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A Retired Policeman, Refugees, Caravans
and the Calais Jungle
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In the late autumn of 2015 I was told by a serving officer in Essex Police that
his friend Shelley was taking caravans to Calais for refugee families. At that
time I had an old caravan on my drive that I no longer needed so I agreed to
donate it to Calais. A week later at 3.30am I set off from my home at Felsted
with Shelley who had been to the Jungle refugee camp in Calais a couple of
times already.
Driving off the ferry, within 5 minutes we drove into
the Jungle. It had been raining and the roads were
just muddy tracks. I needed the 4-wheel drive of my
Hilux truck as we passed throngs of people on the
narrow track, many in sandals and flipflops. Most of
the people were in tents, some in shanty shacks. I was
in the third world. We drove through the main muddy
street to an area where there were 5 caravans. They
were occupied by refugee families and were sitting in
and surrounded by large pools of water that stank of
sewage. The Jungle was on wasteland situated on low
lying land behind the sand dunes on the coast next to
the ferry port.
We decided this was an awful place for the caravan
so I towed it to a drier area of bushes and brambles
which we cleared with the help of refugees. An
Afghan family with two young children moved into
the caravan from a tent they had been living in. I then
towed the other caravans to this better, drier place.
My first visit to the “Notorious Jungle”
impacted me in a number of ways. I
saw the awful conditions that these
people were living in, flimsy festival
tents pitched on land that was boggy
and liable to flood, there was a lack
of food, no warm or waterproof
clothing or proper shoes. There was
NO organisation, NO one in charge,
No Government, No large Charities, No
Red Cross, No Save the Children! Just
lots of small groups mainly from the
UK helping the refugees. The refugees
were not how I expected, they were
very friendly and “Notoriously”
hospitable insisting you come and
take tea(Chai) with them sharing what
little they had. They were grateful and