UP until a few days ago, I always considered shopping for shoes to be like being hit about the head with a wet kipper. It’s nice when it’s over.

So imagine my surprise, last Saturday, when I visited a shoe shop and came out with a spring in my step that was nothing to do with my newly purchased insoles.

It was because of a chance conversation I had with one of the shop assistants while his mate fetched me a size 11 from the stock room.

The young man I was chatting with had a foreign accent, so I asked him where he was from. My guess was eastern Europe, which goes to show that accents are not my strong point, because it turned out he was from Lithuania, a cold country from the northern reaches of the Eurovision Song Contest, across from Denmark and Sweden, and separated from Russia only by Latvia and Belarus.

He told me his name was Juriy Sogaciov, said he had been in Swindon for two years, and answered diplomatically when I asked him what he thought of it.

“It’s not really my kind of city,” he said, and, reading between the lines, I got the idea he would have felt more at home in a university city, which is fair enough.

However, he had made up his mind to stay and - unlike those people who dedicate their lives to moaning about everything that goes on Swindon - even the good things - but never bother to do anything about it, Juriy has a plan.

He told me he was a theatre manager back home, and had an idea for an arts-inspired website, which he is going to call Sunny Swindon.

Well, this was certainly a ray of sunshine to me, and, needless to say, it made it by far the best shoe shopping experience of my entire life.

Juriy, speaks great English, but his first language is, naturally, Lithuanian, and he is the only person I have ever met who speaks it.

I told him I have been really proud to say I come from Swindon since I discovered there are more than 100 first languages in the town, which means we are blessed with diversity on a scale you would normally only expect in a much larger place. It also means we are a fantastic advertisement for immigration, since anybody who has read anything about Swindon’s history will tell you it is as important to our heritage as the Great Western Railway. Ever since the days of Brunel, Swindon has been a magnet for people coming to work and settle here.

And whereas some people love to convince themselves that immigration is an invitation to terrorists and scroungers, here in Swindon you don’t have to look far - possibly no further than your nearest shoe shop - to find that the people who find their way here are, in fact, often of exactly the calibre of person you would want for a neighbour.

It started with highly skilled Victorian railwaymen at the cutting edge of a technological revolution, and continues with bright young people like Juriy, who are bold enough to uproot themselves from their families and travel sometimes thousands of miles, ready to work for a better life and a better community.

Juriy won’t get rich selling shoes, but then he will surely move on to better things and make a lasting impression on wherever he settles down.

The challenge, for Swindon, has never been about attracting quality people. Rather, it is all about getting them to stay. If we can persuade the likes of Juriy to call Swindon home, there could be hope for us yet.