racist_slur

In the year 2000 Thrybergh suddenly found itself in the middle of controversy, a plan was discovered locally that the Rotherham Council intended to place 180 refugees in prefabricated hostels to be built within the Village. A protest was lodged by residents who thought the plan was a frightening prospect, they feared it would create violence within the area , and from what they had read about these refugees [ in the tabloids of course ] their own safety was at risk.

I very much doubt the residents cared about where these refugees had come from, what they cared about was the impact 180 newcomers planted in the middle of an existing community as a separate segregated community [ and I use the word segregated carefully ] would have.

Now when you look at any large city or town where the community is divided into smaller communities in ethnic divisions, there is violence. The people of Thrybergh were right and sensible to suggest that the total 500 refugees should be integrated across the whole borough, and the word integrate is the key to the truth in what they said. People integrate better into an existing community as an individual family group. This is not threatening to any community, but to introduce a large number and place them in a compound type of dwelling area is segregating that group from the local community, it is also creating fear, and fear in such situations creates violence.
Of course the national newspapers and media jumped on the racist bandwagon and the witch hunt was on. Thankfully commonsense ruled the day and the plan was laid to rest.
There was one newspaper however that printed a realistic honest report and I reproduce that report here.

THE TIMES WEDNESDAY MARCH 15 2000

Villagers fight plan to take refugees
While ministers wrestle with asylum, locals are caught in the front line

The problem of how to deal with asylum-seekers has come to the village of Thrybergh with a vengeance.
Its name comes from the old Danish for the three hills upon which it stands and not far away are the ramparts of the Norman castle at Conisbrough, deep in Walter Scott's Ivanhoe country. Polish refugees fleeing Hitler's oppression found sanctuary in the South Yorkshire community three miles from Rotherham. As in most of Britain today there is a small community of immigrants from the new Commonwealth.
So the population of almost 4,000 take it badly when outsiders accuse them of racism for resisting plans to house 180 asylum-seekers in a prefabricated hostel there. Entrepreneurs are planning to cash in on the asylum crisis by offering quick-build hostel accommodation to local councils expected to provide housing for asylum-seekers. The buildings, which can be speedily erected and extended, are similar to basic utility hotels. Marcus I. Anglands Pearce, a property investor, is offering such units to councils.

"We are not racist," said John "Mac" Lyall, 65, a retired pub manager in Thrybergh who was in the RAF and Merchant Navy. "We welcome the arrival of asylum-seekers here, but not in the way Rotherham Council intends to do it.
"We believe they should be integrated individually across the whole community, not just dumped in one place, behind guarded doors in what is effectively some sort of remand centre." There is particular outrage at the manner of the hostel’s arrival. Two weeks ago details leaked out that the plan had been approved by the council's controlling Labour group and was to he approved at a full council meeting to be held shortly afterwards. Councillors later held two public meetings in the village.
"I believe that had there not been a leak, the first we would have known was when the builders arrived," Mr Lyall chairman of the Thrybergh Residents' Association, said. "It has to receive planning permission and we shall campaign against that. If they succeed we shall have to look to some form of legal challenge and that will require a fighting fund." Villagers are annoyed that the council picked a site close to sheltered accommodation for elderly people. Eight of the 34 bungalows at Wooton Court will front on to the two-storey hostel built on a green.

"These are elderly people, nervous of what is going to happen," said Alan Scholes, a parish councillor who was one of many people made redundant from the local steelworks last year. "The council has concentrated on emphasising the plight of these asylum-seekers.

We know they are not criminals, but the people have read stories about beggars and armed gangs. One pensioner has asked the council to brick up his windows."
Mr Scholes said that the villagers were happy to take refugees, but believed that the 500 due to arrive in the area should be integrated across the borough. Chris Broughton, Rotherham's head of housing services, said: "Asylum-seekers see our country as representing freedom and safety, not a meal ticket."

Paul Wilkinson

As can be seen, Paul Wilkinson the reporter above really did his homework on the area, to produce what was a fair assessment and report of the situation, without resorting to mudslinging. In all towns and villages in the world one can say there are a few bigots whom you could term as racist. However today the term is often abused as it was in the case of the good people of Thrybergh.
John Doxey

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