries have their own word for 'immigrants' and would use that word to describe the British that have migrated to their country.

Is immigrant a bad word now?

Wow. I live near Thetford and it's not at all like that. they bring our town centre alive, it's always busy and apart from woollies closing, you would barely know that there had ever been a recession. We have a few lovely families that have moved into our village and they come carol-singing with us. We also have a Spanish couple, what's the difference? Service in shops and restaurants is much improved, they have better manners! Children in the schools are very well integrated, I saw a small gang of them the other day all going off to the shops together. Every colour under the sun, and I thought, how lovely. DS's school all mixed - and you only have too see his facebook page full of unpronounceable names to know that his generation will make a huge difference as long as they don't have bigots for parents.

Yes, we do have shops and cafes that are full of eastern-european foods, but it must have looked just as odd to our parents when the first Indian and Chinese restaurants started up.

having lived in Lincs, I know there was antagonism between the Bostoners and the Portuguese. The Bostoners used to enter pubs frequented by Portuguese and beat them up, which was why the 'No English' signs went up in a couple. One lady put up a sign to her shop saying 'No English' and wondered why she had no English customers for her second-hand baby clothes - she meant, she didn't speak good English! So I wonder if she wasn't the only one to make that mistake. I really like Thetford's atmosphere. Outside tables at the cafes at the first hint of sunshine, it's lovely.

Granjura That "expats" vs "immigrants" comment is a very good point. I had never considered the implications of those different terms of choice.

I would say expats go to work for a bit, immigrants go to live in a country for good and those of us who move for retirement are sometimes called "lifestyle migrants". There are economic migrants too, of course. I never say expat, because it is too close to "expat lifestyle" as a concept and that gives me the horrors. I just think of myself as European really.

Don't other countries use the term 'ex-pat' if they go to live or retire in another part of the world, then?

I didn't think it was a British preserve.

All Anglo-Saxon countries do, actually, including the USA.

My point was that many 'expats' from those countries often say they left 'back home' because of immigrants who do not integrate, learn the language, live parralel lives in 'ghettos' - and then promptly do exactly the same where they now live. And yes, it does smack of hipocrisy to me. Back to the Raj? There are of course communities of Germans, Dutch and Swiss, etc- living in Spain, the Canaries and also Italy and France- who also make such comments as above, to be fair. The word 'ex-pat' is by definition, Anglo-Saxon though.

Mamie- I know expats from the USA and UK here who have been here for 10, 20, 30 years and more, and practically only have contact with other expats and hardly speak the language at all.