I was accompanying Gergo and Istvan for the first time on their evening busking in the centre of Geneva. They explained that they usually go about in pairs, sometimes both playing, sometimes one playing and the other interacting with people and begging for money. Gergo had a shabby accordion across his shoulders. During the entire evening, I observed the same scenario in every restaurant we visited. Gergo stood aside and played a song in front of the restaurant guests, while Istvan moved from table to table with an empty hat in his hand respectfully repeating several words like ‘bon jour, merci’, ‘ca va?’. He was slightly bowing his back in a symbolic sign of humility and in the hope of arousing compassion. The repeated body posture, consisting of a slight bowing of back and head with a piteous expression in his charcoal dark sad eyes, belonged to the strategic armoury of migrants.

And then on Monday I went ‘packing’ for the first time. So that's how we stayed there [in Leeds] to work. In 2005, as it was, it was still not good. But in 2006 we'd picked ourselves up. We'd got money. We were fi ne. We saved money, came home. First we bought a car and then a house. We bought both in one year. We were doing really great [that year].