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From The Editor

I've found this brilliant website.

It's a website designed to "explore, record and illustrate why people came to England over the last 200 years and what their experiences were and continue to be. Basically, it gives visitors to the site the opportunity to publish their own experience of migration.

So, of course, I looked at Tooting and it reminded me of how many great stories there are that could be told by people in our area. And how lucky to we are to be surrounded by such an electric and exciting mix of people from every corner of the world. One of my favourite stories was from the owner of a jewellery shop in Tooting. Here's an extract:

Coming to Tooting:
"I was born in a small town in Kenya. My parents were born in India and emigrated to Kenya in 1935 because life in India was hard and he was searching for a better place to live in. The administration and the infrastructure (in Kenya, a former British colony) were very similar to the UK; hence, when I emigrated to the UK, I had no difficulty in adjusting. The weather was the biggest change; the town in Kenya where I lived is on the equator, therefore we had even days and nights throughout the year. The only difference I noticed in the UK was, we had comparatively less time to sit and chat, as everyone was either studying or working or - in the evenings - watching television. In Kenya, comparatively, we had a lot of time to spend with the family and friends.."

Two things occurred to me. First, I would love to hear stories from visitors to this site about why you came to Tooting. Perhaps you've lived here for generations (a Your Local London user recently emailed me and told me that she remembered when the Astoria cinema on Mitcham Road - now Somerfield - was hit with an incendiary bomb during a showing of Gone with the Wind), or you've recently arrived. Please email in and tell me your story and I'll publish tem online.

The second thing that occurred to me was made me extremely sad. The photos accompanying the stories I read were all shown in a local exhibition in 2003. In the exhibition Asian business owners talked about their experiences of living and working in Tooting. Where was the exhibition? Wandsworth Museum, now closed. For more, don't bother going to www.wandsworth.gov.uk/Home/LeisureandTourism/Museum but I do recommend you try http://www.movinghere.org.uk

From The Editor

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