Victoria Square Athens, Sunday 28th February 2016

Whatever your views on the migrant crisis and asylum seekers Julia and I were profoundly disturbed by the sight of humanity finding refuge in this otherwise typical Athenian urban city square.  Our trip to Greece was by our usual globetrotting standards only a ‘local visit’ but last Sunday the world came to us in Athens!

Caught with limited options between Sunday sailing ferries and a fixed time BA flight we had to book a hotel at the last minute.  Athens it seemed was packed and our options were limited.  We ended up in a poor district a short distance from an Athens city center, informal migrant camp.

The entire square had been taken over by Middle Eastern and Asian foreigners who had neatly laid their bedrolls along the paths between the flowerbeds.  It was crowded but amazingly tidy given that stays here stretch from days into weeks and there are no proper facilities.  No toilets and no showers for 1000 people and yet the air was sweet and the floor was clear of any litter.  Clean grey blankets were laid out on flattened cardboard boxes to make sleeping on stone a little more comfortable. Neat piles of spare folded blankets lay to one side.  These personal spaces were of proud, dignified and organized individuals whose small ‘pillows’ actually represented their total possessions.  

The square was full but I saw no more than a dozen European faces.  The migrants were almost entirely Afghani but Pakistani and Iranians were also represented.  They were predominantly young men and boys but at no time did we feel uncomfortable or threatened. They were in fact most welcoming, wanting to talk, encouraging us to take pictures of them and even offering me a paper tissue as tears welled up in my eyes as the enormity and discomfort, physical and mental, that these young people must be experiencing, sunk in.

Young men who spoke excellent English had travelled through Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Turkey to take a dingy across the sea to a Greek Island.   Along the way and especially at the numerous borders they could expect to be shot at even if they had a passport and personal ID. To get over borders they often had to cross under cover of dark and pay mafia types to guide them. Their positive attitudes and determination was for us quite humbling and emotionally traumatic.

Sitting on a low wall on one side of the square, were dozens of men and boys sitting and passively holding up pieces of A4 paper on which had been written simple statements in Arabic and English to communicate their cause; Open the borders, Afghanistan is also at war, Afghans are human, the Greek authorities must pay attention to Afghans and Afghans want to live without war. Behind them are the Mulberry trees from which two Pakistani men made their protest last week by attempting to hang themselves!

There were women and girls and young children on the square too, but most of them had congregated to one side where they were sitting on the ground cutting out cardboard shapes and painting them to entertain the children and make masks and crowns to wear.  It is carnival time in Athens and all the youngsters that we had seen earlier in the day in the tourist areas were all ‘dressed up’.  Migrant children were not going to be an exception!

We spoke at length to several young men. While this was going on I noticed a member of the public delivering a laundry bag sized collection of second hand clothing onto the square.  For a few minutes there was mayhem as men and women formed a scrum and grabbed whatever they could get hold of.  A little boy next to me managed to get a belt, someone else a blouse while a tug of war over a pair of trousers extended the few seconds that it took for this whole event to unfold.

The supply of food and drinks to date has not been a problem as many local Greeks are donating food on a regular basis.  Hundreds of plastic bottles of water were being distributed as we spoke. Local café’s and restaurants on the square have however been blighted as the new arrivals don't have the spare cash to enjoy the café culture and local Greeks are hardly going to sip their Ouzo in full view of the new scene.  

One young man, a trained engineer was born in Iran of an Iranian mother.  His father was Afghan so he was not of pure Persian stock. Under the existing regime he was never going to be issued with Iranian identity papers, a passport or allowed to buy property in Iran.  He compared the Iranian state to North Korea concluding that is was impossible for him to stay and live a normal life. If he was ever in trouble with the law he could not expect a fair trial.  He had therefore set off for Stuttgart to find a family member or friend in Germany.

 

 Another young Afghan from Hairatan in the north of his country had been fighting the Taliban in the Afghan army.  His commander had been killed and he had been shot in the ankle during an attack. He rolled down his sock to show us his wound. His mother and sister had dispatched him from Afghanistan in order that he should at least have the chance to make something of his life. (His father had already been killed.) He had crossed the great Amu Darya river into Uzbekistan, crossed another three borders and then taken to an inflatable dingy to cross from Turkey to a Greek island.  His fluent English and bright animated face conveyed the challenges of this epic journey.  We asked him his age.  “18” he replied.    

Tears well up in our eyes and he gave us a compassionate smile and said “don't cry, or you will make me cry”.   He proudly took his shiny new Afghan passport from his top pocket and held it in front of him for a photograph.  We talked to him about the reaction of some Europeans to the migrants arriving in Europe and how overwhelming the problem was.  He explained to us why he was staying in Athens. The Macedonian border is now closed to Afghans and only a few hundred Syrians are being allowed to pass through each day.  He did not want to enter another potential conflict so would wait here until the situation changed.  (The following day the BBC reported that the Macedonian army or Police force had deployed tear gas canisters on men, women and children when a group cut through the fence and rushed the border security forces on the Macedonian side.)  

We told him that from everything he had told us and from his demeanor and personality we were sure that he would eventually make it to his brother in Utrecht.  We wished him well.  As we left he told us of his plans. Once in Holland, he wants to join the Dutch army so that he can go back and fight the Taliban!

Do listen to the first item in BBC’s From our Own Correspondent first broadcast 3.3.16

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03lbz6k

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Microlighting: an aid to geography teaching

Microlighting: an aid to geography teaching 

Published in Teaching Geography October 1995 

Anthony Britton takes his own aerial photographs for use in lessons 

Airspace always seems to have been close to my teaching experience. In my first post in Farnborough, you had to accept that the new aircraft taking off from the air show nearby and circling past your window would cause disruption to the lesson and excitement to some pupils.  Later, as head of geography in Twickenham, my lessons had a commanding view of planes heading for Heathrow at two minute intervals. Now, ten years later, in a quieter location I am able to circle at 520metres (1,500 feet) above the grounds of my present school and make a contribution to airspace geography.

In June last year I embarked on a course of lessons in a microlight. With a 10 metre wingspan above and a two-seater trike below, it resembles a motorcycle side-car with a propeller mounted at the rear.  I was eager to learn everything I could from my instructor Phil in his Mainair Alpha 582. My enthusiasm led to Phil to sit me at the controls from the start! Following the preflight checks which seem daunting to start with, we taxied on to the grass runway at Hunsdon near Harlow in Essex. Within less than 100 metres and at only 57kph (38mph) we were airborne!  The sensation was thrilling and the views incredible. With an open cockpit and only a visor between you and the landscape, vision is virtually unrestricted.

As a geography teacher, the subject now really is three dimensional!  I have always enjoyed studying the detail on NASA and good aerial photographs, and now I can examine the real world from above at relatively slow speeds and low cost. Within the space of a few lessons we had flown over the new towns of Welwyn, Harlow and Basildon, and major arteries like the M25, M1 and M11, as well as new bypasses and old Roman roads whose routes are only defined by minor tracks and hedgerows.   I have peered down the chimneys of the new gas fuelled power station being constructed at Rye House and seen for myself the impact of a golf course construction boom in south Hertfordshire. The oil refineries at Canvey and the Isle of Sheppey ferry terminal adjacent  to acres of new cars on the dockside were only the first taste of how the geography of the Thames Estuary is changing.  Epping Forest really does look like a green lung worth preserving, whilst the state of industrial development in the Lea valley seen from the air not only provides the most up-to-date but answers questions that print cannot.  Climbing out from under a heat haze and up to the underbelly of clouds provides drama for future meteorology lessons!

Dr Challoner’s Grammar School, Amersham on the Hill, from 153m (500ft) above the ground, looking east. The school playing field and buildings are on the left.  Longfield Drive (middle right) is made up of detached houses and gardens. The Metropolitan line railway is on the right. Amersham on the Hill town centre is at the top of the picture. At 4pm on a March day the trees cast long shadows.  Photo Anthony Britton

Six months after going solo and passing the General Flying Test (GFT) the reality of this new teaching aid is beginning to flourish.  The department now possesses 35mm colour slides of aerial views of the school site and the surrounding area which complements our local geography resources.  The interest in aerial photography of the local from all age groups has been tremendous!  In several lessons pupils exclaimed “Sir, that’s my hose there”!  Pupils are most impressed with the details that can be seen from 520 metres. Aerial photographs are now being used to study housing density and patterns, transport networks, sites of industry and open spaces in conjunction with conventional mapwork skills.

Local colour aerial photographs also provide a stimulating resource for a “public enquiry” role play exercise. Our local example is the widening  of the M25.  Air views of the motorway with its intersections, adjacent housing and industrial areas, and Green Belt, combined with very varies traffic flows at different times of day, provide an informed illustration which has triggered lively debate and discussion. The impact of such developments on our landscape is best appreciated from above. Newspaper articles, maps and traffic statistics are provided for follow-up work. Your own air photography of a local by-pass, an out of town retail development or an industrial site could provide you with a similarly original teaching aid. Other useful views are as varied as your imagination and as broad as the National Curriculum!

GCSE examination boards use aerial photographs as part of mapwork of data response questions. The more familiar our pupils are with the interpretation of human and physical geographical views, the better they will understand and enjoy the subject.  

Notes.   

An unrestricted microlight licence requires 25 hours of private tuition of which at least 10 hours must be solo flying.  Ground school is required to get you through the five exams. A package such as this would cost around £1,500.  The cost of an aircraft and its running costs approximate to those of a family car.   

Besides using the aircraft as a teaching resource, family and friends also came flying.  My father, then in his 90's, was probably the oldest passenger who had ever taken off (and landed!) from Hunsdon airfield.  Pat Foster, a neighbour was also a keen photographer!   see  
 http://www.croxleygreenhistory.co.uk/croxley-from-above.html