The Red and the Grey
Petronella Wyatt
W hen I was nine, my father wrote a children's book called The Exploits of Mr Saucy Squirrel. This talking animal was based on the squirrels we saw emerging from their dreys in the trees outside our house in Wiltshire. Mr Saucy Squirrel could not have been more British, or rather English, in his habits. He wore fancy waistcoats, rode a bicycle and went up to London to stay at the Hyde Park Hotel. From this, you would assume that he was the old kind of English squirrel people call a red squirrel. But he was not. Mr Saucy Squirrel was an immigrant grey squirrel. Like the Little-endians and Bigendians in Gulliver's Travels, the immigration debate is divided into the Red-squirrelians and the Grey-squirrelians.
The Red-squirrelians complain that the English and their culture are being wiped out by the Grey-squirrelians, whose dangerous pro-immigrant views are ruining the country. Enoch Powell is the hero of all Red-squirrelians.
Sometimes, Mr Saucy Squirrel was asked if he was 'a good English squirrel'. He would reply, `Dear me. I'm always being asked that question. I am sorry to have to tell you, but my family came from America at the turn of the century. We are not the old kind of English squirrel, but we've been here a long time now.
And I'd also like to correct,' Mr Squirrel would say, drawing himself up to a very full height, `I'd also like to correct the untrue story that we foreign squirrels drove out the English red squirrels. We did not.
`What happened was that the English squirrel was dying out in many parts of the country when my family arrived. We just took over in various places that they had already left. We don't quarrel with English squirrels at all. We eat the same food but we don't fight over it.'
Mr Squirrel wasn't quite right but very nearly so. The grey squirrels, like some of our immigrants, were cleverer than the red. They had a way of getting the best sites and places to find food. According to squirrel experts, that probably put the reds off living in the same areas. Even so, grey squirrels didn't always move into places that the red squirrels had left.
The red squirrels didn't have to go at all. The grey squirrels didn't attack them. Grey squirrels are now almost everywhere in the southern part of England, except East Anglia. The red squirrels still exist, mostly in the north of England, Scotland and Wales.
'But don't get me wrong,' Mr Saucy Squirrel would go on. 'We are now properly naturalised English squirrels. I don't sing "The Star-Spangled Banner", I sing "God Save The Queen":
This is where David Blunkett is right and where the Red-squirrelians are wrong. Immigrant families to Britain do, inevitably, feel British after a period of time. I am half immigrant myself and my veins course with only the smallest drop of English blood. But like converts to the Catholic Church, I often find myself more sentimental and optimistic about this country than those who are more British by blood.
And yet I never lose the sense of a part of me having come from Hungary. Does this detract from my character or conduct? I do not think so. Any English reserve is subordinated to a Continental enthusiasm which enables me to do and say things which I would otherwise not. My Britishness is enriched by another culture, and, indeed, strengthened by it.
If the Red-squirrelians thought about it, Britain would have failed to evolve as dynamically in its intellectual and political life without its historic policy of assimilating foreigners. Normans saved us from chaos. In the 18th century, there were quite a few black faces in London. Racism did not exist. When Dr Johnson's black servant married a white girl, no one raised an eyebrow.
In the 19th century, we sheltered and nurtured some of the greatest brains in the world, as well as political immigrants ranging from deposed kings such as Napoleon III to revolutionaries. Immigrants are responsible for the growth of some of our most important industries. Without the Hungarian Alexander Korda, there would have been no British film industry. Without the hard work of the grey-squirrel-like Poles, Czechs and Indians, our economy would not be prospering in the same way. Would we have late-night or Sunday shopping now without the example of Pakistanis who risk abuse to serve customers 24 hours a day?
If the red squirrels suffered from the arrival of the greys, it was partly because they were lazy and lacked initiative. Serious racism exists only where self-confidence is lacking. It is not true that red squirrels are genetically superior to the grey. Of course we should not suffer the kind of grey squirrel who sponges and will not find its own food or drey. But can the red squirrels claim that their 'true English' band has not been similarly lax? I never much cared for red-headed people anyway,
Previous page
