This excellent piece, particularly Thaer Ali’s experience, reminds me of a short anecdote from a Basque child refugee, Roberto, who coincidentally also lived in Yorkshire, that I wrote about in my dissertation... https://twitter.com/rain_later/status/1260196088717496324

He had been in Britain for 4 years when he wrote in a small reflective piece in the refugees’ self-published magazine, Amistad, that the people of Yorkshire had qualities that reminded him of ‘our sturdy basque people’...

Roberto loved the use of ‘proverbs’ which he assured his fellow refugees could not be easily translated into Spanish. He was told by many of his new friends that he was developing a Yorkshire accent; and so he was beginning to find comfort in his new surroundings and home...

Significantly, for Roberto the hilly countryside of the Yorkshire Pennines reminded him of his home, where houses at the bottom of the hill scattered the landscape in a similar manner to Basque caserios (farmhouses)...

His experience is a short and poignant reminder of how ‘space’ and geography are pliable to refugee needs and desires and allowing them to build upon their own existing narratives and find commonality in a new environment which can otherwise feel hostile and alien.

I should add that I don’t think Northamptonshire and Yorkshire are actually close and I didn’t mean to add ‘also’ in my initial tweet!