Finding Home

The Real Stories of Migrant Britain

Emily Dugan

• Publisher: Icon Books
• Year: 2015
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781848319103
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

Award-winning reporter Emily Dugan's Finding Home follows the tumultuous lives of a group of immigrants, all facing intense challenges in their quest to live in the UK.Syrian refugee Emad set up the Free Syrian League and worked illegally in the UK to pay for his mother to be smuggled across the Mediterranean on a perilous trip from Turkey. Even if she survives the journey, Emad knows it will be an uphill struggle to get her into Britain.Australian therapist Harley risks deportation despite serving the NHS for ten years and being told by theHomeOffice she could stay. Teaching assistant Klaudia is one of thousands of Polish people now living in Boston, Lincolnshire – a microcosm of poorly managed migration. Aderonke, a leading Manchester LGBT activist, lives in a tiny B&B room in Salford with her girlfriend, Happiness, and faces deportation and persecution.Dugan's timely and acutely observed book reveals the intense personal dramas of ordinary men and women as they struggle to find somewhere to call home. It shows that migration is not about numbers, votes or opinions: it is about people.

CHAPTER 1

The bus

In Bucharest, a new life in western Europe begins at 4am in a draughty waiting room opposite McDonald’s. It is one of thousands of locations around the world – drab, prosaic and exotic – where the long journey to Britain starts.

As the first four coaches of 2014 line up under floodlights, crowds of families gather to send off their relations on a long journey across the continent. The names of European cities are barked out and luggage-laden people shuffle forward, tickets in hand. The busiest bus is going to Hamburg, closely followed by others to Paris and Zurich.

The first coach to London in the New Year – a 52-hour journey – was expected to be the moment that a flood of migrants to Britain materialised. Excitable newspapers reported for weeks beforehand that Romanians’ unfettered access to working visas would result in a mass invasion, with coach loads arriving daily.

But only one person getting on at the start of Eurolines route 441 is going all the way to London.

Most are off to Germany, Belgium and Holland – where work restrictions for Romanians and Bulgarians have also been loosened, seven years after the countries joined the EU.

Mihai drags his suitcase into the hold and climbs aboard. He is 29 and has been working in construction in London for the last year without papers. His shaved head makes him look tough in the half-light, but his easy smile dispels the image quickly.

For Mihai the biggest change in 2014 is not the first opportunity to work in Europe – but his first chance to get the minimum wage. ‘Because I don’t have papers the bosses take advantage,’ he says. ‘When I first came to the UK a Romanian man lied to me. When the boss paid us on Fridays, everybody else had their pay in an envelope but mine wasn’t. I found out this guy had taken my envelope and was taking his cut from it so I only got £50. We had a fight and I never got my money back. He made me steal copper pipes from sites and take them to the Caledonian Road. I told the boss about his stealing and now he is gone and I get paid directly.’

He still works for the same building company and feels vulnerable to people taking advantage. He doesn’t trust the men he works with. This year, he says, will be different. ‘I want a National Insurance number so much. I want it to work, not to take benefits. We work more than ten hours a day and my boss pays £60.’

He understands the bad press some migrants have received and sometimes shares British prejudices against his compatriots. ‘Nobody wants them but I understand because there are a lot of Romanians and Bulgarians who do bad things. They are stealing and killing for drugs. Because of them, we who work get a bad reputation. There are a lot of poor people in Romania and it makes them bad because they are desperate. When people ask: “Where are you from?” and I say Romania, they run away. They think you’re a gypsy.’

Mihai works in King’s Cross and lives in Hendon, north London, in a flat with twelve other builders, most of whom are from Romania. He was home in Bucharest for Christmas to see his partner Roxana and their four-year-old son, Mario. ‘I want to bring my girlfriend and child to England. I miss them very much and it makes me cry because I love them so much, but the rent is a problem.’

To rent even the tiniest flat for him and his family would leave almost no money under his current wage and make saving for a better life impossible. It could also be even harder for his family to get food and other essentials than it would be back in Bucharest, where the cost of living is relatively cheap.

In Romania he worked as a driver and was in the army as a fireman but he says that did not make enough money to keep a family. The minimum salary in Romania is 850 lei a month, about £160. ‘People leave Romania for one reason only: money,’ he says. ‘It’s the hope for a better life.’

Mihai taught himself English watching the Cartoon Network and 90s films (his favourite is Titanic). He has also worked in France and Italy but likes London best and hopes one day to make it a proper home. That does not make him unfamiliar with how rapidly things can go wrong in Britain. ‘I have a friend who lived under the bridges in London. He tried to find work and was washing dishes but he had nowhere to live. He started working for some Albanian guys selling drugs. When you’re that desperate for money it pushes you to do bad things. Now he’s back in Romania and says it’s too hard to make a living in the UK.’

The 1,600-mile bus trip is favoured by many since it costs under £100 and you can take more luggage than on a plane. The first five hours are spent navigating hairpin bends on single-lane roads covered in black ice. It is still dark but the mountains are lit by a dusting of ice reflecting back the moonlight. Gazing out, Mihai says, ‘I’m going to miss this. It’s so beautiful.’

His eyes prick with tears after calling his partner and son. ‘My girlfriend is crying,’ he says. ‘I didn’t let her see me off because it’s too hard. I’ll try everything to bring her next time. In a situation like this you realise how much you love somebody.’

Sitting at the back of the bus are Vali Draghici, 40, and Julian Oprea, 29, from Buzău. They are going to Frankfurt to work in steel welding and construction. Vali tried to work there two years ago, but without papers he was exploited, he says. A Romanian agent promised him 1,500 euros a month but paid only 700 the first month and then nothing in the next. Vali says: ‘We only stayed for two months last time because the pay was bad. But this time it’s eight euros an hour.’

Despite being victims of it themselves in Britain, casual racism is common among the passengers. Over a lunch of gruel at a rest stop, Vali asks: ‘Why don’t the English want us? There are other immigrants in the UK like Indians and niggers so why don’t you want Romanians and Bulgarians? We are better.’

Marin Ninca, 58, is one of three drivers working on rotation on the coach. He has been a driver for almost 45 years and has noticed little change in the numbers going to and from Europe over the last decade – despite the recent hype. ‘There’s no difference. All the routes I make I go with a full bus and I come back with a full bus. I take people to work and I bring them back when they’ve collected their money. Germany, Holland, Belgium, they are all more popular than Britain. They are the most well-known places to go.’

At 2pm the bus reaches Deva, the shabbiest city so far: crumbling brutalist apartment blocks fed by huge rusty pipes, dirty roads, dilapidated houses. Later, as darkness falls, the coach arrives at the north-western Romanian city of Arad, the last place to collect passengers before the journey across Europe begins. Families seeing off relatives are caught in the headlights, their smiles cracking and turning to grimaces as the bus pulls away.

Most of the 50 passengers are returning to existing homes in western Europe, where some have been living for decades. The loudest is a 32-year-old brunette who calls herself Pamela. Her real name is Alexandra Benitez-Pozo. She lived in Barcelona for twelve years and, since last summer, Cologne, making money as a pole dancer and sex worker.

She is on her way back from a Christmas break with her family in Bucharest. Her boss gave her ten days off, and to save money she has spent five of them on a bus. She leaves her four-year-old daughter, Esthella, with her sister in Romania.

‘I’ve been a go-go dancer for twelve years and I can’t lie, I do a bit of prostitution to make money. I can make 200 or 2,000 euros a night. I send home about 800 euros a month – that supports my mother, father, sister and two nephews.’

She has family in Britain, but prefers to work in Germany where prostitution is legal. ‘I have two brothers, one in Manchester and one in London,’ she says. ‘The one in Manchester has babies and works as a cleaner. The one in London steals and takes drugs. He was there a year and nobody helped him, so he steals.’

She interrupts the journey periodically to shout criticism at the driver, or exchange ribald jokes with a group of builders who have gathered at the back of the bus to keep her company. ‘You can’t afford me,’ she keeps reminding them.

At a rest stop just before the Hungarian border, several people get off and change their last fistfuls of leis into just a couple of €5 and £5 notes. Once all the passengers are back on board, Pamela passes around a large brown envelope, demanding three euros each to bribe the border officials. ‘Otherwise we’ll wait hours while they search our bags.’ Everyone pays up.

As it turns out, it isn’t the luggage that delays things. When border police get on the bus they stop at the seats of an unlikely couple. Aziz, a man from Afghanistan in his thirties, travelled from Bucharest with a very young woman, Georgiana, and they argued for much of the journey. The ID Georgiana hands to officials is cracked in half along the photograph and stuck together with Sellotape. When they take her off the coach, Aziz stays inside, staring ahead impassively. It turns out she’s seventeen and travelling on her older sister’s card. Strict laws to prevent trafficking mean it is illegal for her to travel without a parent or papers proving parental consent. The consensus on the bus is that she was being taken to Belgium to work as a prostitute, but Aziz says later that he met Georgiana in his cafe in Antwerp and that they were just on holiday visiting her family in Bucharest.

After three hours of deliberation, Georgiana’s luggage is taken off the bus and Aziz leaves her with a few euros. As it pulls away, Aziz stares resolutely ahead. She’s left standing alone in the cold, sobbing.

Twenty minutes into Hungary, the sound of retching brings the bus to an abrupt halt. A Dutch tourist has guzzled half a litre of Pálenka, Romania’s moonshine, and coated the back of the coach in vomit. The driver is apoplectic. ‘Baggage! Passport!’ he barks, before dragging the drunkard from his seat. The man, who can barely stand, shouts ‘fuck you’, but stops fighting when he sees how angry the driver is. He is jettisoned at a dark petrol station in the middle of the freezing night.

Every passenger has a story of separation, a sacrifice made for a shot at prosperity. Roxana, 28, who joined the bus in the mountain city of Sibiu, Transylvania, is leaving Romania for the first time. Roxy, as she likes to be called, has left her husband Laurentiu behind while she takes a job in London as a live-in au pair. ‘We’ve been together five years and we’ve never been apart,’ she cries, tissues clasped in her lap. They married in 2012 and her phone is full of smiling pictures of them. ‘Look!’ she says proudly, comparing recent photos to one on their wedding day. ‘My cooking made him bigger.’

At the top of her handbag is a velour heart-shaped pillow with a silhouetted couple dancing on it and the words ‘love you for ever’ written in Romanian. Periodically she picks it up and holds it close. In another’s hands it might seem tacky, but it was a parting present from Laurentiu and when she hugs it she can almost feel him there with her.

Roxy is leaving behind a good job in a restaurant which paid 1,000 lei (£185) a month, not enough to start a family. ‘In Romania you have to work so hard for little money,’ she says. ‘I’ve prayed every day. I thank God I’ve been given a chance to change my future. I wish to make children but I don’t have money to buy a house. Once I have money I can come back, buy a house, make children and be happy.’

She got her new job as an au pair to five-year-old twins after she was recommended by a friend who had previously worked for the family. She’s already spoken to them on Skype and is optimistic. ‘The twins are very sweet. On Skype the kids say “Roxy, Roxy!” and kiss the computer. I can’t wait to meet them. I think they are a nice family and I am very lucky.’

All she knows is that their father will meet her at Victoria coach station. Her own family history is less rosy. Her mother died when she was thirteen and her father turned to drink. He flew into drunken rages, she says, and would disappear for weeks, leaving her to bring up her four-year-old younger sister. Roxy was forced to bake cookies in the evenings after school to sell and support the family. At fifteen her father once beat her so hard that she was in a coma for a week, she says. ‘But he’s ill now and dying so I have forgiven him.’

Roxy’s travelling companion from Deva is Mihaela Sirbulescu, 24, who is on her way to Rotterdam, where she has lived since she was nineteen, making flower bouquets. She first went there with a Romanian boyfriend but around six months ago he broke up with her and now leaving home after a Christmas break is harder than ever. Though she and Roxy have never met before, the two talk softly together, ahead of a journey that is making them both apprehensive. ‘Nowhere is better than home,’ Mihaela says later. ‘In the beginning it was good but since my boyfriend ended things it just doesn’t feel like home. Yesterday I cried all day, from eleven in the morning until eleven at night. It just hurts too much to go.’

Through Hungary and Austria, Romania’s single-lane roads are replaced with fast motorways. The coach speeds through the night. Once the sun is up we are in Germany. In Frankfurt, a dozen people get off. As the bus nears Cologne, Pamela gets changed and puts on make-up, ready for a night with clients. ‘Today I go back to work. Tonight I will finish at around 7am. Then it’s Friday and Saturday and it’s open all the time. What can I do? If I don’t work I don’t get paid.’

In Cologne, five people change coach for the last leg to London. Four of them are Romanians: Roxy, Mihai, and two brothers in-law from Turnu-Severin, Romeo Dinescu, 33 and Gelu Ipsas, 39, who have been working as builders in London since 2009. The fifth person is Mark de Groote, 24, a Dutch jewellery maker living in London, who is returning from holiday in Romania. Roxy has to wait longest for all her bags to come off the coach. ‘I didn’t know what to buy or what to take,’ she says, looking abashed. The indecision seems to have resulted in an unfeasible amount of baggage – three suitcases and a carpet bag. One of the bags, she says, is just shoes.

On the new coach Roxy is told that her four suitcases are too many, and that she will have to pay a ten euro charge. Her face blanches. With only a few cents to her name she starts to panic. But other passengers step in and soon the cases have been spread among the group.

The bus is already almost full of people looking settled into the journey. When many refuse to give up the spare seats next to them, Roxy looks more nervous than ever. Such unfriendliness wouldn’t happen in Romania, she says.

After dropping off people in Brussels, the bus arrives at Calais at 2am. Wind and rain lash the windows. A neon sign flashes ‘The port of Calais wishes you a Happy New Year 2014!’ The ferries are delayed because of the storms and in the normally calm port, the waters rage. Roxy is afraid of the sea and has never been on a ferry before. As the coach pulls onto the ramp she looks wide-eyed at the tempestuous water below.

Inside the boat people stagger around, holding onto rails as it is buffeted across the Channel. As the waves get bigger Roxy excuses herself to the bathroom and comes back white-faced.

In the hope of perking people up, Roxy offers to buy coffees, which at service stations in Romania cost one lei (18p). On her way back from the Costa bar with a latte and an espresso she looks shocked: ‘This is a day’s work in Romania,’ she says, aghast.

At 4am the bus comes off the boat – and is hauled straight to an enormous warehouse for a full baggage search. Only then can the bus finally leave for London.

But minutes after passing the White Cliffs it turns around and comes back again. The steering is broken and everyone must wait for a replacement coach that has space for just 30 of the 40 passengers. When the new bus arrives a stampede of people rush through the heavy rain clutching their belongings. Inside, Roxy looks out at the streaming windows and laughs: ‘Welcome to England.’

The bus is freezing while the engine is off but there is a CCTV camera above almost every seat. ‘They have cameras but no warmth?’ she asks, incredulously.

As London starts to go by, she smiles with recognition at the red buses and looks excited. Peering up at the dark buildings, Mihai recalls the first time he stepped out in this new city. ‘I was so lost; all the buildings are made with red bricks and it was hard to remember where I was because everything looked the same.’

As the coach turns into Victoria, though, Roxy holds her red pillow closer and looks frightened. ‘My heart is going like this,’ she says, tapping her chest fast. Mihai stays to make sure she meets her new family safely. A man in a hoodie walks past twice before deciding that Roxy is the woman he is looking for. This smiley man is her new boss, Jas, a 45-year-old jewellery importer from Ealing, west London. He proudly shows phone videos of his five-year-old twins, Rohan and Karena. Back out in the rain, Mihai and Roxy follow him around the corner to a silver Lexus where her cases are piled into the boot.

On seeing Roxy go, Mihai looks unsure of himself. Standing on a rainy intersection, he turns on his heel and begins to head back to the bus stop and a night in a house with twelve workmates he still struggles to c...

Table of contents

• Copyright Page
• About the author
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• Prologue
• Chapter 1: The bus
• Chapter 2: Ummad
• Chapter 3: Harley
• Chapter 4: Clive
• Chapter 5: Hristina
• Chapter 6: Emad
• Chapter 7: When Harry met Sai
• Chapter 8: Hassiba
• Chapter 9: Aderonke
• Chapter 10: Boston
• Epilogue
• Acknowledgements
• References
• Back Cover