Watching all the hate and division around migrants takes me back to my youth and one of my greatest friends. Why am I telling this? I hope to show a different perspective.
I grew up in an insular community, where the majority of people were white British and working class. So, I can still remember when I was 7 and a middle eastern family with three children moved in.
Those kids were sent to the same primary school as me, and the boy was in the same class. This wasn’t a bad school, but it certainly had a lot of rough kids.
Now, kids can sometimes repeat racist language because they hear it on telly or at home. You can imagine how some of the other kids reacted to these newcomers, I expect. Had it not been for my parent’s insistence that I should be his friend; I’d have joined the racist taunts.
This kid got a lot of that and often answered with his fists landing him in trouble. But there was a place where he wasn’t being picked on, and that was our house.
And we became really good friends who had each other’s backs and were always doing things together. The two of us were often up to some mischief.
I was a small, nerdy kid who struggled with sports, and easy prey to a lot of school bullies.
In fact, when I was 10, there was a particularly vile bully making my life hell.
This friend would respond by attacking back. At the time I was a library assistant and used to let him hide from the mob there sometimes. I saw the hate and racism he got in that community second hand.
Unfortunately, we were deliberately split up in secondary school, so our friendship wasn’t so strong. I watched him join the rebels on the school bus while I was trying to be a good kid.
We parted ways after secondary school. I found out years later he had mental health problems and committed suicide through a note in the local paper. Could I have prevented it if I was still around?
I like to think he could have talked to me in the dark times.
What remains is a memory of when I witnessed what hate and intolerance can do.
Beth writes 