Simon Barber

The first couple of years ... Hard. Really Hard. I lost touch with my friends. I not talk much with my Mom. Relationaships change. We talk but some misunderstandings. Hard to find a job, I lost my confidence, lost Kim, who I am as I was: fun, happy, easy go. I lost myself...Angry! Blame the world, Yeah, blame everything!

I would say I was Canadian. I like having that identity of being Canadian cause it makes me feel kinda special, different you know - not the same. I do kayaking and there are races I want to go for which is hard because I don’t have a British passport and that like stops me a bit. I wanna get one but, I don’t know, cause I like having my Canadian passport. It’s one of the things that makes me Canadian.

It didn't bother me in the slightest leaving family and friends at that age. It's only when you get older and you have your own kids and family that you realise how you must have broken your mother's heart.

“... Complete strangers would come up and touch you... Can I feel your hair...Good morning Mr Blacky... We don’t employ black people in our office”. I love it here and I love Jamaica... I’m torn! I’m not torn at all - this is my home!

Here I say I’m Canadian because people always ask, But I do think I’m more British than Canadian. I’m a lot more proud to be British than Canadian

We thought two to three years here then move back to Canada but it became apparent that we aren’t going back. Roots are firmly established here now 110%. The kids poke fun at Canada; they’ll poke fun at Britain but don’t anyone else mess with either. I could see them living anywhere in the world but they would still be British and Canadian.

I still think of myself as Yorkshire but it’s not so important to me as people might think. I’m quite adaptable and if I had to live in Egypt I’d make the best of it. Moving down south hasn’t phased me at all. I just love it.

It’s more difficult being a foreigner now. Well I find it’s - maybe not difficult - that’s probably not the right word. I find it a little bit unsettling this brexit thing. Even if you’ve lived here for 50 odd years it’s not a nice feeling when you feel... Do I belong here?

I was born in the south of Sweden. I've been here so long now but you never feel completely British. I had a lot of trouble with my Mother-in-law. If you leave your country you become more, not nationalistic, but traditions are important and nice to keep. The work I do we have groups of old people and they can be quite racist. I would say I'm foreign and they would go quiet cause what they mean is people of different colour.

I’ve always had a British Passport but I would call myself Hong Kong Chinese. My Father worked as hard labour near the port to begin. He found a house and everything started from there. I was helping bringing him stones. When you get to an age when you can do a thing you get a job and when we finsh we did our schoolwork and things like that. All my life is working that’s my strong memory - working, working!

We go ’home’ to Canada and I do refer to it as ‘home’ but the minute we land here I feel that I’m ‘at home’. My Girls feel left out sometimes - they’ve never had another relative here with them on their birthday.

“Brazil - loved it. We were there from September 1968 till 1977. For the first six months it was hard going and I didn’t have transport. The climate didn’t bother me - everything was different. We had one girl who came out and had a nervous breakdown because oranges weren’t orange - they were green! I don’t think she’d ever been more than six miles from home. Absolute disaster!”

I've spent more years in the UK than in Australia so am I Australian is the question that I've got in my head. What makes you what you are - is it your passport, is it where you grew up? What feels like home? I don't know and I don't know what creates that.

I left school at 16 or 17 and worked in Leeds and then later on decided to go to University. I couldn’t wait to get away from Yorkshire then. A few years after I moved to London and I liked the idea of being a Londoner. When we moved here I found it a bit stuffy, people would ridicule my accent and things like that. Ultimately I’d like to move back. Its lovely up there and I like hearing the accent.

I’ve been here 30 odd years and have spent more time in the UK than in Malta. I feel exactly as I am which is a mix. I don’t feel I entirely belong in either place. My name Mifsud - I’ve thought somtimes should I change it to my mother’s maiden name? I used to put my photo on my CV, I was obviously White, Caucasian. Sadly that seemed to make a difference sometimes.