Immigration in Hay

At the Baskie last Wednesday, I got into a discussion with a chap at the bar before the music began. He was very worried about "all these foreign immigrants" (is there another kind?). He worried about the rise in homelessness and the overcrowding in NHS hospitals, and thought it was because foreign immigrants were coming to the UK, when the country was already full up.
I have to say I was a bit sharp with him, because the rise in homelessness and the overcrowding in NHS hospitals has nothing to do with foreign immigrants coming to this country, and everything to do with Tory spending cuts.
Poor chap was really quite bemused by it all, and when I was leaving the bar I heard him ask a couple of other musicians if they thought there were too many immigrants in the country - to which they replied: "Nah!"
The acoustic session at the Baskie is actually a brilliant example to show how immigrants benefit the group they join. Ellie started coming along quite recently, and she has enhanced the group immensely, singing duets with Bob and introducing us to music we would otherwise never have come across, like the children's song in a strong Afrikaans accent - Ellie is South African.

Then I got to thinking about foreign immigrants who have come to Hay - and every one of them has enhanced the life of the town.
Norman Florence, who had the original idea for Hay Festival (now run by his son Peter), came from South Africa. Hay would have been very different if he had decided to live somewhere else.
Kitty is from Ireland, a journalist who has worked for the Festival, and interviewed guests on stage.
Sean is also from Ireland, and is a leading light in the Hay, Brecon and Talgarth Sanctuary for Refugees group and the Re-wilding, Biodiversity and Sustaining the Countryside group.
Marva is Canadian, and has organised arts events, and runs g-riots arts. Her daughter is a talented writer.
Mr Lee and his family have been in Hay longer than I have, running the Chinese takeaway. When his daughter Bic was a little girl, she used to walk my dog for me.
Mr Nagshbandi is a dentist - and we were in dire need of more dentists locally when he arrived in Hay.
Eklim is from Birmingham, but some of his staff at Red Indigo restaurant are from India and Bangladesh. How far would we have to go to find Indian food if they weren't here?
On the subject of food, there are also Gurkhas locally who have retired from the British Army and now make amazing Nepalese food.
There used to be a couple of young men from Thailand who cooked at the Blue Boar.
There was a French chef at the Globe for a while.
Françoise and Pierre are French, and Françoise has done a lot of work with local schoolchildren with art to appreciate nature. They have also put on cultural events in Hay.
Antoine and Juliette are also French - Antoine does something clever with computers and Juliette is a translator.
There was a Brazilian young man who was the boyfriend of a local girl, and did something connected to a puppet theatre.
There was a Dutchman who was involved in the book trade - Ivo?
And Elizabeth who now owns Booths Books and is very much involved in the renovation of the Castle, is American.

I'm sure there are more people who have come to Hay from other countries, that I'm not aware of (or have forgotten - this list is off the top of my head, and not definitive!).
My belief is that immigrants enhance the place they come to, and are a positive asset, and I think this is borne out by the evidence. Years ago Michael Portillo, himself the son of Spanish immigrants, made the same point in a Radio 4 series that looked at every group of immigrants that have come to the UK over a thousand years. Every single group brought positive benefits to this country.