Reepham High - Letters to Europe
Writers Centre Norwich organised for over 200 students at schools across Norfolk to work with a professional writer and a refugee to compose a series of Letters to Europe. These letters form part of an international conversation about the future of Europe, and the hopes and dreams young people harbour for it.
We're delighted to post a selection of the letters by Reepham High.
Dear Europe,
You have so many faces, and so many more that I cannot see. The holiday face, all sun, sea and fun. The welcoming face, letting anybody enter. The neutral face, not fighting with yourself. The important face, the one that sorts out the world. But these are all just masks are they not?
They are the positive masks that you are happy to show off. What about your other faces. The face of suffering, the face of difficulties and the face of danger. You don’t show these faces. They have to be searched for, dug out. I feel there are more I have not yet discovered. But these are still just faces are they not?
For me you are not just a mask, I have seen only a small part of your true face. On the Greek islands I can see a part of you. The people and style of life, so different to the holiday face. The same applies for England. The mask is all important and peaceful, but from within I can see the troubles and suffering. I wish to see your true face, however I know I won’t see all of it, not in one life time.
There will always be missing details, an eye, an ear, you will never be complete for me.
I would rather you removed the masks, and showed yourself to me truly. I prefer you that way.
Lucy, Reepham High – Letters to Europe Workshop November 2010
Dear Europe,
It’s nice to be back. It’s been so long since I last saw you last, and I can barely remember your beauty. I’d forgotten your emerald green fields, your deep turquoise lakes and the curves and dents of your body of how humanity has shaped you. See clusters of buildings, model cities, perfectly drawn civilisations and I know in the midst of the dull grey concrete and fading orange bricks there are clusters of faces blurred with unfamiliarity. For the first time you are a stranger to me.
Your roads not quite where they were in my memories your voice louder and foreign than before. How can my oldest friend seem so alien? I began to notice the cracks and holes in your face for the first time and with that realise that I will have to befriend you once again.
George, Reepham High - Letters to Europe Workshop November 2010
Dear Europe,
As I close my eyes I see you there, floating on a sapphire sea beneath an opal sky. Your arms held open, your gentle smile and your gentle silver voice. So inviting, calling to me but as I step closer to you, you fade slowly and silently away across an ocean of dreams.
Walking steadily closer to you as you steadily move away, never do I get further to or from your shores and emerald fields. As I stop, you stop, just too far from reach and still calling for me to come closer. I turn around, the path behind me is gone and so, without choice I am forced to move onwards, as ever you drift away.
Tabitha, Reepham High - Letters to Europe Workshop November 2010
For a long time I have wanted to see you,
To observe you, to gaze in awe of the many beauties you conceal.
Now I have the chance, to stare at your glittering seas of the deepest blue,
To fly over mountain-tops dusted with snow, to see the stretches of green fields.
My journey is over to soon.
As I walk through customs,
I can feel eyes following me, watching,
Only a refugee could get these looks,
Looks of wonder, of question, of thought,
As to why I am here and what I have brought.
Tara, Reepham High - Letters to Europe Workshop November 2010
Dear Europe,
I have left many people I love behind
Many I will remember
Some I won’t.
I still see them
In my head like the best holidays you go on.
When I arrived I felt I was illegal but then I was accepted.
But I still don’t feel right, I am not European and I will never be
But that won’t stop me trying.
I am one of the lucky ones,
Not everybody gets away.
People are still stuck there while I am here safe,
I feel like I should do something to help the others in my country.
George, Reepham High - Letters to Europe Workshop November 2010.
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