Flickr/Darren Johnson. Some rights reserved.
One of the most famous characters in literature was a refugee living in England. Dapper, egg—headed and with a very high opinion of his abilities, he came to the United Kingdom following the German invasion of Belgium in 1914. His name was Hercule Poirot.
Like the fictional Poirot, roughly a quarter of a million Belgians found refuge in Britain during the First World War. It is an episode that we can be proud of. ‘Prodigious efforts were made on behalf of those refugees’, writes Terry Charman in his book The First World War on the Home Front. They were sheltered throughout this island, from Kent to Strathaven, in villages, seaside resorts and mining towns. People took them into their homes. Even the likes of The Daily Express ran adverts imploring readers to donate money to the hapless Belgians.
