Tower and Town, September 2016

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Editorial: Immigration

A privilege of being an editor of Tower and Town is that one can choose the theme for the month and I guess all editors choose a subject that is currently close to their hearts.

Having recently spent ten days working with refugees and asylum seekers in the so-called “Jungle” in Calais, my heart has certainly been troubled by the issue of migration and what our responsibilities should be towards our fellow human beings who are fleeing conflict and oppression in their countries of origin; have uprooted themselves from families and everything that is familiar and loved in those countries; have undertaken impossibly difficult, perilous and long distance journeys at huge cost; and face a totally uncertain future.

I have invited four migrants to the UK and Marlborough and nearby to reflect on the issue of migration.

Lord (Joel) Joffe was a human rights lawyer in South Africa and a leading attorney in the team that defended Nelson Mandela and his ten co-accused at the Rivonia trial. Following the trial which lead to Mandela’s imprisonment on Robben Island, as opposed to the death penalty, Joel came to England as a political refugee and has lived at Liddington for many years.

Joe Anderson is Ghanaian by birth and came to UK in 1954 at the request of the Engineering company Halcrow and has lived in Marlborough since 1983.

Ilse Nikolsky migrated from Communist East Germany to Democratic West Germany and thence to Britain in 1970 and Marlborough in 1973.

Janneke Blokland chose to come from Holland to be trained as a theological student at Westcott House, Cambridge and is now the Curate at St Mary’s Church in Marlborough.

I am grateful to them all and to Hugh de Saram for his counterbalancing views on the Free Movement of People within the European Union.

Nick Maurice