"I once recall walking down the fields near the estate where I lived one summer's day with a few friends during the long school holidays.We were aged 9/10 at the time and would make bows and arrows with which to have battles. We obviously had little regard for our own personal safety at the time in the games we played, as the tip of every arrow would have a dart inserted. Half-way towards a wood we were walking to, where we planned to acquire straight stems of willow that could be used to fashion arrows, we passed a sheep that had got its head stuck between a boundary fence of barbed wire. Naturally, we freed the poor creature and I can still see it run back to the rest of the flock bleating as though it was yesterday.
It was so natural to respond as we did then in 1952.To see any creature who is trapped and removed from the benefit of their family and natural resources is too bad a situation to see unaltered as one passes by and continues to go about their daily lives. Imagine therefore, what it must be like for any other trapped creature to experience that however many others see them in their struggle for freedom, they will all walk by without lifting one hand to ease and assist their plight?
It is very hard for any poor parent to raise children today. How much harder, therefore, is it for a mum or dad to see their children constantly sick, scared and starving and know that there is little hope of a better tomorrow? To look at a parent who is forced to live in rubble-surroundings and put their children to bed nightly in a war zone where gunfire can be heard from dawn to dusk is to see a creature who is prepared to jump through any gap that offers instant freedom for themselves and family. And yet, travelling through continents barefoot and hungry, crossing perilous seas in overcrowded crafts that sink more often than get to shore, all in the certain knowledge that should you as a family somehow survive, you will most likely be unwelcome immigrants; all this risk is better than staying put and doing nothing!
When next tempted to think unkindly upon those who choose to migrate to greener pastures when their land grows barren and denies access to only the most powerful, privileged and wealthy, think how you would act were you in their situation before you start to apportion blame. This is not to argue against Brexit, which I wholeheartedly support, or to fail to recognise that we are a small country with a total land acreage that cannot possibly sustain 'unmanaged' migration any longer. It is simply to try to shift the blame away from such a parent deciding to up roots and leave the land where they live when times become too hard and too dangerous for them and their family to stay.
For it is the most natural part of any parent to seek improvement for their offspring where it can be found. To do any less is to neglect the children one brings into the world and to ignore their persistent hunger, fear and suffering. In many ways, such migrants are the new pioneers of the New Millennium and we are the hostile natives protecting our land and sacred burial sites from all newcomers." William Forde: November 9th, 2017.