Sean Cooney 2016?
Just before Christmas 2015, the Middlesbrough garage group owner spent thousands of pounds of his own money buying and kitting out a single decker bus as a travelling industrial kitchen, venturing across Europe where he and his team were able to feed thousands of refugees a day. The Dunkirk ("Barosch") refugee camp in France was designed for under 100 people was overcrowded with over 2500 mostly Iraqi Kurds in winter 2015. Occupants were relocated to a nearby site better-designed for the higher number of people in early 2016.
Well the mist was lifting from Roseberry Topping, and the moors were cold and green
And the driver swore there’d be no stoppin’ as he made for the A19
And in the borough, lads and lasses were sleeping safe and still
When Ghafoor Hussain hit the road, with a million mouths to fill
Chorus:
It’s beans and rice, and rice and beans
And a hand when you fall
For there’s a friendly face, a better place
And a future for us all
He couldn’t bear the lads and lasses’ faces on the tv screens
As they drowned and froze in hateful places with nothing but their dreams
So he bought a bus, and he filled it up with beans and rice and tea
And on a winter’s morn he he headed south and crossed over the sea
Now in Dunkirk we remember yet the soldiers on the sand
800 ships we’ll not forget, that came to lend a hand
But here comes one more vessel now, across the angry sea
To serve 3,000 meals a day, and 10,000 cups of tea
Now some have stared into his face and wondered if he’s mad
But he knows he’d be in their place, if it weren’t for the chance he had
And the lads and lasses’ hopeful faces are what drives him on
So here’s to Ghafoor and his Bus, and a better world to come