General Chat

When I was 6 weeks old, we moved from Sussex to Wales - my sister (4 years older than me) went to a primary school where they taught in Welsh - even I can still count to 5 in Welsh!!!
When I was coming up to 5 - we moved from Malta to Scotland. My sister (I do feel for her) was told by a teacher that 'The English only spoke the way they did to put the Scottish down'
..I went to school with a perfect Scottish accent for the area - a good survival tactic!

The general thought was that we were English 'interlopers'.
We were just a family whose father was in the Fleet Air Arm, and whose mother refused to live in married quarters, Not only were we 'branded' interlopers, we were also 'branded' as gypsies as we lived in a lot of caravans!!
Okay so there wasn't a major war on at the time, but had there been, my dad (and the family by proxy) would have been much more welcome!

I (born in Sussex) now live in Hampshire. My sister (born in Hampshire) now lives in Sussex. My elder brothers (born in Malta - branded illegal immigrants by Thatcher) now live in London/Somerset and Hampshire.
Genetically we're all 100% English (okay I'm not sure about my dad's dad) - going back to 14th century.
.....Yet I have been racially abused - told to 'Go back to where you came from'; called a 'N*gger (I had a very olive skin as a young woman - result of illness - the 'afro' perm didn't help! LOL)
Sister suffered 'nationalistic' abuse and brothers decreed by a government as illegal immigrants because they were born abroad because their father was working for the government!!

So who is an immigrant - what makes them one? Are they 'permanent'?
What am I? Who is Sylvia etc etc??

..........Can you always tell?........

Lynda, I am Welsh from both sides I can't even find mine let alone yours...lol

lol Muffy...chicken!!!

x

My Dad was born in Wales ( as was my Nanna ) but he moved when he was one to London.........does this make me a quarter Welsh ?

I was going to call her Myfanwy..but i didn't fancy calling it out in the park when we went for walks :0)

Out do Muffys dog }}}}}}}}}}

I have a Welsh doll and a Welsh ornament,,,
bought on Welsh soil........,,,,,,,,,

I bet you will Sue,:}}}}}

My dog is Welsh :0)

Kay, he is actually very nice and has helped me out a few times by contacting the minister responsible for whichever department I was having a moan about.

I didn't recognise the woman who questioned him about immigration, no doubt I'll hear more in the local Post Office next week..lol

You can't do/say anything here without it being a day's gossip!

Sue x

Although I class myself as an Essex girl, I was born in cambridge and raised in and around Ely for the most part, though large chunks of my childhood were spent in East London, Hampshire and Somerset. I was never quite 'local' though even then.

But I moved to Essex, and was accepted there right away, I've always felt at home there, and class myself as 'local' as did everyone else.

Now I'm back to the old situation of being the outsider again. Never mind, only 13 years to go...lol

Talking of Welsh speakers. When I was in Cearnafon, I walked into a shop where the assistants were having a good gossip in english. As soon as I walked in the conversation stopped abruptly, then continued in Welsh! It didn't go down well with my then husband lol

In Otley West Yorkshire you never lose the term "outsider"

I know a family that lived in Otley from 1939 and daughters still live there and they are still classed as outsiders.

Their mother and the son and daughters were evacuated there at the start of WW2 and when the mother died in 2006.some of the people said"well she was an outsider""

My late husband was born and bred in Otley but his ancestors came from Northallerton North Yorkshire and Hartlepool.
I lived there from 1997 and when he died in 2002 the neighbours and some of the town folk made my life a misery because I wasn't born there.


It's a very cliquey market town.

Crutch

Youll be banned from voting if he aint got a sense of humor,,:}}}}}

did he have any laughter lines or a crinkle here or there,,,,,,,ha.

Teresa.......you are SO right on that one ....lol . I wasn't born in Norfolk but have lived here for 37 years . My OH was born just up the road from where we live at the moment , we have been living together in this house for 18 years ( I was here first ) and he has just recently started talking to folks up and down the road , he has nodded to them in the past . But has a bee in his bonnet about the " being local " thing.

To be fair there is a lot more Wenglish spoken here now but 25 years ago..not. It was quite common in smaller villages not to be acknolwedged in shops if you spoke to them in English.

As Rose mentioned some jobs are open only to Welsh speakers even now. It's accepted that the language of business is English but because the Welsh language society is so prominent they do have a lot of influence.

I mentioned before that my expected grandbaby will be raised bi-lingual because the best schools are still Welsh language in the main.

Sue

Yep. I can go with that TW.
I live on the Norfolk/Cambs borders...as you know..been here almost 6 yrs and I'm still known as the *Cambridgeshire Cockney*...

I'm not even a bl**dy cockney..I'm from W London...blinking locals LOL xx

Acceptance rate is faster there than over this side of the country then Sue. It' takes about 20 years to be fully accepted in Norfolk.

(sit down all you Norfolk protestors, you know it's true LOL).

You can 'integrate' here quite easily, but you're always the outsider for a good many years. Less so in Norwich, as it's quite cosmopolitan here these days, but in rural areas it's still true. my Dad lived in rural Norfolk for 30 years, but it took him about 20 to be seen as 'local'.

Not now Stray, but he could and read it very well when he was younger...probably forgotten most of it now though like me he can pronounce the double 'll's and know that 'f' is pronounced v and double f is f lol .

It was interesting to watch his facial expressions as she continued to rant, you could feel the atmosphere in the room change. It was like watching a slow motion car crash.

I watched his campaign manager shift her feet about...A LOT.

I am no longer an immigrant as I have been here over 25 years and can speak Welsh..although with difficulty..lol I knew I had been sort of accepted when a staunch Nationalist sold me their house (they had always said they would never sell to an incomer). As our children are all fluent in Welsh and I went to Merched Y Wawr (WI) cooked and knitted for the local farmers when they helped us out we were accepted within about 3 years.

I still suffer abuse though when the rubgy is on because I support the English :-))

Sue

oh does dan speak welsh then? xxx

Not in the same sense Stray, not as an 'immigrant' as such but sometimes as an 'outsider' lol

when Dan was in school his lessons were in Welsh, and some jobs are only open to Welsh speakers. The first language you hear on the station announcements is Welsh, and S4C is the Welsh equivalent to C4 on tv.

would you be classed as an immigrant in wales, seeing as its the UK, and ya dont need a passport to visit or live in that country sorta thing lol,

i no what i mean if it dont make sence lol,xxx

I have been an immigrant in Wales .... several times in fact...

back in the early 60s and when i was the only English child in the village,my mother was informed by the district nurse that if any diseases came to the village it would be my fault for bringing them in ;)

what's that saying ? "Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose" ...I never did learn to say it in Welsh...I can still count to ten though and pronounce place names reasonably well lol.