Checkpoint | Spring 2017

A Retired Policeman, Refugees, Caravans and the Calais Jungle

In the late autumn of 2015 I was told by a serving officer in Essex Police that his friend Shelley was taking caravans to Calais for refugee families. At that time I had an old caravan on my drive that I no longer needed so I agreed to donate it to Calais. A week later at 3.30am I set off from my home at Felsted with Shelley who had been to the Jungle refugee camp in Calais a couple of times already.

Driving off the ferry, within 5 minutes we drove into the Jungle. It had been raining and the roads were just muddy tracks. I needed the 4-wheel drive of my Hilux truck as we passed throngs of people on the narrow track, many in sandals and flipflops. Most of the people were in tents, some in shanty shacks. I was in the third world. We drove through the main muddy street to an area where there were 5 caravans. They were occupied by refugee families and were sitting in and surrounded by large pools of water that stank of sewage. The Jungle was on wasteland situated on low lying land behind the sand dunes on the coast next to the ferry port. We decided this was an awful place for the caravan so I towed it to a drier area of bushes and brambles which we cleared with the help of refugees. An Afghan family with two young children moved into the caravan from a tent they had been living in. I then towed the other caravans to this better, drier place.

My first visit to the “Notorious Jungle” impacted me in a number of ways. I saw the awful conditions that these people were living in, flimsy festival tents pitched on land that was boggy and liable to flood, there was a lack of food, no warm or waterproof clothing or proper shoes. There was NO organisation, NO one in charge, No Government, No large Charities, No Red Cross, No Save the Children! Just lots of small groups mainly from the UK helping the refugees. The refugees were not how I expected, they were very friendly and “Notoriously” hospitable insisting you come and take tea(Chai) with them sharing what little they had. They were grateful and

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