FenTiger

Have just returned to UK from Hungary. Flying back we struck up a conversation with a Hungarian passenger sitting next to the window! She mentioned that there are 4,000 Hungarians living in Brighton! Both herself and her husband are very happy living in this area and much prefer it to living in Hungary, in particularly Budapest. The female passenger also mentioned she never drove in Hungary but drives all the time in UK! She thought Hungarian drivers are lunatics!
We only struck up a conversation with her because she was nice enough to alert us, both being deaf, to the latest deparure news whilst we were sitting in our seats waiting for take off!
Seems quite funny we are planning to move over to Hungary on retirement whilst Hungarians don't seem to hestitate in coming to the UK! Maybe after ten, fifteen or twenty years the nostalgia will wear off and they will be back in Hungary without looking back.
Suffice to say my Hungarian wife has never been to Brighton so when her sister comes over in January they are going there for the day to find out what's it all about. No doubt they will be hearing Hungarian spoken in alot of places they visit in Brighton Even in my UK home town of Orpington, Kent, my sister-in-law has heard Hungarian being spoken in Orpington town centre!

duztee

Oh! They are everywhere Fen!
When I was living in the UK and visited by Hungarian friends they hear a lot of their own language when we were out and about.
Just a few instances, Hungarian tourists in Cheddar, Many occasions in Bristol including a bus driver, on a boating holiday in the Midlands, and if you ever travel along the A66 the cafe at Stainmore on the top of the moors was owned by a young Hungarian couple, and may well still be.

Pilis Nemzeti Park Fella

A lot of them are working class Hungarians doing basic jobs.

But there are also a lot of university-educated Hungarians doing jobs 'beneath their station'. Just because they can earn more money in UK.

Worth having a chat when you hear a bit of Hungarian in Lidl/ Aldi etc.

Kooky.

Hungarians came over to the UK in large numbers in the late 1950s due to the uprising/revolution/whatever it was called. There were many up in the North East working at ICI, etc., including my late uncle. Growing up I had several second-generation Hungarian (and Polish) friends. I visited Budapest about twelve years ago and found it very emotional, would love to go back.

Peter_in_Hungary

It was 1956 and they left Hungary as refugees. Lots of them were in refugee camps in Austria where they stayed until another country accepted them, often requiring a sponsor from the new country. Those accepted into the UK were given jobs - frequently the jobs had nothing to do with any qualifications they possessed, but had to be undertaken anyway. One refugee of the day that I know about had a masters degree in mining but was not recognised by the UK and so finished up being a petrol station attendant. Another (eventually my father-in-law) who was an artist and antique restorer was given a job as a roofers assistant. There was no choice about the jobs and little choice about which country that you could go to.

How different today where the migrants turn up on the shores of Europe (aided by the George Soros funded NGOs), demand to go to Germany and refuse to abide by any regulations on the way.