It took me a long while to realise that I was fortunate to grow up where I did, in a diverse and multicultural community where everybody got along. I didn't realise that wasn't the norm.
As a child I had all manner of ethnicities and faiths around me. My next door neighbours to the left were a large West Indian family, friendliest folk ever. It would be harder to name a religion which wasn't represented in my neighbourhood than which was; my son now attends the school across the road from that very house and white kids are in the minority there. The closest local nightclub was a Caribbean Club.
My mother likes to tell a story of how when I was three or four years old I spotted a Rastafarian walking down our road. Apparently I pointed at him and told her to "look at that funny man". My mother asked what I thought was funny about him. I said it was his hat, then she tactfully pressed to see if there was anything she needed to talk to me about. I don't remember any of this but it turned into a guessing game where I asked if she meant his clothes, his hair... she was proud that the colour of his skin never occurred to me.
Every Sunday for most of my childhood I'd pop round to Patel's after church, the corner shop/newsagents just over the road. When my Grandad used to pick me up and walk me to his after school we would often call into Mrs Vohra's store and pick me up some sweets as a treat. I adored that woman, she always had a huge smile for me and I can still remember how her shop smelt (đ), almost forty years later. These people were essential to our community. In fact, about six years ago I went into Patel's for the first time since my teens, their kids (who are about my age) are running it now but we still recognised and remembered each other.
It's often the Sikhs who do a lot of the food drives and free kitchens for the homeless here. When covid hit and we had the first big lockdown who was it that came knocking door-to-door in my street to see if anybody needed any support/shopping or anything? Teens from our local mosque â€
So when I hear about conflicts between communities in other towns barely a ten minute drive away from my home city, it's sometimes difficult to get my head around. The same goes when I see the press or news stoking division, or read some of the awful ignorant things that go out on social media.
It doesn't matter where people are from, what their belief system is, the colour of their skin, none of that. People are either decent folk or they aren't. You get good and bad from all backgrounds, it really is that simple. Some of my best friends at high school were Hindu. My best friend when I worked for social services was Muslim. And it's an awful idea to think that I might never have connected with them if I'd been brought up somewhere else, somewhere more closed-minded or which deliberately stoked bigotry.
