First things first.

When I created this blog, about a million years ago, my idea was that it would be light-hearted and amusing; frivolous, you could say, and you would not offend me. It was mostly concerned with trips I had taken, hobbies I enjoyed, that sort of thing. I didn't think of it as a journey but I suppose it was. If I had to characterise it as such, I would have said it was a rollicking day trip to Blackpool complete with sunburn, funny hats and a trip to the pub.  My readers and I were companions on a merry ramble.

But in 2015 the jolly jaunt changed direction rather dramatically when I became involved in helping refugees, in what I know realise is the greatest migration of people ever recorded in the history of our world.

Let me explain. In the summer of 2015 I really wasn't aware of any crisis.  I now find that fact to be so shocking that I wonder at my own ignorance. But in my own defence, and I suspect that of many other people, there wasn't a lot of news coverage of the war in Syria and the subsequent flood of people running for their lives.

How did I become involved? What changed? Well, the saying goes that the longest journey starts but with a single step and for me that step was taken when I met my first refugee, a man, in Verona, on one of my trips.

I must be completely honest with you about that meeting- there's no point in a journal that's less than truthful-  because I'm not too proud of my reaction when I met him.

I'll tell you what happened.

I used to visit Verona for a few weeks every year to see opera at the Arena. It was a highlight in my year. Hotels in Verona during the opera season are wildly expensive, so to keep costs down I would rent an apartment where I could make my own meals. Every day I would go to the local, rather posh, bakery and buy rolls for lunch; and every day a big, healthy-looking man stood quietly begging at the bakery door.

The first time I saw him I was irritated, especially when he asked me for money. After all, by European standards I'm not wealthy and I was only buying rolls because I couldn't afford lunch in a fancy restaurant. So why was this apparently capable man asking me for a hand out?

As the days passed, and he persisted asking, my sense of indignation grew, until I became really quite annoyed.

To show my displeasure I would scowl at him and brush rudely past, probably tutting as I went.

But I never paused to ask him why he was begging.

Someone kinder and more thoughtful did that.

On my last full day the woman in front of me dropped 2 euros in his outstretched hand and as she did, she asked him why he needed money. His quiet answer, in perfect English, stopped me cold.

He was, he told her, from Aleppo, where he had been a University lecturer. But Aleppo had become too dangerous, he said. He had to leave his mother, his wife and their children behind while he came to Europe to make a safer life for them. He had survived crossing the Mediterranean in a perilously flimsy boat; journeyed all the way through Italy and France; somehow smuggled himself into the UK where he had got himself a job as a short order cook so he could save and pay for his family to join him. But his 'luck' had run out and he'd been sent back to Italy under the Dublin Agreement * to seek asylum.  He was not allowed to work in Italy and in order to go forward with his asylum claim, he needed a lawyer. His only option was to beg every day and send some money home to feed his family, anything else going towards paying, one day, a lawyer.

When he finished speaking I was so ashamed. I had never imagined such a heart breaking story. And then I realised that in my outrage at being begged I had joined that dreadful group of individuals who,  huffing and puffing with moral indignation, write anonymous letters to the papers complaining about beggars and rough sleepers spoiling their towns. They sign those letters  'Disgusted' from Tunbridge Wells, or some such. They are jeeringly referred to as NIMBYs **

I have always viewed such people with distaste: and yet- here I had apparently become one.

It was a humiliating realisation for me.

I was leaving Verona the next day and in the morning I was up early, hoping to catch some photos of the beautiful city as it awoke. I saw the man again, this time he was near the bus stop. I asked if he would mind talking to me, to tell me more. He described, with the patience of someone who has repeated their story many, many times, about the destruction and horror that was happening in Syria. He told me how much he missed his family and how he feared for them, wondering if he would ever see them again. Without rancour, he told me how he had been reduced from having a nice life, with a respected and interesting career in the University, to being a beggar, his family left in the ruins of what was once home.

I asked how he managed these days. He indicated the backpack that was stashed near him. In there he had, he said, a change of clothes and a cell phone. Of those meagre possessions the cell phone was the most treasured because he could stay in contact with his family.

At night he slept in a corner of a local church. He kept himself and his clothes clean at a sink in a courtyard. People- kind people- gave him food. The staff at the bakery, having heard his story, were happy to let him ask for money at their door. He had a timetable, and every day, during the day, he would move to two other locations where he would beg, always with the permission of the residents.

When I  said goodbye to this gentle, softly spoken and educated man, I also said goodbye to the person I had unthinkingly become.

I didn't decide then and there that I must help refugees- that was to come later- but meeting him, I now realise, was the very first step into this new journey, and without that meeting, none of what followed would ever have happened.

That was the beginning. Please come with me on the next step of the journey.

*Dublin Agreement- simply put, refugees must apply for asylum in the first European country they arrive in; in this case, it was Italy

** NIMBY- Not In My Back Yard.