Immigration - A New Slant...

BrianH

BrianH

At the Start
Joined
May 3, 2003
Messages
6,108
Location
Banstead, Surrey
Guardian columnist Mike Molloy reports:

"I live in Ealing in west London, which is about as multicultural as it gets. Last week I visited the Cotswolds for a few days. When I got there I bought a local newspaper and was astonished. Like all regional papers it was packed with pictures of local residents, school groups and people taking part in youth activities.

All the faces were white. As they were in all the corner shops and petrol stations I called at. It was like being in an episode of Doctor Who where I had been transported back to the 1950s.

Eventually I talked to a farmer who had lived his entire life in the stunningly beautiful valley where we stood watching a flock of geese. The landscape looked as if it hadn't changed since William Morris first popularised the Cotswolds.

"Thinks don't alter around here," I commented.

"This place has changed out of all recognition," he countered with a shake of his head.

"How?" I asked, bewildered.

"All the newcomers" he answered.

"Newcomers? Where from?" I asked.

"Surrey," he replied darkly.
 
Tis true. You can hear the banjos stop playing and the sound of jaws smacking on the ground as people gawp at anybody 'different' in Faringdon. People are still giving me odd looks and I've been here since October.

There are two Indian restaurants, both owned by the same Indian family. Those people along with the couple who run Spar are the only black people in Faringdon. There are no black children at my kids schools or the school in the village where my daughter goes to nursery. This is so different to Milton Keynes where we came from.
 
I don't know why the man's surprised - if you visit any capital city anywhere in the world, you'll find a number of white faces among the variously non-white indigenous populations. Travel out into the rural areas, and whiteys find themselves besieged by curious children, and stared at by suspicious village folk.

It happened all the time I lived in Cornwall.
 
Who cares??

Who should care?

I couldn't care less what colour my next-door-neighbour is as long as they are don't frighten the horses... B)

Mind you, I'm with Brian's farmer - incomers from Surrey are definitely the worst.... :lol: :lol:
 
(1) Lowest crime statistics in the country

(2) More trees per square metre than any other county

(3) Much of the county in the green belt

(4) Won the county championship eight years on the trot and also seven years on the trot :lol:
 
and their very own bush fires Brian! B)

I was just down the road from Banstead on Sunday and saw a large field being "burnt off" which suddenly took hold with flames of approximately 3 to 4 foot height in places when the wind suddenly changed direction.

It was soon under control again but it caused quite a traffic jam on the Banstead road with so many people stopping to have a look. :blink:
 
Ah - Surrey - shortly to be the lucky recipient of the highest number of new homes per year to be built in the sahf - what is it, 2,380 per year for the next ten years, thanks to 'Pieboy' Prescott? :blink:
 
Yes, Big John has put forward a 20-year proposal to build 640,000 homes. It will come under the Southeast Regional Assembly. The main areas of concentration will be Milton Keynes, Ashford in Kent, the Thames Gateway and the Portsmouth-Southampton conurbation.

I think that they are worried that they couldn't afford the compulsory purchase of our gardens.
 
I'm surprised they didn't grab a few, just to be spiteful - I drove miles and miles down the wrong bloody 'charming country lanes' today, largely thanks to some git parking his stupid little car right in front of the tiny sign to Kirdford for the Normandie Stud, and I have NO idea how the south's mostly little roads are supposed to cope with another million or more cars during the next ten years!

Even our 3-lane Mways become 2 lanes every now and then, just for a bit of sport with the middle-lane hogs, I think, with Worthing and Arundel the most dreadful choke points for travel from the East to the West, coastwards. In only 5 years, my travel time to Fontwell has doubled - in 10 years, I'll need to schedule about 3 hours driving time, I think! (Though in 10 years, I'll either be brown bread or vaguely alive somewhere quieter.)
 
Originally posted by krizon@Jul 15 2005, 12:55 AM
In only 5 years, my travel time to Fontwell has doubled - in 10 years, I'll need to schedule about 3 hours driving time, I think! (Though in 10 years, I'll either be brown bread or vaguely alive somewhere quieter.)
Click to expand...
It'll be even worse the week after next
 
It was already worse than that today - went to Lancing to pick up my new specs (my optician moved there from Hove, not very convenient, but he's good), and took the Ancient Mater out AT LAST, before she atrophies completely in place in front of the telly. We went on to the restored Woodman Arms at Hammerpot, on the road to Fonty, and it took FOREVER to get through Worthing, Lancing, and then on the way back to Brighton it was just stop/start forever, finished off nicely with 'essential gas main repairs' holding up all the seafront traffic. What IS it about roadworks of any sort? Why must they wait until you've got thousands more cars in town for summer tourists, then rip up the main coast road - can't gas main repairs be done out of season? I can't help but think it's sheer perversity.

Alert for motorists using the A27 coast road to Goodwood: a speed camera has now been installed at the previously invigorating slalom at Hammerpot. It IS working and if you take the hill at over 60mph you'll be done.
 
Originally posted by BrianH@Jul 14 2005, 02:42 PM
(2) More trees per square metre than any other county
Click to expand...
How many trees do you need in each square metre then?? I find one is plenty enough! :D

Talking of bad traffic, was stuck on the M20 for over an hour on Friday morning as it was shut at Junction 8 - typically, I was wanting to come off at Junction 9! Being far and away the main route to Dover it was choc-a-block - it really is about time they did something about that stretch of road; the M26 should have been widened to 3 lanes years ago.
 
I look forward to leaving the beauty of Surrey to sample all the delights - or should one say the glorious delights? - of West Sussex next week.
 
Back
Top