#1DayWithoutUs: celebrating diversity

Your intrepid #leithwalkshops correspondent risked life and limb to get this shot out in the middle of Leith Walk in the middle of the morning. Today was the day to mark and to celebrate the contribution of migrants in the UK. What better place to do that than Leith Walk, with its famous Italian deli, its many Polish and East European shops and businesses (including a pizzeria), its Chinese and other Asian supermarkets? The Thai massage. It even has a Nordic shop. That's without mentioning the Swedish bar and Australian run fitness studio you can see in this photograph which I haven't blipped yet. And the many people working in those and other shops, cafes, bars and restaurants on the Walk. And the bus drivers. And indeed the thousands who live in and around Leith Walk and contribute to our economy and our community in countless important ways.

Leith would literally grind to a halt without its migrant community, and many of them have ended up feeling less welcome as a result of the UK's vote to leave the EU on 23 June. I wonder just how many people actually did a proper census in their own mind about the human cost of Brexit before they put a little cross in the Leave box. I wonder. I wonder.

Making this statement makes me feel less bad about missing my own School's contribution to this day of celebration. Monday is one of my days for working at home, and I was reluctant to go rushing into the office on one of the days I have set aside for writing.