For many of us growing up in Britain we have always felt a growing need to pay some sort of homage to those who came before us.

We are indebted to them in a way and through the stories they told us we are aware of what a difficult time it must have been for them, finding themselves in a strange country, not knowing the language with little or no money to your name.

From what we have heard and in many ways witnessed when I was younger, it was not at all easy.

But what happens when a generation begins to forget about what their grandparents went through? And what happens when they decide that the new immigrants are not ‘the same’ as their relations?

Do they have a right to criticise those going through the exact same thing as their forefathers?

It seems the latter is now ‘a right.’ There is a growing element who, inspired by scare stories in the media, feel they have a right to criticise others coming to this country for the first time.

They are quick to criticise them for their ‘strange ways’ and how they are not fitting in.

They talk of them in a disparaging way and feel the new immigrants are not acting in the same way as their parents did.

Or they talk down the new arrivals yet look back at the actions of their own parents with a sense of nostalgia.

I read about one place where people were protesting against a shelter and community base which would assist asylum seekers because they thought it would bring their house prices down.

You actually could not make this up.

Anyone coming to this country and having to work in the jobs we don’t want to do are going through the exact same thing as your grandparents. They are going through the same heartaches and they are battling the same battles.

Just because technology may have moved on and they can contact their own relatives with a little more ease does not mean their lives are any easier. They are facing the same level of prejudice and even worse they are facing it from others who themselves had parents and grandparents who were also immigrants.

It seems not only hypocritical but also quite strange that we have children of immigrants talking down to new immigrants.

Are these the ideals our parents taught us? Should we not be the first to assist the new arrivals and not look at them as a drain on the system?

This makes us no different from those others who made the lives of our mums and dads so difficult.

I have heard this constantly from some folk and it actually is quite shocking to hear such comments coming from a grandchild of an immigrant.

Much of this idea that we are ‘better’ than those who came after us has its roots in the feeling that we are 'more British'. That being British means you must be born here.

Here’s a thought.

What would our forefathers who struggled to make this their home say if they heard you speaking in this way?