Appalled at assumption
I was appalled at the sloppy journalism given front page space on the Ambler Issue 108.
The Editor had spoken to one person (who didn’t wish to be named) who talked about the people they had met whilst out walking. They didn’t say how many people they had spoken to but apparently ‘all of them’ had said that ‘quality of life, busy roads and immigration made them move.’
I moved here a year ago from South Yorkshire, selling my house for less that £200,000, not the £500,000 that your anonymous interviewee said that everyone had sold their house for. I had a friend who lived up here and so I had visited the area on many occasions and had fallen in love with the area, especially Amble.
I was struck by how friendly the people are, very similar to the people of South Yorkshire, the beauty of the area and the fact that Amble is a proper working town, not just a holiday town full of holiday homes I made the right decision to move. I love it here and I have made lots of friends by joining in various community groups.
Sometimes I miss Sheffield and I miss it because the city is buzzing with people of all ethnic backgrounds. There is a lack of diversity up here. Immigration certainly did not make me move. I find the article distasteful on two counts.
1. The interviewee assumes that everybody who moves up here feels the same, with a total lack of evidence and
2. The interviewee assumes that everyone who moves up here is against immigration.
Isn’t everyone who moves up here an immigrant in some way? I was reminded on the X18 once ‘You might live in Amble but you’re not from Amble’. Of course, the man on the bus was right and sometimes I struggle to understand the language up here! I may not look different, but I sound different.
Aren’t all of us ‘blow-ins’ immigrants? Aren’t we all guilty of double-standards when it suits us? The new people who have come to live in Amble and the surrounding area have chosen to live here for different reasons but we all have one thing in common. We chose to live here because we love it and we want to contribute to the continuing prosperity and growth of the area.
Let’s celebrate that.
Chris Herzberg
via email
