THE first time I ever encountered racism was as an innocent adolescent watching the English football team’s visit to Dublin in 1995.

Hooligans with links to far right groups such as Combat 18 and the British National Party sang racist songs, threw chairs at opposition fans and fought with the Irish police, forcing the game to be abandoned.

The look of disgust on the face of Paul Ince, England’s first black captain, was something I’ll never forget and brought home the horrors of prejudice that I, as a white teenager growing up in Hereford, had never experienced.

The next time I saw racism was not in this country but in Brazil. As a languages student I volunteered to work in a school for children from a shanty town near Rio de Janeiro. Brazil is a beautiful and special country but one where for many, the whiter your skin the better you are as a person.

Walking through middle class areas with my black colleagues, I saw police follow us, going to the supermarket security guards would stop us. More shocking were the comments from the white rich and university educated Brazilians whose idea of Utopia was worryingly similar to that of Hitler.

Moving back to England I felt quite proud and nationalistic that people were not judged on their appearance and that differences were seen as a sign of celebration and cultural enrichment rather than a source of shame.

But the appalling scenes in Ireland prove that there are extreme elements in Britain who also possess deeply offensive views.

The European elections are now just weeks away and there is real concern that the right wing BNP may take some seats exactly because of voter apathy.

Even the Bishop of Hereford has urged the county to go to the ballot box to prevent the extremists from gaining any sort of power.

The last few years have seen people from all over Europe make Herefordshire their home. It has brought a new energy to the region and the new residents have been a great asset both in work and social circles.

Many Herefordians have also seen that they have a great deal in common with the foreign visitors. When I played for Westfields Football Club, the three Polish players enjoyed drinking, smoking, sport and women as much as their English counterparts.

The truth is that immigration has had a positive effect on the county. It has readdressed the balance of our ageing population, boosted falling school pupil numbers and breathed life into a dying High Town with new stores and shoppers.

The BNP does not want them here. It wants to stop immigration and send anyone who is not white back to their “home country” - wherever that may be.

June 4 gives people the chance to acknowledge the cultural advancements made in the county by voting for one of the many political parties vehemently opposed to the xenophobic and archaic BNP.

• There is an advert in the Hereford Times this week from the BNP. As you can see from reading this, I find the views of that party abhorrent.

And to make sure I do not have any of their money in my pocket, I will be donating part of my wages to Brazilian children in the school where I previously worked.