howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
The lighter side of illegal migration.
Brian Dixon- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
Jan Higgins- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,637
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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Guest 1555- Registered: 23 Jul 2015
- Posts: 29
I will not be replying to any more Dover Forums about the Calais situation. The people who are replying are too vindictive for my tastes. These people are only trying to survive, and when the trouble is over with Isis, most will want to return to their homes...just like you would in the same situation. If those who are treating this as a joke and being vindictive about it with one liners and funny images, I hope one day they too will find themselves in the same situation. Britain is developing a negative attitude with its cruel jokes and lack of pity. When you see a child of one and two and hundreds more being drowned in the Mediterranean, it is no longer a laughing matter... It is no fun being in the water knowing you have a good chance of dying with your wife and your children. I have sailed with friends who were torpedoed, and in the water for hours, many of their friends dying around them, in the Second World War. I would like to see the people who are writing this s*** go to a forum more suited to their moronic tastes. Goodbye.
I have been in Dover since coming over from India in 1947 when all the British nationals had to leave. I went to St Mary's School in Queen Steet Dover, which no longer exists. I do not like the changes being done to the Dover seafront by people who do not really have the town's people at heart. I used to play in the rock pools with my twin brother under the prince of Wales Pier and had my first job in Dover painting the wrought iron legs, which are now filled in with concrete.
I feel a sense of loss at what The Dover Harbour board is contemplating. If the Yacht Marina is moved out of the inner harbour and into the bay it will become just another rubbish dump. It is obvious that big business is moving in against the wishes of the Dover people.
I worked at the Dover Harbour Board for thirteen years on the small boats before I retired in 2003 as a survey and environmental cox'n. The last ten yearssurveying the bottom of the harbour and its approaches. I know the tides and the bottom better than my own hand...and a lot of silt moving out there. If they fill the Granville Docks in, where I used to help unload fruit boats in the good old days. It will just become another huge lorry park in the future.
I also think the small boats are open to abuse by the swarms of immigrants coming over from France and further afield. With fewer customs, once the immigrants twig there is another way in they will take it. I have been to sea in three Merchant Navies since 1959 and have always believed Britain, being an island should have had a container fleet Merchant Navy manned by british sailors, the best in the world, trading with its Commonwealth. The Greek fiasco has proved the politicians cannot be trusted,nor the big Banks, to have any intrest in the working people of Britain, only in themselves... Who owns the town, is it business interests in Europe, the Harbour Board, or is there a hidden agenda. What is the plan for the Western approaches from Shakespeare Cliff to the Admiralty pier. QUESTIONS have to be asked and honest ANSWERS given. Already European countries have huge interests in our utilities and other, used to be publicily owned, businesses. We may as well not had a war, not when we are being slowly taken over by foreign interests. Britain was once a country to be proud of and brave people defended its honour and died for it. I am seventy-seven years old now and retired. I still remember the gaps left in the high street by German bombers, and those Dover people whomust have lost their lives there. Just what did my father and those brave people fight for? I had the honour of sailing with two or three merchant seamen in the fifties and sixties, who had actually been in the water a number of times after being torpedoed. Over fifty thousand seamen died and thousands of our Navy, Airmen, and Army died for our freedom. Will the young remember them when those left are gone. I no longer free free any more, only a sense of foreboding for our younger generation.
Jan Higgins- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,637
I thought the whole idea of any forum was to express a point of view rather than try to convert someone to your own.
I have not read any of John's posts after his first one simply because they were so long winded..
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
That post from John bemused me totally, I have seen nothing on this forum where people laugh at children or anyone else for that matter drowning. I would cease to be a member if that ever happened and sincerely hope that John seeks professional help in ridding himself of such delusions.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Brian Dixon- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
I think it has been clear for some time now that the army need to be called in, the would be migrants know the score with the police who have no real powers to deal with the situation. The odd baton charge for the benefit of the TV cameras is the best they can do. I sympathise with people living in the area and if I was one I would blame the UK for the situation. The real issue here is that there are no ID cards here so people can work in the black economy which is near impossible in France.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
We think the situation is bad in Calais but 120,000 have turned up on the eastern Greek islands since the turn of the year. There is no way with the state of the economy there for Greece to be able to handle the situation.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/12/thousand-refugees-locked-in-stadium-overnight-koshoward mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
All gone rather quiet on the Calais front with Eurotunnel saying that the new fencing is acting as a deterrent with only 50 or so people trying to breach it at night. Heard nothing recently on the occupation of the two My Ferry vessels and whether or not much damage has been done.
Jan Higgins- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,637
A slightly different figure from the TV news this morning they said up to 200 people trying to use the tunnel.
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
I heard two different figures quoted 50 and 150, both supposedly from a Eurotunnel spokesperson. The main thing is there were around 2000 trying on a nightly basis until the new fencing arrived. We don't hear much of what goes on at the Ferry Port nowadays.
Jan Higgins- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,637
Yes gone very quiet regarding Calais's port problems are DFDS are still having problems or has that been sorted.
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
I can't see DFDS using the My Ferry vessels even if they have not been damaged too badly, they would need to employ the same people that brought Sea France down and then caused all the recent problems in Calais.
The legal profession done well out of the dispute between P & O and My Ferry.
http://www.dover-express.co.uk/pound-455k-taxpayers-money-spent-fighting/story-27592755-detail/story.htmlhoward mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Hungary has an even bigger problem than the UK but seem more determined to do something about it. Up to 4 years imprisonment for damaging the fence.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-33979648Brian Dixon- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
only 4 years howard,should be a 15 stretch,they might get 6 months comunaty service here.
Karlos- Location: Dover
- Registered: 1 Oct 2012
- Posts: 2,376
There's about 8 less in Calais this morning as I saw a lorry, a police car and a policeman herding them up at the lay-by just outside Whitfield.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
We keep being told that there will be less police and they won't turn up for burglaries but they can still find some to send over to Calais.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-33992952howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Our Home Secretary has announced funding to fly illegal migrants back to their country of origin. Perhaps someone would whisper in her ear that most have destroyed their documentation so that their country of origin will remain forever unknown.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/599637/Calais-migrant-crisis-British-government-7million-immigrants-fly-home