A Lidl surprise.  This happened shortly after I had read Michael Rosen’s recent blog poem that deals with the idea that the ‘working class’ and ‘migrants’ are different groups and that the latter have to be kicked out so that the former can ‘get their country back’.

Ahead of me in the checkout queue today was a 30-something white Polish (I think) man with a boy aged perhaps nine or ten. The boy was much darker skinned but I assumed they were father and son from the very un-English way way they embraced each other while conversing in a bantering manner. I thought they were speaking Polish but then heard the father say: “It’s up to you.” They were interweaving their home language with English. Meanwhile, the Eastern European checkout operator dealt with her young daughter, who was hanging around the till, by hugging her and speaking to her in English. This was a living moment of cultural integration: hopefully our future.