Hard to picture reality of crisis

I hear the news from the safety of my comfort zone which includes warmth, food and shelter. However I try to imagine what it is like to be without these essentials and I find it very difficult. Seeing the pictures and hearing words is often a poor substitute for the experience of actually being there.

To find out the real meaning of something, it can be clearest when it is in short supply or no longer exists. For example: What bread looks like depends on how hungry I am/you are. Of course this also applies to other basic needs, that they become most urgent by their absence. Those desperate people seeking refuge now rely not only on good media coverage for the help they need, but also on imagination on how it feels.

If it were possible I would want to walk in their shoes and even try to enter the minds of those poor brave souls. I continue the struggle to escape some (but not all) of my comfort zone.

Robin Townsend

Railway Hill, Barham

So, the UK government is prepared to allow Ukrainian refugees to come, but only if they have relatives already living here. How fortunate for us that we have left the EU, so we will not be forced like the other 27 European countries, to open our borders to those who need our help! Mind you at the start of World War one, i seem to have read somewhere that we took in something like a quarter of a million Belgian refugees, without restrictions, even welcoming them at the coast and taking them into our homes; but then that was in the ‘good old days’! Since then our Empire has declined considerably, and so it would appear has our social responsibility towards our European neighbours.

But perhaps that was what Brexit was really all about, and while the EU countries spend

on average 40% of their GDP on the welfare of their citizens, we only spend 32%, which is why the NHS and many other services are struggling to cope!

Mike Armstrong

Queens Avenue, Canterbury