“But then I came to the conclusion that no, while there may be an immigration problem, it isn't really a serious problem. The really serious problem is assimilation.” Samuel P. Huntington
In a departure from my usual style, I’m going to let someone else speak. Actually I’m going to let two other people talk instead. I bumped into Tadhg and Merlene the other night. This is a couple where two completely very different individuals on first glance. [If you judge people by external appearances.] But when they started to talk... I began to realise they had an early common experience that formed them into the people they are now.
Although today Tadhg and Merlene live together in London with their two children, and although both were born Londoners, neither lived in the REAL UK once their childhood front doors were closed....
Tadhg’s parents were from the Republic of Ireland, Merlene’s parents were from Jamaica. Ireland and Jamaica though thousands of miles apart have another startling fact in common. Only North America pips the UK for the largest populations of Irish and Jamaicans outside of Ireland and Jamaica. And yet curiously...the ‘old country’ does seem to come along and live in the ‘new’ with the immigrants and their families.
To be fair...being proud of your heritage and fear of losing it in a new country is something that drives all people. One only has to think of the British Raj not submitting to the indigenous way of life on the subcontinent despite being there for eighty years! But Tadhg and Merlene’s reminiscences made me realise that sometimes we export a little more than pride in our roots when we up sticks and live overseas.
Over to them...
TADHG’s STORY
“There were few opportunities in Ireland back in the 50’s, my folks came over to make a better life. If they could have stayed at ‘home’ in Ireland they would have. My family were obsessed with keeping things traditional. My dad and his brothers all emigrated and worked together. Their wives (who they all met here through the Catholic Club) became each others ‘sisters’ and us kids... well our cousins became our ready made social life. Being Catholic played a big part in everything, even school – everyone we knew was Irish... our doctor, our postman, our butcher, ...didn’t matter what there was always someone from ‘home’ who lived round the corner who did what you needed. We never integrated because we never had to, but also because my parents went to great lengths to protect us children from integrating. They thought their morals, values and principals were part of our heritage and culture and we shouldn’t dilute them. The worse thing we could be accused of would be of ‘going English on them’. To reinforce this we would spend our summer holidays in Ireland to visit every dead relations grave and have tea in every living relations house. We were seldom let off the leash but on the rare occasions we came across local kids in Ireland they would tease us mercilessly about our English accents and throw stones at us and jeer that we were not welcome in their country. Meanwhile back in England our house remained a shrine to Ireland down to the tricolour flying over the shed, the leprechaun door knocker, patriotic green furniture and ‘Danny Boy’ belting out of the stereo. It was kind of bizarre, our whole lives had been spent in one country but we were expected to behave as if we lived in another. Despite the fact that England was our home and England had been good to us as a family, England was something we did not experience on a day to day basis. I had an overbearing urge to be normal... to just stop standing out... to breathe the air of the in country of MY birth and I wanted to experience ENGLAND, so at 17... I left home. I was less than 5 minutes from the parental home...but in another country all together”
MERLENE’S STORY
“Rather like Tadhg’s parents mine found opportunities at home rather scarce. Unlike Ireland though, Jamaica was part of the UK...UK Overseas Department! . Back then the UK was plagued with labour shortages; the UK government looked to its overseas department for help and encouraged migration. Although not always welcomed by the locals, my parents still looked upon the UK as the ‘Mother Country ‘ and were given to acting a little like estranged children reunited with a slightly cruel parent. In the colonies all it took to be British was to take to your heart every British institution and to above all stay loyal. It was considered patriotic to work for state run companies, the NHS, British Rail, the GPO. In our house the BBC was the only broadcasting medium that had any authority – my parents acted almost wounded on behalf of the Aunty Beeb that ITV even existed! Although we were always encouraged to be proud of Jamaican heritage and culture, assimilating into my parents’ version of the indigenous culture was a key part of my upbringing. Radio 4 was always on, we were encouraged to pay attention to the annunciation of the broadcasters and had it drilled into us that we would not get on if we did not speak properly. Ghetto-ising ourselves was thought to be counter productive, so as soon as my parents were financially viable they bought a house out in the suburbs and wore our tiny demographic with pride. We spent most of our summer holidays in the UK seeing the scenery and historic monuments ... but we did do the big holiday to Jamaica to sit on relations sofas and be told stories about the old days. Either way, the local kids at home and abroad both thought of us a foreign and like Tadhg we had to dodge the stuff they threw at us! Official organisations like church and school were absolute authorities as far as my parents were concerned. The idea of maverick members of either was alien to them so although we were kept on a very tight leash these organisations had large role to play in our social lives. We attended the local suburban church which followed the same strand of the protestant faith (but somewhat more boringly!). The church run clubs including Brownies and the Guides which meant that we could socialise with children our own age and even go away on trips. School Journeys were also seen as allowable. My parents had a colonials unshakable trust in the ‘old country’ even though the country they were in bore no relation to it. Looking back I had a curious childhood, similar I should imagine to any ex-pat anywhere in the world. In the same way that a Brit living in Australia has a slightly nostalgic take on Blighty, so did my parents – the England they brought in their heads with them was not the one they arrived to find, but they lived in it anyway! I was desperate to try the REAL England by the end of my teens. I knew it was there...but my parents wouldn’t let it in. I left home at 19 and found it just outside the door”
So there you go... looking for England... while in it. I wonder how commonplace that is.? The UN claim 3% of the worlds population (191 million people worldwide) up sticks and live in a country other than the one of their birth. Obviously people will go on to have children in the new country. But Tadhg and Merlene made me wonder...are those children in the new country or the old one? Maybe sometimes behind the closed door of another house is another world.
Note to Tadhg and Merlene :
I’m so glad you found each other and I hope together you enjoy being actually in the England you saw outside your childhood windows but were never truly a part of.
Jax
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