Hello LPG,

I came to England 6 years after WWII ended.  I was a young one then, and like many of the other immigrants that arrived from the West Indies, the most obvious difference between here and my homeland became really apparent, really quickly.

The difference I am talking about was the climate. I arrived in November 1953 and I knew about it very quickly.  I found it really cold and the clothes I brought from back home were not a lot of good to me.  I remedied that very quickly by getting to the shops and investing a large portion of the money I had brought with me in a seriously heavy coat.

But I found England very cold in more than one way.  I am sorry to say that I discovered, to my regret, that the English a really reserved nation of people. 

I soon found a job and every morning, at the same time, I would prepare for work and find myself in the same bus queue, with the same collection of other people who had done exactly the same thing.  One morning, after a week or so, I did what came naturally to me and said a general “Good Morning” to my fellow bus queue members. I can remember a couple of them looking at me with an air of disapproval, while others had a look of bewilderment on their faces, but not one person reacted in any other way.

I persisted with my greeting and it took me years to get a few of those  people to react with as much as a nod or half a smile even though they were the same people doing exactly the same thing every week day.  I think that over the years things have changed just a little… but just as we are beginning to break those barriers down, earphones attached to the Walkman, followed by Bluetooth headsets attached to the mobile phone got in the way.  More recently, all the sieges, bombings, hostage situations and other atrocities that have occurred have also played their part in making the man on the British street worried to communicate and we have all again become more wary of each other.

The world would be a better place if we occasionally smiled at or even dared to start a short conversation with the people we pass in the street. After all, no one knows what will happen next.  They say that there is a high level of loneliness found amongst older people. Even though we don’t go to work anymore, perhaps the occasional short chat to someone we pass in the street could make a difference from time to time as long as we are careful.   

ED, Croydon.