Notes from Little Eritrea

Bonus photos from my recent article in The Glasgow Bell

“Why me?”

This was the question I put to the Bell boys — Calum and Robbie — when they asked if I would do a piece on the Eritrean community in Glasgow. It was an article I felt hopelessly unqualified to write, having no connections or contacts from the Horn of Africa.

Were they trolling me like an apprentice sent to buy tartan paint?

Apparently not.

“Because we think you’d do a good job,” explained Robbie.

It is always nice to be commissioned for a job without having to pitch. But one should never say yes to opportunities which generate internal resistance. Fortunately, this was exactly the type of commission I had been wanting for years.

My heroes are writers like Tom Wolfe and photographers like W Eugene Smith. That is, journalists who became deeply embedded in the stories they told, while remaining witty and objective. More recently, I have been enjoying the writings of Fred Sculthorp, whose dispatches from the provinces are always enlightening.

I like speaking to strangers and learning about the world as it is. Undoubtedly, the situation of Eritrean refugees gets to the heart of current debates over immigration. But this wasn’t a reaction piece to a news story; it was commissioned to observe what things are like on the ground.

Thanks to the Mill Media empire, I also got to work with an expert editor, Sophie Atkinson. It was Sophie who really helped push the piece beyond mere observation into something with moral heft. I am very pleased with how the story turned out.

Inevitably, much was cut in my attempt to carve out a coherent narrative, and here are some of the photographs which didn’t quite fit.

Motasem and Musa, both from Sudan

Kianna and David. I asked what they thought of the area: “It’s full of dafties.”

Afshar and Salar, Iranians whose shop had recently featured in The Times.

Mostly Vinyl Micky He liked the fact that shops on the street were occupied but who slightly regretted the fact that so few of the new arrivals bought vinyl.

Issam, who works in a Tesco warehouse in Dundee but was down in Glasgow to visit friends.

Selina Hales from Refuweegee charity, who I buttonholed at a recent demonstration.

Merhawi at the Italian Pool table in Family Cafe.

Alison Phipps (second from left) and friends in Mosob restaurant

Mohammed, who was from Somalia and who had been in Glasgow for 25 years. I let him borrow my phone to speak to his tailor and he indulged my photo.

The Molendinar is a now-culverted stream on which Glasgow was founded in the 6th century.