At a formal dinner recently, an aristocratic English lady asked about my experience of the UK. I told her I had loved it from the moment I arrived from Albania, aged 17. I then paused and mischievously added ‘as a stowaway’. I expected that to be a conversation killer. Instead, her eyes lit up. ‘How wonderful! My brother left England for Canada 45 years ago. As a stowaway too. What an adventure!’
The Albanians shut out of a legal route into Britain are lured by conmen who tell them not to bother with visas. Some end up in cannabis farms, then in prison
I arrived in Britain hidden in a lorry from Belgium, by way of Italy, which I had reached by boat. For the first four years I worked in a restaurant and at Sainsbury’s before unexpectedly entering Oxford to study maths. I was the outsider who learned the language, loved the culture, got a job and paid his taxes. I wonder, sometimes, if Britain still likes a story like mine.
As the Albanian Ambassador I would not normally stick my neck out in this way. But British ambassadors in Tirana speak freely about Albania’s failures and its need for reforms, with the serene authority of people who have not recently checked the news from home. Consider this my small act of reciprocity.
