It's time to leave Jan. 19, 2007

I remember arriving in a favourite pub in Ambleside with Nisha, my fiancee then, a very beautiful mix of Mauritian, Indian and East African when the landlord’s wife leant up against the bar drawing on a cigarette her lips pursed and her hair up and her lipstick sticking with every chewed word coming to mind, coming right over to Nisha and saying “And what may I ask make are you?”.

To placate Nisha’s outrage I offered : “a very beautiful make, wouldn’t you say?” Can’t remember if we stayed long. But Nisha and the woman’s daughter became friends on a subsequent visit. All’s well.

I remember my big brother going on about “all the foreigners particularly the Poles and illegal immigrants coming over to take our jobs”.

“Not mine” I said bemused… “but we may need their input”.

In the light of all the Romanians about to come over, I recalled Brooks Mileson setting up a charity for Romanian orphans some years ago. “It could be amazing – some of those you helped could now be grown up and arrive in Cumbria to work in hotels and bars and land up serving you unbeknowns?!”
“No, the ones I helped will probably never leave their rooms, they were so damaged” Brooks said.

I watched the Romanian uprising on tv – when I might actually have been there. I thought it was one of the most amazing things to have happened in my lifetime. As sad as it may be for Romanian families and foster parents waving goodbye… I welcome the children of the revolution to enhance our manpower when they arrive in the UK.