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I first got to know of Katharine Rose Williams Radojicic and her story when she wrote an op-ed for The Guardian.
“Last night I was standing at Heathrow airport in tears. The good kind of tears. The kind that come when your husband finally lands on UK soil, 18 months after you got married, so you can at last begin your life together,” she wrote.
It spoke to me. The image of the “good kind of tears” stuck in my mind, a scenario I have envisioned for myself over and over again as I go to bed alone night after night.
I later had a great Skype call with Katharine, while I was interviewing people for my article on the UK’s family migration policies. “When you’re in this process,” she said, “It’s the loneliest thing in the world.”
That spoke to me too.
Katharine’s the curator of Love Letters to the Home Office, bringing home the realities of the family migration laws through the stories of the families who have been affected and/or separated by them. The book was launched this week. Neither Calum nor I could be there, and the time difference made it difficult for us to join them on Skype, but I’m glad we’ve been able to be part of this endeavour by contributing our story to the book.
It’s now available on Amazon at a (very!) good price of £4.50 – made as affordable as possible so people can gift them to their MPs, friends and anyone else they could possibly think of. The true stories behind immigration policies are often forgotten, buried under the frenzied media headlines, politicians’ rhetoric and a general sense of “it doesn’t concern me”. The problems and injustice of such discriminatory policies are easily forgotten by those who don’t aren’t directly touched by them. Love Letters to the Home Office wants to bring these experiences to more people. Public awareness is important.
Please buy a copy of the book if you can. Don’t worry when you see that Amazon says it’s out of stock: when you order a copy it’ll be printed and sent to you as soon as possible.
I’ve ordered my copy, and can’t wait for it to arrive. These stories are the ones that make it easier whenever it feels like “the loneliest thing in the world”.
