race relations with wild food

[Andy Hamilton]

When myself and Emma went out yesterday picking the abundance of Blackberries that are around our area we walked passed a somalian family. (Round here there are quite a few imigrant families and many people are not big fans, to say the least). They saw us collecting the berries, smiled and then started doing the same.

We walked on and noticed that they were getting right stuck in. Emma gave them a punnet that we had picked and they were most greatful. The mothers english was not that good but we managed to explain that you could cook with them as well as just eating them straight off.

It was quite a special moment I just wish that some more of the people round here would do the same instead of moaning about the lack of intergration.

[Millymollymandy]

I wish my French neighbours could be so friendly, especially the grumpy old git who trespasses across my orchard to pick his walnuts that fall there from his neighbouring field.

If it was us, I would quite naturally ask the landowner for their permission to cross their land, and then give them some of the walnuts to say thank you.

But he won't even say hello unless you go right up to him and say bonjour, then you get a grunt in reply (if you are lucky).

[Shirley]

I've never understood this kind of thing... at the end of the day we are all people walking on the same planet.

Anyway - good on you for leading by example Andy - I bet it was a special moment for that family too.

[Camile]

I believe I should consider myself lucky then ..

Because me and my girlfriend are french .. living in Ireland .. and I have to say that we had the warmest welcome ever in the hamlet (14 houses, but only 12 with people living in it), in a secluded enough part of the west of Ireland.

And the neighbours keeps on giving us things ... starting by bags of turfs by the dozen (even though the shed is full of turf) .. always giving us plenty of hay ... bringing us the bread from a shop in town that gives away the almost out of date one that they can't sell .. bringing us bottles of wine and flowers because we treat them with some eggs from time to time .. everyone always stops for a chat and so on ..

"complimenting" us on the way we run our "smallholding" ... that it's gorgeous and they are happy to see the good old days coming back (with the cottage and all the animals) ..

Apparently I remind them of the old bachelor that used to live in the cottage before ... always with the dog (that looks like his dog) .. having a few samples of loads of animals ...

I have to admit that the 2 english couples living in Fartown had a harder time (sign of the past?) but are fairly well integrated by now ... and some of the neighbours told us they were glad we bought the cottage ... because some "Black people" came to have a look one day .. and I doubt that they would have integrated as we did ..

So I think the root cause of the problem is the color of the skin .. wich is completly pointless and sad and whatever other words you could use to show their stupidity ...

When will that change !? it should have already ...
Camile

[Andy Hamilton]

It can only change through intergration I think. The more that people realise that just because someone is French, black, American or Engish does not mean that you can't get on with them or at least find some common ground.

When I travel I have found most people to be welcoming as an English man there are sometimes predudices that I will be a beer swilling hooligan. I do like my beer but I would not call myself a hooligan. I remember once in Paris a man coming up to me and saying - " I like the Irish, the welsh and even the scottish but the English are pigs" I told him I was English and that he was offending me and he just repeated it.

[ina]

Goes on all over the world, doesn't it? In Mexico, I was treated with suspicion, because they thought I was American - until I tried my three words of Spanish on them and told them I was German - they couldn't have been nicer once they knew that. In Australia, some people treated me with the same kind of suspicion, because I had an English accent - until I became know as the funny German with the pommie accent...

But you are right, colour is an additional factor. There is only one "real" black farmer in Britain - he's famous nationwide as "The Black Farmer". I believe he had some problems at first, before he got accepted by neighbours and the farming community in general... Actually, there was a response to that in Farmers' Weekly - there is another black farmer, a woman... Well, only half black, so maybe it was bit easier for her. On the other hand, she's a woman, and that's not always easy either - if you want to be a farmer in your own right, and not a farmer's wife!

[Millymollymandy]

Ina - he featured on a TV series recently - we chatted about it on this forum but as you don't have TV I guess you wouldn't have watched it.