North East welcome given to young immigrants

[Redwurzel]

Although the UK Government did not really want them some young immigrants escaped a city under miliatry siege and arrived in the UK for sanctuary and safety. Not Ukrainains but 3,800 children from the Basque region of Spain in 1937. Bilbao was under siege like some cities now in the Ukraine by an wanted military aggressor (Franco's Nationalists and Foreign Legion, Italian army under Mussolini, German Condor air force under Hitler). Desperate parents handed their children over to teachers and nurses to give their children a better chance of life than themselves thinking they would never see them again. The steamship Habana had to navigate sea mines, bombing and the threat of shelling from the Franco controlled Spanish Navy to escape from Spain. The Royal Navy showed up off the coast of Spain and the Spanish Navy with drew and the crammed packed Habana made it to England in one piece. Basque children were distributed to volunteers who had to find cash to show an totally unsympathetic British Goverment they could look after and keep the children. The attached article shows more detail how a small group of children were supported in a little corner of Teesside. I know a few of them stayed on Teesside and the N/E for the rest of their lives, one in later life became the banana buyer for the N/E Co-op. Occasionally, in recent times. a family group of Basques will turn up at Ormesby Hall, barely able to speak English, looking for anything about the good "Lady Ruth" who protected granny Maria or grandad Juan, when their grand parents were young and vulnerable and very scared, back in 1937/8.

A North East welcome for the Basque children in the 1930s

The North East welcomed Basque children fleeing from the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. We should welcome refugees now in the same spirit.

northeastbylines.co.uk

 

[fmttmadmin]

I met some of the exiles from the Spanish Civil War once when they were having a party - it must be 30 years ago now. There were several families in Middlesbrough and had basically lived all their adult lives here and raised their own children here. They were still a community and they had support through the St Mary's Centre on Corporation Road. Some came over in the years after the Spanish Civil War because of the grinding poverty experienced in Catalonia. My house mate's mother told us how she was forced to eat grass and wild vegetation as there was no other food.