An immigrant who migrates: “The UK is no longer a country for the old”

Gustavo* is a Colombian man who has lived most of his life in London. He is now planning to return home because he believes the United Kingdom is no longer a country fit for the old.

Javier Núñez

Returning to his birth country has been a difficult decision for the Colombian to make, since he has been away for almost 33 years and believes that adapting to a new life in Colombia may take him a long time.

“I used to go and visit my parents once a year and stay for a maximum of three weeks to a month, like a tourist. But now it’s about settling down definitively.”

Gustavo never wanted to leave Colombia. At 17 he had a girlfriend, hundreds of friends and a care-free life, “but my family decided that I should take a different path”.

He felt the clash in culture and the different climate as soon as he arrived: “I arrived one June afternoon and the image I have is of a gloomy city, covered in clouds. I remember saying to my brother, who had already spent years in the UK: ‘When does summer start?’ and he replied: “We’re already in summer!”

Gustavo recounts that contact with the language was not immediate: firstly he had to find a source of income to support himself, so he began to work at international food restaurants, where he learnt how to understand Italian, the language of the chefs, before that of the host country. “The need to speak English arose four months after arriving, when in the street a man approached me to ask the time. As I didn’t know how to respond, the young man had no option but to grab my arm, look at the watch and leave baffled”. After twelve months of being in London, he was staying illegally because he did not have enough funds to extend his visa.

During the three years he was illegally in the country, he never experienced the danger of being deported, unlike the time when immigration officers arrived at a Latin club where he was talking to some friends. That night the police cornered of the area and started to check passports. “I remember there was a female officer selecting who stayed and who went. I only waited my turn, resigned to my fate”.

But momentarily, when the officer was distracted, one of the waiters surreptitiously approached him and led him to a small hiding place in the bar.

“The time I was there (four hours) was an eternity. I only heard voices and whispers, whilst I was subdued with anxiety. I was finally saved”.

The Latin nightclub would be the same place where months later, he would meet the woman who would become his wife and with whom he would have two children: “With Melanie, we were engaged for a year. I lived with her for twelve years and we decided to get married when she became pregnant with John, the eldest child”.

After resolving his residency status, Gustavo became a British citizen and began to work for a train company. One of the most difficult moments of his life occurred two years ago when he lost his job and soon after the bank turfed him out of his house.

Within the train company, Gustavo was one of the oldest on the payroll in his position, and because of this the managers began encouraging him to accept retirement, and in exchange he would receive compensation.

“The company wanted its older employees to retire because they were very expensive as they had been contracted with better job guarantees. As I didn’t accept it, they searched for any reason for me to let me go, and in the end they found one.”

However, he took his case to court, arguing that his dismissal had been unfair; he finally failed, because he gave up on pursuing the terms required to impose the corresponding lawsuit.

“I knew that if I lost this job, I would never find another similar. And indeed it was as such. The employment situation in the United Kingdom is so difficult that I have been forced to work on things that only an immigrant does when he/she arrives alone, not knowing anyone and without fluency in the language”.

Since then, he has been preparing to return to Colombia, where hopes to start a new life, in spite of the difficulties he may find along the way. It pains him to leave his children, but he feels slightly reassured as they have already had to act older than their age, and can rely on the support of their mother.

“I know that in Colombia I face a very competitive world, but also one filled with opportunities, especially in the domain of languages. There, I will be able to be an official translator, a teacher in English academies or even work for an oil company”.