Back to index of Nerve 12 - Summer 2008

Gerd and Elke

By Matt Rimmer

Gerd and Elke - both in their early forties - and their daughter 13, migrated to Liverpool from Saarland in Germany in 1998, when Gerd came to study Popular Music and Sound Technology at LIPA.
Elke spoke no English and had never visited the country at that time. Gerd had visited once briefly with a school youth group but a huge affection for British and American music had given him a great love of English and some insight into the culture. As well as being a budding musician he was a qualified nurse, but had to wait a year for his papers to come through before he could work in the UK.
Initially the family settled in Toxteth and Gerd says this first period was the most challenging, not least getting to grips with the strong local dialect.
“I spoke English okay but coming to Liverpool was like entering a different world, the scouse accent hit us pretty hard! The first six months you’re on your own, you really have to support yourself. I busked on the streets and worked sixty hours a week as a contract care assistant. When it’s not your mother tongue being spoken and you’re dealing with laws, politics, people, your brain is overloaded. By the end of the day you don’t even understand ‘good evening’ anymore.”
But they overcame these difficulties to make a success of their lives in the UK. Gerd has been a full time nurse since 1999 and has released an album on Aigburth-based label Probe Plus*.
Elke studied art at Liverpool Community College and has worked as a children’s book illustrator, and now at a secondary school as well as contributing illustrations to Nerve. She concurs that effort and determination are key. “You have to adapt to the country. Yes there are going to be differences but you have to go out there and deal with them.”
Thankfully they have found their effort matched by the Liverpool people, says Gerd: “Scousers are very friendly, funny people! Saarland was a very working class area - hard-working straight-forward people - and here is very similar. We’ve had a few idiots as you get everywhere, but they’ve generally been kids.”
Obviously as white migrants they have had a very different experience of migration than those groups most under the current media spotlight. But both agree that multiculturalism does work.
“In the primary school in Toxteth my daughter attended, there were pupils from seventeen different countries,” says Gerd.
Elke adds, “You could see how multiculturalism does work after 9/11. There was a strain on everyone but they all were tight because of the bonds and friendships they’d already formed. They treated each other carefully and with respect.”
Gerd is clear on why migration has become such an issue, saying, “The British economy is in downturn and whenever that happens the right wing press make it an issue. Essentially people’s problems with migrants are simply that they are different, they do things differently and people find that scary.”

*Sonnenberg – Fishing in the pool