Playing a part: Anne M Jones returns to the refugee day centre in Calais

‘Making words, linking words, explaining words, leads to hearing stories.’

The flat, grey-green landscape exhales ghosts. They seem to taunt me as my train speeds from Calais to Lille-Flandres: ‘Has the world learned nothing from that terrible war that raged here over 100 years ago?’ Out of the window is an endlessness occasionally broken by small groups of houses nestling around a church spire. It reminds me that, despite the separation of church and state in France, the Catholic church, via Secours Catholique (SC), is still in a powerful position when it comes to providing relief to the refugees who continue to arrive at Calais. Its work is grudgingly accommodated by the local authorities, and it does not receive the constant petty harassments meted out randomly to other agencies – the Refugee Community Kitchen is from time to time prevented from setting regular tables for food or clothing delivery.

SC has been able to maintain a day centre, where refugees arrive daily to shower, wash clothes, receive hot drinks, recharge their mobile phones, and make use of art materials, chess, draughts, Connect 4, and other games. On Wednesdays, clothing repairs are possible when a group of ageing seamstresses bustles in and hastily fixes as many garments as possible in the next three hours; these are left in exchange for a numbered ticket and collected at the end of the afternoon.

In this good-natured company, I skinnified six pairs of jeans, two joggers, and took in the sides and sleeves of a very posh jumper. All the time I worried about the less-than-perfect job I was doing: the young man who owned the jumper was even smaller than the markers on the jumper had indicated, and I fretted about this as I walked back to my room along the spooky canalside in the twilight. On other days I brought out my Scrabble, which soon caught the attention of young men eager to improve their English – it is an excellent learning aid when used without emphasising the competitive element. Making words, linking words, explaining words, leads to hearing stories: Mahoumidi, who shepherded sheep in Eritrea, a job passed down through generations, told me ‘My mother made me leave because there was nothing there, I could see the sheep disappearing’, adding sadly, ‘I miss my family so much.’ Then he quickly smiled, as if bidden by an inner voice to cheer himself up. He has no plan, but his friend, Mehdi, is determined he will ‘find a boat’ despite knowing the dangers. Two friends from Iran, Ali and Saeed, in their mid-twenties, had walked together from there because they did not want to conform with the demands of their ‘murdering regime’. In near-perfect English Ali told me, ‘I am an astro-engineer and was in my second year of my PhD; then I was asked to use my designs for making weapons. I refused, because wars are terrible, and I was told I could not have my job. They are terrible people in charge of the country, they are not truly religious people at all.’ His friend is an architect. Both have tried to hide on board a regular ferry ‘but dogs found us, great big things with large teeth.’

Like all the others, they find sleeping places where they can, hoping the police won’t be patrolling that particular hedgerow that night. They will persist in attempting to reach England. I asked each of them not to use the inflatable boats because they are so dangerous. The response was a wan smile and raised eyebrows: ‘What else are we supposed to do?’ All the refugees I speak with are undeterred by the information sheets available there in French, Arabic, Dari, Farsi and Tamil. These detail the current immigration strictures, including plans for deportation to Rwanda.

A separate room is set aside where women can meet, but usually only about three arrive, because there is a dedicated house a few miles away. I spent an afternoon with the three regulars and two of their children. These are lively, loved children, but as I played with six-year-old Mariam and her three-year-old brother, I spotted how their learning is far below the level of children here. These women are Syrian, and are not destitute, but it is clear they are traumatised by all they have endured, and by the indefinite wait for news from a country they were led to believe would be friendly to their claims for asylum.

Aside from the day centre, the regular food and clothing distributions continue. Refugee Community Kitchen gives out 800 meals a day, and the local one, Salaam, provides breakfasts at a centre near a railway crossing. Tragically, on Tuesday January 3, Fouad, a Sudanese twenty years young, a regular at Salaam for the past year, must have decided he had had enough. He waited until the crossing gates went down, and positioned himself on the track as the train approached.

A vigil in his memory was held outside Le Parc Richelieu the next evening. Many volunteers were in tears, listening to speakers calling for an end to the cruelties within systems that lead to such desperation.

The old, large church of St Pierre, in the town centre, contains a shrine to St Rita, who is the patron saint of lost causes. She reminds us never to despair, and as usual I added my candle to the ones already flickering in the gloom.

Rain greeted the new year, a curtain of drizzle over the packing away of Christmas decorations. These had been on the theme of ‘The town that makes the stars sing’, and allowed two extra days for an ancient carousel to appeal to anyone undeterred by the chill. By the time I departed there were no blue glittery boxes of toys with teddies leaping out, or princesses in gold dancing around platinum reindeer, or silver bears hugging park benches. Just groups of young Sudanese or Eritreans, walking around or standing waiting at bus stops, joking together as young men at bus stops do, in newly-collected clothes, ready for journeys to anonymous tip offs for some lethal transport to the land of their dreams.

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