Brash McKelvie – Don’t forget that we’re all incomers

Scottish Field’s online columnist Brash McKelvie can be the incredible sulk.

Here are the cast of characters that share the vicissitudes of life:

Scragend – a Rhode Island Red of indeterminate age and foul nature.

Shitting Cat – does exactly what it says on the tin.

The Beloved – a paragon of virtue and a self-appointed critic of most of my thoughts and actions.

Snr and Jnr Orifice – our fledged offspring.

I love a good grudge, don’t you?

In fact, as the Beloved affectionately informs me, I can hold a grudge that would put a tantrum throwing six-year-old to shame.

I fan them and feed them with imagined slights and then bask in the glow of aggrievance until I’m nice and toasty – or told to ‘bloody well stop it and grow up’ – which happens more than not. But the one grudge that I find hard to get to grips with is that ancient and modern one, the one against ‘in-comers’

Now that this year’s crop of fledglings have left their homes and known places and start fresh in new jobs, colleges, universities, leaving behind all that is familiar to them. They will become the incomers, the newbies, in their chosen destinations and fields and certainly I, and I’m pretty sure you will too, hope that they will be welcomed, treated kindly and with a smooth integration into their new social circles and structures.

If we wish for those that we care for to be caught up in the warm embrace of welcoming people in new situations, why are we then so cautious/critical of incomers on our own doorstep? And why does the word incomer have such a negative connotation?

Being the mean, parsimonious person that the Beloved assures me I am, I was brought up on the mantra that income was desirable, necessary and indeed the more you had of it the happier one would be. (It was that sod, outgoings, you had to watch out for – although this basic message is lost on my spouse who just sees this as yet another marital equation for ‘killjoy’).

So why, by sticking the letter ‘r’ at the end of this most desirable of words, income, does then word then engender animosity –‘bloody incomers’ we’ve all heard it, no matter what part of the country we are in. It’s a parochial affectation –‘no they’re incomers, they’ve only been here 25 years’ Listen to this nonsense and wake up.

We are a nation of incomers, who have been coming in for centuries, bringing new trades and methods, increasing the nations knowledge bank and with it security and financial strength. Don’t pat yourself on the back that your family have been in one spot for over 300 years – hey ho – no transportation, a lack of imagination, a fear of the unknown – you don’t get a gold star for that.

So whilst I can fully understand and applaud a small four hour sulk because someone ate my last biscuit, no names, no pack drill but you know who you are you feathered abomination, we cannot condone such begrudging attitudes to incomers who may feel ostracised and stigmatised by such archaic attitudes.

Would we want that for the ones we love that we have just sent in to the big wide world?

As Charles Dickens (Dickens – he’s English isn’t he – quick turn round on the spot 3 times, touch your nose and spit – that gets rid of the charm) so aptly put it – ‘We are all fellow passengers to the grave’. (Except for Scragend who is driver, conductor and ticket master, and chief biscuit eater to boot)

Let’s endeavour to behave as such. Except me… and the hen, of course.

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