Belgian refugees were encouraged to ‘embrace’ their temporary ‘home’ land, but in 1914 the Official Committee of Belgians were evidently worried that too much ‘embracing’ and assimilation was taking place. Therefore they decided to publish a handbook of ‘suggestions and advice’ to the refugees in Britain. They warned the refugees ‘not (to) accentuate the difference between their customs and those of the British, but they stressed that:
“Every Belgian must be a good patriot….. Social and family life in Belgium is marked by friendliness, a good-natured want of ceremony, and a strict adherence to old-established habits. No one need depart from these; indeed nothing is more delightful than to find the characteristic life of Belgium reproduced in Great Britain."
Most of these characteristics of Belgian life could be found at the Earls Court Refugee Camp in London, where according to a post war report it was ‘a Belgium village in miniature, reflecting the daily life of an industrious people’. In fact, during the war over 100,000 people passed through its doors.
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