THANKS to the intensive reporting of conditions in Normanton, the Telegraph has succeeded in getting Derby City Council to admit that more should have been done for this area recently.
I first had a glimpse of Normanton in 1953 when I saw two of my brothers settle into their digs in Sale Street. They arrived to start their apprenticeship with International Combustion Ltd and attend evening classes at Derby Tech on Normanton Road. I was bundled off to boarding school, with another brother, in North Wales.
I was able to visit my two brothers in Derby, who moved to Toc H on Osmaston Road, which was a residence for young people from different countries and the UK.
I was back in Derby in 1970 after completing my academic studies at various British universities and started my race relations career with Derby Council for Community Relations. I stayed in Rose Hill Street, off Normanton Road.
Even then the Normanton and Pear Tree areas were considered to be an immigrant "ghetto". It seems nothing has changed till today. I visited Harlem in New York in 1968, the year in which the Rev Dr Martin Luther King was assassinated. This area was considered to be a mainly black ghetto. Conditions there were terrible in every sense. So when I was in Derby two years later there was no comparison between Harlem, New York, and Normanton, Derby.
It is really wrong that Normanton is still thought of as Derby's ghetto. The word ghetto was used to describe the infamous Warsaw Ghetto in Poland during the Second World War. It was an area of Warsaw where the Nazis forced Jews to live in terrible conditions, away from people of other races. Many of the Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto ended up in the German death camps.
During July 2011 I wrote a letter to the Editor of the Telegraph, "Vibrant multi-faith area is safer than rest of city" (July 11 2011). I stated that "people have tried, without success, to vilify the Normanton area." It seems that some people still insist on demonising Normanton and its residents and I find this most unfair.
In the same letter I also stated that "Normanton is an area of vibrant multi-faith. Muslim mosques, Hindu temples, Sikh gudwaras and Christian churches, together with Indian and Pakistani community centres, are living testimonies of multi-racial co-operation."
Derby has now a reputation of being a progressive multi-cultural city. We should be very proud of this. Our last Mayor and the present Mayor both originally came from "Azad" Kashmir.
It really is time that the Normanton and Pear Tree areas are not thought of as dangerous immigrant ghettoes, but as parts of our city with much to offer.
I find it a joy to hear so many different languages being spoken. It is also a pleasure to see so many shops run by our ethnic minorities. I hope the people of Derby continue to embrace and promote good race relations.
