Lincoln Cathdral in mid-winter
Yesterday I was sitting on a cold street bench playing a bit of music, as you do, when six blokes walked past who weren’t the run of the mill fellows that you see on the streets of Lincoln in midwinter.
They were tanned, lean and fit-looking, the odd scar on the face gave them a piratical look.
They looked like characters straight off the Sulu Sea.
Ages were from mid twenties to maybe forty.
At first I thought that they might be Filipino and tried a few laughs in that direction.
They weren’t Filipino, so I tried Indonesian.
That didn’t work either.
It turned out that they were from Dili, East Timor.
Now let me tell you folks that we don’t get a lot of people from East Timor in sleepy old Lincoln, especially in deep mid-winter.
They produced an address and the only one who spoke English asked me how to get there.
I duly obliged him with the address of an employment agency.
Afterwards I thought about it … do these men need to come to the UK to find work?
Is it so bad in East Timor?
Is there so little chance of finding help in neighbouring Australia?
Here endeth this short story.
