My name is Ben Haywood and I was given the the privilege of growing up in the Canadian hockey town we all called B town or known by its real name as The City Of Brampton and was the home to the best natural young hockey talent anywhere. It was a great place to grow up and I would love to my family be able to experience the way of life there one day and how different it would be from our current location in the UK. I would love to let my children have the opportunities to see the things as I did as a child . But my very soon to be wife is one of three very close sisters who are very close in age as well and are all best friends.They have a fantastic amount of support for each other and I know how important that is in life and how much more valuable and irreplaceable that is than anything else. The place I used to call home will always be in my memories and in my heart. Enjoy The City Of Toronto if and when you get an opportunity to visit. Explore Brampton and its origins as an example of multi-cultural society from a time when it was still a little known way of life. Good food and good traditional ways are encouraged to be tried and enjoyed by all from a young and impressionable age so as to make it a pilot for future cities of the same design and social integration success for many years to come. Racism was so non evident when I was growing up there but unknown to myself life in the United Kingdom was still living with racism as an acceptable way of life. People from all age groups were openly racist and hate crimes towards other people were common place. I could simply not believe how different it was from what I expected when I moved to a South Yorkshire pit village at the end of the eighties. There was only one non white student at school and everyone called him Sambo or some other racial stereotypical name to that effect and when I met him he said my name is Leroy but you can call me Sambo. I was utterly appalled and so wanted to tell him to fight the racists and overcome this hate he was faced with as a race minority in a school of more 400 students. It would have been a disaster for his family also as they were the only family of colour in a village of thousands. I once saw Leroy and his family doing the weekly food shop. I was with a member of my family from the village when I was horrified to see mother with her young child at her side pick up a bunch of bananas and actually throw them at this poor and innocent family. They landed at the son and daughters feet and all they could do was accepted it and not dare say anything as this was the level of everyday abuse they were forced to face and accept . I felt helpless to do anything about this for fear of being on the end of abuse myself. I was already being seen as a threat to them as I was drawing female attention. I was a white skinned and blond haired North American teenager who was already being bullied for my different accent and this was by my so called school mates and their siblings and all because I was popular with the girls at school which lead to jealousy and eventually me accept my own place as a minority in my own country of origin. I had become known as the Yankee even though I was Canadian. It was not long until myself and Leroy become the school outcasts due to the fact we were different from the others. I left school as soon as i could and made my way back to the safety of Brampton where i lived with a childhood friend and his parents while I slowly got back to being a normal and non relaxed Canadian once again. My multi-cultural accepting side was normal here as I had been that way from the time that I was first taught the difference between right and wrong. I never did tell anyone about my life that i had witnessed in the UK and how bad life was for me there. I was so embarassed to tell people how i felt about the place I was born .I am now a father of three of my own children and will soon be married. The UK is once again where I find myself and after many years of change in attitudes towards racism being much different now than the way I first saw all those rears ago.It is a much changed way of thinking and there is many different people from all corners of the world than there was in the time I remember.No longer is it common place to be seen as an outsider just because you are a little different and have different ways and traditions . The UK is now as multi cultural as I remember Brampton ever having been, which in turn leaves me finally happy to call here My Home. Me and my young family are rooted firmly in Nottingham and i am pleased to say that no longer is theUK a place that it once was for the racist and biggots to be open and proud of who they were. I know that I want my own children to be a part of the new way of life and as parents we will be sure to show them that its ok to be different and live how they believe everyone has the right to . To be as accepting of other races, skin colours, creeds and religious beliefs as a respected way of free choice. I will encourage them to be able to experience different and diverse cultural choices without fear of doing so to the disgust of others. To join and have a chance when they are willing and able and not be shown the treatment that i witnessed first hand. I was forced to hide my own beliefs and keep them a secret from staring eyes. I lied to the point where I was scared of what I might become. I know that as my girls grow up in The UK that they may see flashes of past ways of life and be proud of the ways in which they have improved. to those who made my life so hard back then and made me feel it was wrong to be who i was and hide my true feelings. I have only one thing to say to you. I was right and you were a discrace to your country and it is now you that are indeed the minority. We finally beat you !!!!!!
Posted on: Thu, 25 Jul 2013 01:13:10 +0000
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