Barnes in Common

the magazine of Churches Together in Barnes
September/October 2005

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The CTiB Refugee Support Group

by Jane Sherwin

The Support Group held its last meeting in July, after some eight years of existence.

Newham, Haringay, Ealing, Brent... Barnes doesn't come high on the list of where asylum-seekers are to be found in London. However, there used to be two dilapidated houses in Castelnau, owned by a private landlord, which the Council used as emergency B & B. The big old rooms made them especially suitable to house a whole family who would sleep, eat and live in this single room, sometimes with an en suite bath and loo.

The B & Bs provided beds and bedding, heating and lighting, bathroom and cooking facilities but nothing in which to cook or on which or with which to eat and drink. The Support Group addressed these needs by collecting second hand items from the super-abundance of Barnes, including electric kettles, irons and televisions. This last item hardly a luxury if you are trying to keep four children quiet in a single room (they were not allowed into the gardens). For the adults too, a good way to learn or brush up their English. The children at school learned fastest.

We had Afghan familiies fleeing from the Taleban (two of them with the fathers left behind: one abducted, one "missing"). A third family had a home-made video of the professors of Kabul University hanging, like rotting fruit, from the lamp posts. There were persecuted Afghan Sikhs and Hindus. There were Kurdish and Christian families escaping from Saddam Hussein. Then, later, the Kosovan Muslims, fleeing decimation by the Christian Serbs.

Most of the people with whom these families came into contact, apart from the schools, were from the authorities, for whom they were a problem. We volunteers hoped that our support would not merely be practical but morale-boosting as well. The most valuable thing that we could offer was a smile of welcome and the possibility of their being cajoled into laughter.

So we had them dressed up and marching in the Barnes Fair Parade that first year, and then with the financial help of the BCA and the Barnes Workhouse Fund and various church coffee mornings, off to the Circus and the Sports Club Fireworks. They even came to one charity Players Pantomime dress rehearsal and were initiated into "Oh yes he is!" and "Oh no he isn't" and "Behind you".

But Barnes was only emergency housing, and the B & Bs have now been closed down. The families have moved on though there has always been one that has returned for the Barnes Village Fair, where we used to have a bring and share picnic in the early days; my egg mayonnaise sandwiches decidedly passed over for homemade samosas.

Many of the families benefited from the Home Office Amnesty last year and now have established Refugee Status. We wish them all well and remain friends with quite a few of them. We obeyed the Old Testament dictum to "care for the stranger within our gates" and we hope that in some small way we have fulfilled the spirit of the post-communion prayer: "May we who share Christ's body live his risen life; we who drink his cup bring life to others; we whom the spirit lights, give light to the world".

Incidentally, the two missing Afghani husbands, both thought to be dead by their wives, turned up. One was sprung from a Taleban prison by his father in law paying bribes, the other escaped into Iran.

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