Refugees No 1

This morning a friend and l went down to the Spitalfields area of London. This is on the edge of the city and is an area that has welcomed waves of refugees over the centuries. The first refugees to arrive were the Huguenots, French Calvinist Protestants from France during the 16th and 17th centuries. Over 50,000 arrived bringing with them skills in weaving, gun making, clockmaking, papermaking and finance. They were known as "The Strangers".
Jewish refugees arrived in the 20th century and now waves of Arabic people. All have made their homes in the Spitalfields area seeking a safe haven without persecution for their religion and bringing a vibrancy to this historic area.
The statue in today's blip is one of two at Liverpool Street station and stands as a memorial to the 10,000 unaccompanied Jewish refugee children sent from Germany to England to be looked after by English families for the duration of the war. Known as the Kindertransport very few of the children were reunited with their families after the hostilities.