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Morocco World
4 days ago
- Politics
- Morocco World
Beyond the Armada: Ahmad al-Mansur, Elizabeth I, and the Forgotten Plan to Colonize the New World Together
In the spring of 1600, the streets of London witnessed an arrival without precedent in the city's long history of embassies. Abd el-Wahid ben Messaoud, ambassador of Sultan Ahmad al-Mansur of Morocco, landed at the head of a sixteen-strong delegation. Their mission was at once pragmatic and grandiose: to propose an alliance between Protestant England and Muslim Morocco against their common nemesis — Habsburg Spain — and to imagine the re-ordering of Atlantic geopolitics. As Jerry Brotton recounts in This Orient Isle, and as the Guardian's review summarises, the proposals placed before Queen Elizabeth I were without precedent: first, a joint reconquest of Iberia; second, an even more audacious suggestion that the two realms could 'wrest the East and West Indies from the Spanish.'¹ The image is almost cinematic — a richly robed Muslim ambassador in the court of the Virgin Queen, speaking of fleets that would cross oceans together, of the fall of Spain's American empire, of a Protestant–Muslim condominium over the New World. Yet, for all its colour, this episode demands to be treated not as an exotic curiosity but as a key point of entry into the historiography of early modern diplomacy, global trade, and the unfulfilled contingencies of the Atlantic world. Historiographic Grounding: Sources, Silences, and Contexts The principal sources for this encounter are the surviving letters between al-Mansur and Elizabeth, now held in the British Library, and the ambassadorial records in Moroccan repositories. Brotton weaves these into the fabric of Elizabethan foreign policy, highlighting the intense pragmatism that overrode confessional boundaries when the geopolitical calculus demanded it.² The Guardian distils one of Brotton's most striking revelations: that al-Mansur's proposals went beyond the reconquest of Iberia to envision a transoceanic offensive aimed at the Spanish Americas.³ Historiographically, the temptation is to read this through a 19th- or 20th-century lens, seeing in it a precursor to modern 'South–South' alliances or multipolar Atlantic visions. Yet, in the late 16th century, such a proposal was rooted in the logic of Habsburg geopolitics: Spain's control of Portugal after 1580 had fused the Iberian crowns into a single global empire, encircling the Atlantic from Seville to Mexico to Manila. To attack Spain anywhere was, in effect, to attack it everywhere. Elizabeth's England, still a middling power by continental standards but increasingly daring at sea, had already probed the edges of this empire through the semi-piratical ventures of Francis Drake and others. Morocco, flush with prestige after the victory at the Battle of the Three Kings (1578)⁴ and enriched by the gold of the Songhai campaign, was equally aware of its Atlantic potential. What Brotton emphasized is the ideological permeability of this moment: Protestant and Muslim could talk openly of cooperation not in spite of their confessional differences, but because both had pragmatic reasons to confront a Catholic superpower.⁵ The Proposal in its Own Time The proposition to 'wrest the East and West Indies' is remarkable for several reasons. First, it suggests that al-Mansur did not view Morocco's strategic horizon as confined to the Maghreb or even to Mediterranean commerce; he was thinking in Atlantic terms, aware of the wealth flowing from the Americas into Seville's treasure fleets.⁶ Second, it presupposes that England and Morocco could project force across the ocean, coordinate supply chains, and — most ambitiously — hold and administer conquered territory in a hemisphere dominated by Spain and Portugal for nearly a century. The geopolitical logic of al-Mansur's overture becomes even clearer when viewed against the backdrop of the Iberian Union. Morocco had already eliminated Portugal as an independent threat in the wake of the Battle of the Three Kings in 1578, a crushing victory that killed King Sebastian and shattered Portuguese military capacity.⁷ The ensuing succession crisis led, in 1580, to Philip II of Spain seizing the Portuguese crown, bringing Brazil, the African forts, and the Asian spice ports under Habsburg control.⁸ For the first time, one monarch ruled an integrated Spanish–Portuguese empire that spanned both the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean. This consolidation magnified Spain's power but also simplified the strategic picture for England and Morocco: there was now a single Iberian adversary whose defeat — whether in Europe, the Caribbean, or the Americas — could reverberate across half the globe. Al-Mansur's suggestion of joint action in the New World was therefore not a flight of fancy, but a calculated response to a rare historical moment when Spain's overextended imperial structure presented both a threat and an opportunity. From a strictly operational standpoint, the proposal bordered on the fantastical. England in 1600 lacked secure Atlantic bases and was stretched by the Irish wars; Morocco had no tradition of transoceanic navigation on that scale. But in the imaginative space of diplomacy, such impracticalities could be suspended. What mattered was the signalling: Morocco was a sovereign actor, not a peripheral player, and was willing to think on a planetary scale. For Elizabeth, listening to such overtures reinforced the image of England as a node in a global network of anti-Spanish alliances, from the Dutch rebels to the Muslim courts of the Maghreb.⁹ Historiographic Themes: Beyond Exoticism Historians have long been prone to treating such episodes as colourful footnotes — a Moorish envoy in Whitehall, a momentary flirtation with cross-cultural alliance. Brotton pushes against this by embedding it in the longer story of Anglo–Islamic diplomacy, showing that these exchanges were neither one-off nor merely symbolic.¹⁰ The embassy of 1600 was the high-water mark of a twenty-year relationship. From a historiographic perspective, this also forces us to revisit the Eurocentric narrative of Atlantic expansion. The standard story pivots from Iberian pioneers to Northern European challengers, with little space for African or Muslim agency except as obstacles or intermediaries. Al-Mansur's proposal disrupts that: here is an African monarch not only participating in, but actively shaping, a conversation about the redistribution of the Americas. The 'What If' Lens Counterfactuals are perilous in historical writing, but they can illuminate the structural constraints and opportunities of a moment. So, what if Elizabeth had embraced al-Mansur's proposal wholeheartedly? In one scenario, an Anglo–Moroccan fleet might have targeted the Caribbean, striking at lightly defended islands or intercepting treasure convoys. If successful, this could have opened enclaves jointly administered or exploited — introducing an early precedent for cross-confessional colonial governance. This, in turn, might have reconfigured racial and religious hierarchies in the Atlantic, complicating the binary of Christian Europe versus the non-Christian 'other.' Yet the practicalities loom large. Morocco's maritime infrastructure was oriented toward the Mediterranean and short-haul Atlantic trade; England's navy was still evolving its logistical capacity for sustained overseas warfare. The Spanish response would have been formidable. Moreover, the death of both monarchs in 1603 eliminated the personal rapport that had sustained the relationship. James I's peace with Spain in 1604 ended the prospect.¹¹ Symbolism and Political Theatre Even stripped of feasibility, the proposal retains significance as political theatre. In Elizabeth's court, receiving such an offer from a Muslim sovereign was a statement to domestic and foreign audiences: England was not isolated, and its alliances could cross religious boundaries. For al-Mansur, sending his ambassador to make such a proposal in person was a performance of parity with Christian Europe's greatest monarchs. The articulation of joint colonization placed Morocco within the same strategic frame as England, France, and the Netherlands — not as an object of European expansion, but as a co-architect of imperial ambition.¹² Orientalism Before Orientalism In Edward Said's formulation, 'Orientalism' describes a later, more codified mode of European representation of the East.¹³ The early modern encounter between Morocco and England resists that schema. Al-Mansur was not being studied, classified, and subordinated; he was negotiating from a position of strength, in a relationship that — for a moment — inverted later colonial hierarchies. Still, the seeds of later asymmetries are present: the English imagination of the 'Moor' was shaped by both diplomatic reality and literary representation — Shakespeare's Othello among them — oscillating between fascination and suspicion.¹⁴ The Road Not Taken The embassy of Abd el-Wahid and the proposal to 'wrest the East and West Indies' remain a tantalising fragment of early modern diplomatic history. Historiographically, it invites us to place Morocco not at the periphery but at the centre of Atlantic strategic thinking at the turn of the 17th century. It challenges the neat periodisation that sees the Muslim world as locked in Mediterranean confines while the Atlantic became a purely European space. From the 'what if' perspective, the episode underscores the contingency of global history. A handful of different decisions — an earlier English embrace of Atlantic strategy, a longer reign for al-Mansur, a delay in Anglo–Spanish rapprochement — could have produced a very different colonial map. Brotton's achievement is to recover the plausibility, if not the practicality, of that moment, and to remind us that the early modern world was more connected, and more imaginatively porous, than later histories have often allowed. The Moroccan dream of an Anglo–Muslim Atlantic empire died in the antechambers of mortality and diplomacy, but in the realm of historical analysis, it continues to illuminate the alternative pathways that history might have taken — and the actors who, however briefly, saw them as open.¹⁵ Notes Jerry Brotton, This Orient Isle: Elizabethan England and the Islamic World (London: Allen Lane, 2016), 214–218; 'The Moroccan Ambassador in London in 1600,' The Guardian, March 19, 2016. Brotton, This Orient Isle, 198–201. 'The Moroccan Ambassador in London in 1600,' The Guardian. Brotton, This Orient Isle, 105–110. Ibid., 200–203. Ibid., 214. Ibid., 105–110. Ibid., 111–114. Ibid., 215–218. Ibid., 180–185. Ibid., 225. Ibid., 223–225. Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Pantheon, 1978). Brotton, This Orient Isle, 230; Michael Neill, Othello (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). Brotton, This Orient Isle, 227–230. Sources Brotton, Jerry. This Orient Isle: Elizabethan England and the Islamic World. London: Allen Lane, 2016. Neill, Michael. Othello. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon, 1978. 'The Moroccan Ambassador in London in 1600.' The Guardian, March 19, 2016. Tags: Ahmad al MansurcolonialismElizabeth Ihistory
Morocco World
09-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Morocco World
The Moor in Whitehall: A Moroccan Ambassador at Elizabeth I's Court, Cross-Cultural Diplomacy, and the Genesis of Shakespeare's Othello
In November 1604, Othello was first performed before King James I at Whitehall Palace. The play has since been read as a meditation on jealousy, race, and the fragility of trust; yet its origins cannot be fully understood without situating it in the fertile—and fraught—terrain of Elizabethan and Jacobean encounters with the Islamic world (Matar 2005; Brotton 2016). Shakespeare's principal plot source, Giraldi Cinthio's 1565 novella Un Capitano Moro, provided him with the basic architecture of the tragedy: the noble Moor in Venetian service, the illicit marriage to a senator's daughter, the corrosive influence of a duplicitous ensign, and the ultimate destruction of both the general and his wife (Bullough 1975). Yet, in the transformation from Cinthio's prose to the blank verse of Othello, something significant occurred: the Moor became not merely a literary type, but a figure that bore the marks of lived intercultural contact between England and the Muslim powers of North Africa (Vitkus 1999). Historiography and Cross-Cultural Encounters Historians of Anglo-Moroccan relations, such as Nabil Matar and Jerry Brotton, have meticulously documented the warmth of diplomatic and commercial ties between Protestant England and Saʿdian Morocco in the late sixteenth century (Matar 2005; Brotton 2016). United by hostility toward Catholic Spain, Queen Elizabeth I and Sultan Ahmad al-Mansur exchanged letters, envoys, and commercial concessions. Sugar, saltpetre, and gold moved north; cloth, arms, and naval expertise moved south. It was in this geopolitical climate that the Moroccan ambassador Abdel Wahid Ben Massoud Ben Mohammed Al-Annuri arrived in London in August 1600, leading a delegation of some sixteen men. His mission was explicit: to negotiate a military alliance that might culminate in a coordinated assault on Spanish territories (Brotton 2016, 214–218). Contemporary reports and visual records—the ambassador's portrait survives—describe a tall, dignified figure in sumptuous robes, skilled in the arts of rhetoric and diplomacy. Londoners, accustomed to seeing 'Moors' only in the margins of royal pageants or in sailors' tales, suddenly encountered a living embodiment of Muslim sovereignty, military power, and political sophistication (Matar 2005, 112–115). From Diplomacy to Drama The historical record places Abdel Wahid in London until early 1601. His presence coincided with the height of theatrical vitality in the capital, when the Lord Chamberlain's Men (Shakespeare's own company) were performing for both court and public (Honigmann 1997). By 1603, with James I on the throne, Shakespeare had begun adapting Un Capitano Moro into the play we now know as Othello. Here historiography and cultural studies intersect. Abdel Wahid's embassy was not an isolated curiosity; it was part of a larger English engagement with the Muslim world that unsettled the binary opposition of Christendom and Islam (Vitkus 1999). Morocco, unlike the Ottoman Empire, was a partner rather than an adversary, and in certain contexts, an equal. Abdel Wahid's presence in London demonstrated that Moors could be envoys, negotiators, even allies—figures of political legitimacy, not merely exotic Others (Brotton 2016, 223–225). Shakespeare, I would argue, took from Cinthio the tragic scaffold but fleshed it out with the living memory of Abdel Wahid: a noble Moor of high standing, operating within a European polity, whose loyalty and identity might nonetheless be subject to scrutiny, prejudice, and betrayal. Orientalism Before Orientalism Edward Said's Orientalism famously traced the nineteenth-century codification of 'the Orient' as an object of European knowledge and domination (Said 1978). Yet, in the early seventeenth century, England's discourses on the Islamic world were more unstable, more transactional. The Moroccan ambassador was not yet a subject to be classified and ruled; he was a sovereign's representative, courted and respected (Matar 2005; Brotton 2016). In Othello, we see a tension between two representational impulses: the romanticized warrior whose foreignness is alluring (Desdemona's attraction to Othello's 'tales of adventure') and the racialized outsider whose difference can be weaponized against him (Iago's insidious references to 'the Moor' and 'old black ram') (Neill 2006). The play thus participates in what we might call proto-Orientalist discourse—one that vacillates between fascination and fear, between alliance and alienation (Vitkus 1999). Othello is not an Ottoman sultan or a caricatured stage Turk; he is a Christianized Moor in Venetian service. Yet the mechanisms that undo him—whispers of unassimilable difference, the easy mobilization of racial slurs, the fragility of trust—mirror the anxieties that could undercut even the most promising cross-cultural alliances. Cultural Memory and the Elizabethan Imagination Abdel Wahid's London visit sparked more than political intrigue. It expanded the English imaginary. Writers, artists, and dramatists now had a living model of a Moorish ambassador—someone who could move between Islamic and European courts, who embodied both alterity and parity (Brotton 2016, 227–230). For the playhouse audience, Othello's combination of martial prowess, rhetorical skill, and vulnerability to racialized suspicion would have resonated with what they had heard, seen, or imagined about Morocco's envoys. Furthermore, Shakespeare stages Othello's tragedy not in Morocco but in Venice and Cyprus—borderlands of Christendom's interface with Islam. This displacement allows the play to explore questions of loyalty, service, and trust without directly dramatizing England's own alliance with a Muslim state, while still drawing on its emotional charge (Vitkus 1999). Historiographic Speculation and Literary Genesis While no documentary evidence proves that Shakespeare met Abdel Wahid, the circumstantial case is compelling. The proximity in time between the embassy (1600–1601) and the composition of Othello (1603–1604), the convergence of diplomatic and theatrical circles in London, and the vivid cultural impression made by the Moroccan delegation suggest that the ambassador's visit formed part of the creative ferment from which the play emerged (Brotton 2016; Matar 2005). It is here that cultural studies adds nuance: Othello is not a one-to-one portrait of Abdel Wahid, but a palimpsest in which literary tradition (Cinthio), political reality (Anglo-Moroccan diplomacy), and popular fascination with the figure of the Moor are layered together (Neill 2006). Conclusion: Beyond the Exotic To read Othello through the lens of Abdel Wahid Ben Massoud's embassy is to resist reductive notions of the Moor as mere exotic Other. It is to recall that, for a brief historical moment, England and Morocco stood as partners in a global contest for power, their representatives meeting as equals in London's chambers and palaces (Brotton 2016; Matar 2005). In this light, Othello becomes more than a tragedy of personal jealousy. It becomes a meditation on the possibilities and perils of cross-cultural alliance—a reminder that admiration can curdle into suspicion, and that the very qualities which commend the outsider to service may also render him vulnerable to betrayal. The Moor who strode through Whitehall in 1600 was a real man, an ambassador of a sovereign state; the Moor who strode the stage in 1604 was his dramatic kin, bound by the same paradox: to be both indispensable and perpetually suspect in the eyes of those he served. References Brotton, Jerry. This Orient Isle: Elizabethan England and the Islamic World. London: Penguin, 2016. Bullough, Geoffrey, ed. Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare, Vol. 7. London: Routledge, 1975. Honigmann, E.A.J. Othello. Arden Shakespeare, 1997. Matar, Nabil. Turks, Moors, and Englishmen in the Age of Discovery. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005. Neill, Michael. Othello. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon, 1978. • Vitkus, Daniel J. 'Turning Turk in Othello: The Conversion and Damnation of the Moor.' Shakespeare Quarterly 48, no. 2 (1999): 145–176.
Daily Mail
08-06-2025
- General
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE We live in Britain's WHITEST neighbourhood: Two Sri Lankans are the only ethnic minorities in the area - and here's what they think of it
Brotton in North Yorkshire, a village between pretty Whitby to the south and grittier Middlesbrough northwards, has a unique claim to fame: it contains the area with the 'whitest' population in the UK. The TS12 postcode that covers much of Brotton records it as the least ethnically mixed in the entire country. Official data from the last census reveals that, of 1108 people recorded in this area of the North Yorkshire village, all but two identified as White: English, Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish or British. And those other two? One was 'White Irish, the other 'White Other'. But that census was from 2021-2 and when MailOnline visited we found the statistics have since shifted: two Sri Lankan men have since moved to the TS12 area of Brotton with their families. It seems that recent arrivals, friends Sam Ruthran and Moohanaslan Shambasivan, who now run the village shop and Post Office respectively, have altered Brotton's hitherto unique social make-up. So what is it like to be 'the only non-white in the village?' According to Sam and Moohanasian it's actually rather nice - and certainly less life-threatening than they civil war they say forced them to leave their homeland. The Sri Lankan pair say they were attracted to the former mining village by its relatively rock bottom rents - and both say they received a warm welcome on their arrival from locals. Sam, 36 who now runs Brotton's Value Grocers, said: 'You do notice that there aren't many people who aren't white here, but that's never been a problem. 'The people here are nice and it's a lovely quiet area. 'There has been the occasional comment which has been unpleasant, but only from a very small minority.' Explaining why Brotton, he continued: 'We left Sri Lanka as a result of the civil war, it wasn't safe to stay there for my family, and we ended up coming to Britain and going first to Dartford in Kent. 'Then a friend who was in Middlesbrough suggested we come up north and then we saw this shop in Brotton and we're glad we came here. 'Our rent for a three bedroom house in Dartford was £1,200 and here it's £600.' Sam's pal Moohanaslan, 39, has been in charge of Brotton's Post Office for almost four years and had enjoyed his stay - but says he may not settle permanently as it's too quiet. He said: 'People have been good to us here and we've never had any trouble, I like it but I think I'd like to go somewhere busier. 'It's a friendly place and we do feel part of the community but I hope at some point to move to a bigger town.' But he has noticed that Brotton has some social issues, with many out of work and on low incomes. Moohanaslan continued: 'You can tell when the benefit payments have been made because for two weeks people come in and spend money in the shop, then for the next two weeks it's quiet as they run out of money.' Despite the conspicuous absence of migrants in the town, there remains an apparently high support for the party most associated with reducing migrant numbers nationally, Reform UK. Among their Brotton backers is former soldier Dave Loram who even flies the party's logo on a flagpole above his garden, alongside a Union flag and a cross of St George. 'We have to do something about the numbers coming into this country,' said Dave, 77. 'They're taking over.' The former soldier of the King's Own Royal Border Regiment and ex steelworker used to vote Labour, but they lost him during the Corbyn era. He said: 'It's Reform and Farage for me now, they're the only ones making any sense. The number of immigrants coming into Britain is ruining the country. 'Look at places like Leeds and Bradford, those places have changed completely and it's reaching a point where there won't be any room for the rest of us. 'I've always voted Labour in the past but I'm like a lot of people in this country, I feel like they just don't represent the working man any more. 'It started under Corbyn and it's carried on under Starmer. They've all said they'll stand up for ordinary British people and they haven't, they've let us all down while they stand by and watch people flood in from across the world.' When his quarter of Brotton's almost exclusively white status is pointed out to him he concedes that this tide of immigration has left the village largely untouched. Dave continued: 'Well no, they're not taking over here. It's out of the way and quiet, that's one of the reasons I like it so much. 'You don't see many people from other countries in Brotton - although there are more now than there used to be. 'There's the lad in the shop and the lad in the Post Office. Actually they're both great lads, I've nothing against them at all.' But if it's not striven by racial divides, this doesn't mean that Brotton is immune to social problems. Around the corner from that post office is Brotton's most notorious spot, Jackson Street, known with bitter dark humour by some locals as 'Crackson' Street because of the suggestion it is rife with drug useres. Among those who propound this view is self-employed cleaner Michelle Hazlett, 47. She struggled to fight back tears as she painted over graffiti that had been recently daubed over the front wall of her home. 'This is just because I wouldn't let a bloke come into my house,' Michelle told MailOnline. 'This place is overrun with crack and people who would nick every bit of stuff you own to buy drugs given half a chance. 'It's not people with different coloured skin you want to worry about, all the crime around here is carried out by white people and it's bloody horrible.' Pointing at the defaced wall, she went on: 'This is what you get if you stand up to them: 'slag' and 'grass' painted on your wall 'It's just horrible and I wish I could get out. 'But my rent is £390 but that's still expensive to live in a s***hole full of crackheads. You can't have anything decent. I keep my house lovely and until recently I had a nice car but that was stolen and written off. 'I'm at the end of my tether but what can I do? I just try to keep my head down and get on with my life.' Brotton is just two miles from the attractive North Yorkshire coast, its nearest seaside neighbour the resort of Saltburn-by-the-Sea with its pier and tourism. It is historic enough to have been listed in the Doomsday Book and its most famous son, early 20th century sculptor Charles Sykes, designed the famous Spirit of Ecstasy mascot used on Rolls Royce cars. But the village - which has a population of just over 5,000, around a fifth of whom are covered by that TS12 postcode - was grew during the 19th century thanks to its ironstone mining industry and has struggled since its collapse. And it has been blighted by some antisocial behaviour lately. Just last month police evicted the occupants of one TS12 house and boarded it after repeated complaints from long-suffering neighbours. One relieved neighbour said: 'It was just a hub for crime and the people in there were causing chaos. 'They spent their days shoplifting and their nights on the drugs they bought by selling the stuff they nicked. 'It was a relief when the council and the police closed it down. I'd rather see the place boarded up than occupied by addicts, the village had been ruined by drugs.' Mother-of-six Sharon Booker, 58, has moved away from her native Brotton three times, but always finds herself returning home again. She said: 'It's a friendly place, the sort of village where you can rely on your neighbour to look out for you and where you actually can leave your door open and know your home will be safe. 'The downfall is that there isn't very much for the kids to do, it's quite isolated and that might be why there aren't more people here from other cultures. 'I think people here are quite accepting of others but there are always exceptions. 'My daughter is mixed race and she had trouble at school when a boy made racist remarks. 'I have taught her to stand up for herself and she did but it was still a shocking thing to hear in this day and age, you wonder where a young kid would come across ideas like that. 'He ended up being expelled. 'For the most part that kind of attitude is rare here, we look out for each other and we're a welcoming community.' Brotton falls in the Redcar and Cleveland district, an area which has traditionally formed part of North Yorkshire and has always had a largely white population. In 2021, 97.7% of people in the district identified their ethnic group as 'white,' compared with 98.5% in 2011. Only 0.9% identified their ethnic group within the 'mixed or multiple' category, compared with 0.6% the previous decade. The percentage of people who identified their ethnic group within the 'Asian, Asian British or Asian Welsh' category increased from 0.6% in 2011 to 0.8% in 2021. The population of Brotton, in its remote location, has remained largely unchanged since the discovery of Ironstone in the Cleveland Hills. Its largest pit, Lumpsey Mine, was established in the 1880s but closed down in 1954. It was considered a valuable enough asset to have an artillery post to defend it from zeppelin attack during the First World War. The area has fallen into decline and unemployment remains high, with four in 10 children in the Redcar and Cleveland district living in poverty. While crime and poverty are still a preoccupation, Brotton's lack of diversity doesn't trouble the locals. 'It's not something I ever think about,' said Lauren Pearce, 30. 'I've lived here all my life and I have five kids at decent schools. 'We don't really stop to think about where people come from as long as everyone gets along and is happy here. It's a quiet part of a quiet village and I'm happy with that, I wouldn't want to live anywhere else.'
