One of the items on the agenda of electoral promises in the UK at the moment is the thorny issue of immigration, and of course everyone has an opinion.
Some remain generously open hearted with their thoughts and our borders, whilst some seem to take the view that enough is enough and let’s get England back to being British.
But isn’t it true that Spain has many of the same issues? Life is certainly changing in some parts of traditional Spain, and I often wonder how the very elderly townsfolk feel when they see their beloved community falling prey to the needs of other nationalities, who seem to have invaded their space, as younger people say.
In our small town, in northern Spain, there are no less than 7 Western Union Internet café’s run by dark skinned men dressed in long flowing robes, their compatriots gather aimlessly outside for hours on end, with nothing better to do than chew tobacco.
Queues in the supermarkets are lengthened to extremes not by chattering Senorita’s but with ladies dressed in equally long flowing robes, with their hair carefully shielded from unsuitable eyes. You don’t jostle for bargains round market stalls with a person from your street, they are from an entirely different country.
The quaint rusty old church bell is now competing for air time with the gentle wail of the call to prayer, reaching out across the town from a large old semi derelict building that finds itself resurrected with prayer mats and scrolls.
But from the East there also comes not particularly wise men. Blonde fair skinned males, joined at the hip by equally blonde, fair skinned, often stunningly pretty girls. The shops are already geared up to suit their palates.
Shelves in the lack lustre supermarkets are given over entirely to Polish breads, and tins of sausages with stranger sounding names than Bratwurst.
These visitors who stayed, favour different money transfer providers, and their internet café’s advertise the rates to Latvia and Russia. Our friends from the East, also have no purpose to their day which involves a different kind of fragrant tobacco to that which the Moroccans’ prefer
For sure this is a town of nations, which are not particularly united. There are precious few jobs for the Spanish menfolk of the town, and resentment is high that the more affluent favour those who do the job for the least amount of euros, no matter what nationality they are.
But what of the little Spanish lacemaking lady, sitting in her doorway criss crossing her bobbins, stopping every now and then to wave to passers-by, and the craggy faced ancient farmer who still insists on driving his rusty tractor into the centre of town to collect his gas bottle, and gives his own personal thumbs up to equally ancient hombre’s
Surely they too must feel that ‘their’ town is not their town any longer, just as to some, the green and pleasant land isn’t so English anymore.