Three waves of Polish emigration to the UK.
Each one different, each one coming to Britain for different reasons. World War 2, Martial Law, EU Accession. The first wave and their children have learnt to get on with the second wave, some intermarrying. Both are unsettled at the effect the third, massive, post-EU Accession wave is having. The ripples of the first and second waves have by now spread far and wide; the third wave has arrived Britain like a huge rock thrown into a smallish pond. The first and second wave of Polish migrants are worried; worried that their good name – 60 years of keeping their collective noses clean – will be sullied by a vast unwashed army of Areks, Sebeks and Sylweks, swearing, drinking and urinating in the streets, getting into trouble with the locals and with the police. The “Poles go home” graffiti at the toilets at Luton airport does not to distinguish between first, second and third wave of Polish immigrants, much to the chagrin and unease of the earlier immigrants and their British-born children and grandchildren.
Before WW2, Polish migrants in the UK were numbered in their hundreds. Novelist Joseph Conrad (Heart of Darkness, The Secret Agent) was one of them. There were Jews who’d fled the pogroms in Polish cities such as Łódź or Radom, but that was when eastern Poland was under Russian rule and the Cossacks were the oppressors. For the first real ‘wave’ of mass migration from Poland, Britain had to wait until WW2.
Poles fought valiantly alongside the British from the first day of the war to the last. In the air (Polish pilots were instrumental in the defeating the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain), at sea (Narvik, Battle of the Atlantic, Murmansk convoys) and on land (Tobruk, Monte Cassino, Falaise, Arnhem), Poles gave a first rate account of themselves as warriors. Yet the war that they fought for – a war to restore Poland’s freedom – they lost. In 1945 Poland was under the Soviet yoke and would remain so for another 45 years.
The 200,000 servicemen washed up on the British Isles after World War II were the first wave of Polish mass migration. This group was predominantly male, although both my mother and mother-in-law were among the female minority that found themselves in Britain in 1945. Although another 80,000 Poles returned to Poland after the war, they were actively harassed by the Stalinist authorities. Most were persecuted to some extent, many imprisoned, scores were executed on trumped-up spying charges. The 200,000 Poles who remained in the UK after the war were political émigrés, refugees. They were not economic migrants. This was their badge of pride, which set them apart from the Poles who went to America, France or Belgium in the 1920s and ‘30s, ‘za chlebem’ (‘after bread’). My parents’ generation resented the term ‘Polonia’, which they said applied exclusively to Poland’s economic diaspora – and not to them, political refugees.
The UK Census of 1951 showed that Poles were the largest ethnic group in the United Kingdom after the Irish.
The second wave came more gradually. Unlike the first and third wave, the second wave migrated over a period of 48 years, from 1956, when Stalinist communism began thawing out, to May 2004, when Poland joined the EU. In the middle of this period came Martial Law, when General Jaruzelski and his tanks clamped down on a brief period of relative freedom during the Solidarity era (August 1980 to December 1981). After Martial Law, thousands of Poles studying, working or visiting the UK decided to stay, many received ‘exceptional leave to remain’ from the British government.
After 1956, when Stalinism was replaced by a less-repressive form of communism, family members who ended up on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain were reluctantly allowed out of People’s Poland. Many of my friends’ mothers were part of this wave. The late ‘50s through to the mid ‘60s saw the largest numbers of Anglo-Poles born to ex-servicemen and their wives. This was my generation; my wife, my brother, many of my friends. The majority of this generation Poles, born in the UK, would grow up to assimilate and intermarry. Most of my friends from Polish school and Polish scouts have non-Polish spouses. The second wave of Polish migrants reached a crescendo after Martial Law, which was imposed by the communists in December 1981 to crack down on the Solidarity trade union, which to Moscow was looking more and more like an independence movement.
Thousands of Polish students in Britain at the time did not wish to return home, and sought Exceptional Leave to Remain, which many got. For us Anglo-Poles, their presence, their political awareness, their direct contacts with the homeland, their current knowledge of popular Polish culture, was a breath of fresh air. The Polish Students’ and Graduates’ Association in Great Britain became more politically focused; meetings with dissidents replaced folk-dancing.
At first, there were conflicts between the post-war Poles, who feel they had single-handedly built the Polish community infrastructure across Britain, at odds with the new Solidarity Poles. But 25 years on, the first two waves are united against the third – by far the biggest – the Poles who turned up on the doorstep when the UK opened its labour market to them in May 2004.
My post-war generation of Anglo-Poles was brought up in the Swinging Sixties. The gulf between us and our parents was unimaginable. A friend’s father told him when he was 17: “When I was your age, I was shooting Germans. You are watching Top of the Pops”. This beautiful observation brilliantly encapsulates the difference in mindset between our parents’ generation and ourselves. For them, the six years from 1939 to 1945, horrendous beyond our comprehension, were the defining point in their lives, the bloodshed and loss leavened with pride and honour.
How could we as teenagers, with our long hair and our Pink Floyd albums, ever hope to find a common tongue with our parents?
I never, ever, experienced any discrimination or ‘racism’ on account of my Polishness during the 40 years I lived in the UK. When I started Oaklands Road Primary School in Hanwell, London W7, I had no idea of how unusual I was. After a while, I asked my first friend from school, Gary Clark, a rather intimate question. “Gary, when you’re at home with your parents, do you speak… er… Polish?” Gary was completely taken aback by the question. “What do you mean?” “Well,” I continued, “There’s these two language thingies, one you speak at school, in the streets, in the shops – the other you speak at home…” I could tell he didn’t have a clue what I was talking about. It was only then – and I must have been six at the time – that I realised I was different from the other children. Having said that, Oaklands was rapidly becoming multicultural; by 1969, my class was one-third migrant – four boys from the West Indies, three Asian girls from East Africa, a Yugoslavian girl, a Greek girl, a boy who’s father was from Lithuania, and me. Because my mother’s older sister had settled in Canada after the war, during the school Commonwealth Day procession I used to carry the Canadian flag round the school playground. Somehow Polishness was not an issue on weekdays.
But weekends were different. Saturday mornings were spent in Polish school, which I attended from kindergarten through to A-Level. Four hours of Polish grammar, literature, geography and history cemented the narrative and rooted the myths of nationhood. On Saturday afternoon it was Polish scouts, an organisation with a distinctively paramilitary flavour. Again, talks about our shared history and martial feats were an important part of the proceedings, along with drill, field craft and singing of patriotic military songs. Sunday mornings were Polish church. I felt I knew everyone there, half by name, the other half by sight. My classmates from Polish school, friends from scouts, their siblings, children of my parents’ friends – lots of familiar faces.
Today, they’ve all gone. I visited our church in July 2006 for the 10.15 am Mass, one of eight (there were just three in my day) Holy Masses celebrated each Sunday at the Ealing parish. From among the entire congregation, which must have numbered around 600, I knew just two faces from my childhood. The rest were the new migrants and their children. My generation has moved on. A few, like me, fulfilling the destiny of those Saturday classes and patriotic scout meetings, moved to Poland. The majority have moved out of West London. My brother lives in a picturesque Derbyshire village. My old friends from Polish school live in agreeable Bucks, Berks, Herts, Kent, Surrey or have emigrated. Most have English spouses. Most of their children speak little or no Polish, especially if they have Polish surnames (English mum). Where the surname’s English, there’s still some chance our third-generation Pole still speaks some Polish (second-generation Polish mum).
At the end of every Mass, we’d sing ‘Boże Coś Polskę’, an intensely patriotic hymn, the very thought of which makes my eyes mist over. The final lines – sung by Poles in exile the world over – went “Ojczyznę wolną/Racz nam wrócić Panie” – “O Lord, let us return to a free fatherland”. It occurred to me, during the depths of the Cold War, that if enough people believe what they are singing, it will happen. You can petition the Lord with prayer.
24 August, 2007
23 August, 2007
Nature or nurture: What makes Poles Poles?
A key question that I will return to again and again in this blog is Nature or Nurture. Genetic or environmental factors. Are Poles the way they are because of their history – or is Polish history the way it is because of the Poles? Although Poland became a nation state in the tenth century, its history has been one of triumphs and reversals, expansion, contraction, disappearance and rebirth, continual wars fought with many neighbours to the west, north, east (and to a more limited degree) south. It has been a history of alliances and betrayals, glories and national tragedies. The question I pose is to what degree can the downturns of Polish history be laid at the hands of negative character traits visible in Poles today – an inability to form a common front in face of threat, continual wrangling about trivial issues while greater dangers grow unchecked, the partitioning of a father’s land (or kingdom) among his many sons (or princes), the arrogance of a small rich elite indifferent to nation’s plight or the poverty of the masses.
Why have so many come to England after the UK labour market was opened on 1 May 2004? The scale of the migration is staggering. In the 34 years between 1880 and 1914, some 300,000 Jews fled the Pogroms in Russia, migrating to western Europe and the USA, shaping the cultures of their host countries for decades to come. Here, we’re talking of two to three times that number of Poles migrating to just one country in just three years. Why so many? They appear seduced by the British way of life. When will they return to Poland? Will they ever return? Will they assimilate with the Brits? If they return, will they bring with them British ideals – fair play, reasonableness, a gentleman’s word and his bond? Or will they bring with them a new set of bling values acquired from chavs in the UK? Will they demand higher standards of governance from the Polish state? Better laws?
At the heart of it, are Poles like Brits or different? If they are different, what are the causes of the difference? History or genetics? Watch this space, post your opinions.
A key question that I will return to again and again in this blog is Nature or Nurture. Genetic or environmental factors. Are Poles the way they are because of their history – or is Polish history the way it is because of the Poles? Although Poland became a nation state in the tenth century, its history has been one of triumphs and reversals, expansion, contraction, disappearance and rebirth, continual wars fought with many neighbours to the west, north, east (and to a more limited degree) south. It has been a history of alliances and betrayals, glories and national tragedies. The question I pose is to what degree can the downturns of Polish history be laid at the hands of negative character traits visible in Poles today – an inability to form a common front in face of threat, continual wrangling about trivial issues while greater dangers grow unchecked, the partitioning of a father’s land (or kingdom) among his many sons (or princes), the arrogance of a small rich elite indifferent to nation’s plight or the poverty of the masses.
Why have so many come to England after the UK labour market was opened on 1 May 2004? The scale of the migration is staggering. In the 34 years between 1880 and 1914, some 300,000 Jews fled the Pogroms in Russia, migrating to western Europe and the USA, shaping the cultures of their host countries for decades to come. Here, we’re talking of two to three times that number of Poles migrating to just one country in just three years. Why so many? They appear seduced by the British way of life. When will they return to Poland? Will they ever return? Will they assimilate with the Brits? If they return, will they bring with them British ideals – fair play, reasonableness, a gentleman’s word and his bond? Or will they bring with them a new set of bling values acquired from chavs in the UK? Will they demand higher standards of governance from the Polish state? Better laws?
At the heart of it, are Poles like Brits or different? If they are different, what are the causes of the difference? History or genetics? Watch this space, post your opinions.
22 August, 2007
Creating the Polish stereotype
To make the world around them less complicated, the British have – as indeed all peoples – devised simple stereotypes to help them understand their neighbours and other foreigners. The Frenchman has perennially been portrayed with his striped jersey, beret, Gauloise dangling from lip, string of onions, bicycle. The German, pompous, in lederhosen, intent on invading other countries or nabbing the sun beds. The lustful yet jealous Italian lover, the American tourist totting multiple cameras, the shifty work-shy Arab. Yet there is no stereotypical Pole in British popular culture. No Manuel from Faulty Towers. No René from ‘Ello, ‘ello. No Crocodile Dundee. The sudden arrival of hundreds of thousands of Poles spread evenly across the towns and cities of the United Kingdom must undoubtedly result in a new stereotype being created.
What will it be? Is it indeed possible for Britons to have positive stereotypes of other nations? Prickly Poles? Impatient Poles? Complaining Poles? Poles taking umbrage all too easily? Poles making no attempt to disguise their hypocrisies?
Oliver Pratchett’s ‘Honest guv, we’re not your cowboyskis’ (Sunday Telegraph, 27 August 2006), is the first article I’ve seen in the British press attempting to create a recognisable Polish stereotype. Pratchett’s Polish builders are over-qualified (one’s a gynaecologist, one’s an economic adviser, one’s a former foreign minister, the fourth’s actually the Archbishop of Warsaw); they are homesick (for Łódź, Katowice, the Carpathian Mountains); they miss Polish food (goose, carp), and haven’t caught on to local ways (dumping rubble in neighbour’s skip, dismantling motorbikes in the bathroom). Accurate? Partially. Humorous? Very. Indeed, were Fawlty Towers to be remade today, Manuel, Polly, O’Reilly (the jerry-builder) and Stubbs (the reliable builder) would all be Polish.
If anything, Poland in the British mind has been a drab, post-communist country of grey tower blocks, crumbling soot-stained heavy industry, toothless peasants, a vodka-swilling people who may or may not have once been part of the Soviet Union. Or Russian Empire. Or something. Ah yes, Lech Walęsa and Pope John Paul II.
But an older stereotype of Poles lingers from WW2 days;the dashing, courageous yet ultimately tragic fighter, doomed to an émigré’s existence, forever dwelling on a lost fatherland.
Layer upon layer, the British will construct a new and viable stereotype, I just hope it's rich and not one-dimensional.
To make the world around them less complicated, the British have – as indeed all peoples – devised simple stereotypes to help them understand their neighbours and other foreigners. The Frenchman has perennially been portrayed with his striped jersey, beret, Gauloise dangling from lip, string of onions, bicycle. The German, pompous, in lederhosen, intent on invading other countries or nabbing the sun beds. The lustful yet jealous Italian lover, the American tourist totting multiple cameras, the shifty work-shy Arab. Yet there is no stereotypical Pole in British popular culture. No Manuel from Faulty Towers. No René from ‘Ello, ‘ello. No Crocodile Dundee. The sudden arrival of hundreds of thousands of Poles spread evenly across the towns and cities of the United Kingdom must undoubtedly result in a new stereotype being created.
What will it be? Is it indeed possible for Britons to have positive stereotypes of other nations? Prickly Poles? Impatient Poles? Complaining Poles? Poles taking umbrage all too easily? Poles making no attempt to disguise their hypocrisies?
Oliver Pratchett’s ‘Honest guv, we’re not your cowboyskis’ (Sunday Telegraph, 27 August 2006), is the first article I’ve seen in the British press attempting to create a recognisable Polish stereotype. Pratchett’s Polish builders are over-qualified (one’s a gynaecologist, one’s an economic adviser, one’s a former foreign minister, the fourth’s actually the Archbishop of Warsaw); they are homesick (for Łódź, Katowice, the Carpathian Mountains); they miss Polish food (goose, carp), and haven’t caught on to local ways (dumping rubble in neighbour’s skip, dismantling motorbikes in the bathroom). Accurate? Partially. Humorous? Very. Indeed, were Fawlty Towers to be remade today, Manuel, Polly, O’Reilly (the jerry-builder) and Stubbs (the reliable builder) would all be Polish.
If anything, Poland in the British mind has been a drab, post-communist country of grey tower blocks, crumbling soot-stained heavy industry, toothless peasants, a vodka-swilling people who may or may not have once been part of the Soviet Union. Or Russian Empire. Or something. Ah yes, Lech Walęsa and Pope John Paul II.
But an older stereotype of Poles lingers from WW2 days;the dashing, courageous yet ultimately tragic fighter, doomed to an émigré’s existence, forever dwelling on a lost fatherland.
Layer upon layer, the British will construct a new and viable stereotype, I just hope it's rich and not one-dimensional.
18 August, 2006
Polish sausage renaissance
Foodies can now find increasing numbers of quality Polish sausage in supermarkets, butchers' shops and local stores. With prices two-and-half to three times higher than cheap sausages, the premium products are everything that a Polish sausage should be.
'Kielbasa' is often compromised by the inclusion of bone fragments (dangerous to the teeth!), gristle, too much fat, too much garlic, the last two resulting in horribly-repeating belches.
Last week in the village store in Zgorzala, just outside Warsaw's southern borders, I bought some 'Polska surowa' (Polish raw) sausage, at 21.50 PLN per kilo. Equally delicious raw or fried, the sausage consists of chucks of uncooked but smoked pork loin (similar in taste and consistency to Krotoszynska ham). No foul belching followed consumption.
Our local Auchan has started to carry a branded range of smoked meats, including an excellent kielbasa at 18.50 PLN per kilo, called 'W Kominku Wedzone' ('smoked in the chimney'). More like your traditional kielbasa, this one is well-smoked, good consistency meat, not too fatty or garlicy, no bone, cartlege or gristle.
Both sausages go down well with beer.
The premium kielbasa is available in the UK too, where 'Topolski' brand sausage is available in Selfridges for 25 quid a kilo. An excellent name - Dan Topolski, the legendary Oxford rowing coach, his father, famed artist Feliks Topolski - recognisable names to Britain's cultured classes, plus the conjunction of 'Top' and 'Polski'. Deserves to do well.
Foodies can now find increasing numbers of quality Polish sausage in supermarkets, butchers' shops and local stores. With prices two-and-half to three times higher than cheap sausages, the premium products are everything that a Polish sausage should be.
'Kielbasa' is often compromised by the inclusion of bone fragments (dangerous to the teeth!), gristle, too much fat, too much garlic, the last two resulting in horribly-repeating belches.
Last week in the village store in Zgorzala, just outside Warsaw's southern borders, I bought some 'Polska surowa' (Polish raw) sausage, at 21.50 PLN per kilo. Equally delicious raw or fried, the sausage consists of chucks of uncooked but smoked pork loin (similar in taste and consistency to Krotoszynska ham). No foul belching followed consumption.
Our local Auchan has started to carry a branded range of smoked meats, including an excellent kielbasa at 18.50 PLN per kilo, called 'W Kominku Wedzone' ('smoked in the chimney'). More like your traditional kielbasa, this one is well-smoked, good consistency meat, not too fatty or garlicy, no bone, cartlege or gristle.
Both sausages go down well with beer.
The premium kielbasa is available in the UK too, where 'Topolski' brand sausage is available in Selfridges for 25 quid a kilo. An excellent name - Dan Topolski, the legendary Oxford rowing coach, his father, famed artist Feliks Topolski - recognisable names to Britain's cultured classes, plus the conjunction of 'Top' and 'Polski'. Deserves to do well.
01 June, 2006
How NOT to write a CV - top tips for Poles
Back from Lublin, where UK firms were recruiting (more) Poles to work in the UK. So enamoured are British employers with the talents, work ethic and qualifications of Polish workers, it's easy to forget that for every one "Pawel the Plumber, Krystyna the Cardiologist or Anna the Architect", there's ten wannabees back home who just don't cut it.
Some of the most glaring errors made in CVs coming to light at the Lublin job fair include:
"Marital status: Slow" (a literal translation - 'wolny' = slow)
"Marital status: Cavalier" (a lazy translation - not bothering to consult a dictionary)
"Last employer: ___________ Company From About About"
(Literal translation of Spolka z o.o. !!!!)
"... little hair business" for "biznes wloski" (trusting too much in the powers of an on-line dictionary)
"Hobbies and Interests: Aj lajk tu bejk kejk" (handwritten CV put together phonetically, assisted by bilingual friend over the phone)
Still, most UK employers and employment agencies present at the fair were more than happy with the people they did recruit...
Back from Lublin, where UK firms were recruiting (more) Poles to work in the UK. So enamoured are British employers with the talents, work ethic and qualifications of Polish workers, it's easy to forget that for every one "Pawel the Plumber, Krystyna the Cardiologist or Anna the Architect", there's ten wannabees back home who just don't cut it.
Some of the most glaring errors made in CVs coming to light at the Lublin job fair include:
"Marital status: Slow" (a literal translation - 'wolny' = slow)
"Marital status: Cavalier" (a lazy translation - not bothering to consult a dictionary)
"Last employer: ___________ Company From About About"
(Literal translation of Spolka z o.o. !!!!)
"... little hair business" for "biznes wloski" (trusting too much in the powers of an on-line dictionary)
"Hobbies and Interests: Aj lajk tu bejk kejk" (handwritten CV put together phonetically, assisted by bilingual friend over the phone)
Still, most UK employers and employment agencies present at the fair were more than happy with the people they did recruit...
25 May, 2006
Having a tilt at Polishness
I'm genetically Polish, but born and educated in the UK, where I worked for 16 years. I've been in Poland since July 1997, and am keen to discover what aspects of Polishness are in the blood, and what aspects are the result of 45 years of communist uravnilovka. Observing my UK-born Polish friends who like me upped roots after Poland became free and comparing us to our age-group born in the PRL, I can differences and similarities.
Differences
We do not tolerate the rudeness, indifference and obstuctionism of public employees. Brought up in the ethos of an apolitical civil service who'd write letters to you signed 'Your Obedient Servant', we find dealing with Polish bureaucracy and its PRL-era mindset frustrating and painful.
Similarities
We take umbrage with similar ease; we are highly patriotic, we tend to keep close to the family.
I hope that with every year that passes between the end of communism and the present day, young Poles raised in a free market democracy will continue to push Poland towards normality in the negative respects, while Poland will continue to retain all its strong characteristics.
I'm genetically Polish, but born and educated in the UK, where I worked for 16 years. I've been in Poland since July 1997, and am keen to discover what aspects of Polishness are in the blood, and what aspects are the result of 45 years of communist uravnilovka. Observing my UK-born Polish friends who like me upped roots after Poland became free and comparing us to our age-group born in the PRL, I can differences and similarities.
Differences
We do not tolerate the rudeness, indifference and obstuctionism of public employees. Brought up in the ethos of an apolitical civil service who'd write letters to you signed 'Your Obedient Servant', we find dealing with Polish bureaucracy and its PRL-era mindset frustrating and painful.
Similarities
We take umbrage with similar ease; we are highly patriotic, we tend to keep close to the family.
I hope that with every year that passes between the end of communism and the present day, young Poles raised in a free market democracy will continue to push Poland towards normality in the negative respects, while Poland will continue to retain all its strong characteristics.
Polish State Railways and the high cost of social mistrust
Travelling by rail in England with my son recently, I marvelled at the contrast between the work of a ticket collector in Poland and the UK.
The British guard asked me courteously to see our tickets, and seeing that I had two, thanked me and moved on. He did not inspect them close up as they do in Poland. He did not ask to see any proof of my 10 year-old son's educational status or age.
His bosses work on the assumption that if someone's got a ticket, there's a 99% likelihood that the correct fare has been paid. The ticket inspection task is about revenue protection. The guard's after people travelling without a ticket.
In Poland... "Prosze o bilet!" A command rather than a request (though levels of courtesy at PKP's guards are rising). The ticket is inspected thoroughly. Any legitimacja is checked thoroughly. The legitimacja szkolna is a joke. When travelling with my son and I'm asked for his legitimacja my stock response is: "There is compulsory education in Poland ['obowiazek szkolny']. Parents who do not send their children to school are imprisoned. That I'm here and not behind bars implies that my son does go to school. So why the bit of paper to prove the obvious?
The upshot of over-checking tickets on PKP is that ticket inspectors do not focus on revenue protection. My line out of Warsaw, run by Koleje Mazowieckie, is an excellent example. At all the unmanned stations between Warszawa Zachodnia and Piaseczno, passengers are requested to board the train at the first compartment of the first carriage to buy their ticket. The guard writes tickets out manually. Our regular ticket - "One adult, two children, three bicycles, from Warszawa Dawidy to Czachowek Poludniowy, return, coming back today". The guard needs to check the number of kilometers between the two stations, check my children's legitimacje, work out the tariff (family discount, excursion discount), tot it all up and write out the ticket longhand. The ticket will cost something like 13.67 PLN, and he's always short of change, so he's fumbling through his pocket for tiny coins worth a fraction of a penny. By the time he's written the ticket, the train has passed two intermediate stations. From the back of the train, where they can travel safe in the knowledge that no guard will ever have time to control, dozens of people hop on and hop off, knowing there's very little chance they'll ever be asked to pay.
And revenues are lost, management thinks no one's using the trains, services are cut back to save money, trains are cut from eight carriages to four - because the most elemental thought process has not been carried out.
It's a social mistrust thing. Over-checking costs. Management distrusts its ticket inspectors, controllers control controllers, the cost of revenue protection must be out of all proportion to the revenues actually collected.
Have your tickets ready please - passengers at the rear of the train travel free.
(This train is the all stations to Skarzysko Kamienna from Warsaw, pictured between Warszawa Dawidy and Warszawa Jeziorki, 19 March 2006.)
Travelling by rail in England with my son recently, I marvelled at the contrast between the work of a ticket collector in Poland and the UK.
The British guard asked me courteously to see our tickets, and seeing that I had two, thanked me and moved on. He did not inspect them close up as they do in Poland. He did not ask to see any proof of my 10 year-old son's educational status or age.
His bosses work on the assumption that if someone's got a ticket, there's a 99% likelihood that the correct fare has been paid. The ticket inspection task is about revenue protection. The guard's after people travelling without a ticket.
In Poland... "Prosze o bilet!" A command rather than a request (though levels of courtesy at PKP's guards are rising). The ticket is inspected thoroughly. Any legitimacja is checked thoroughly. The legitimacja szkolna is a joke. When travelling with my son and I'm asked for his legitimacja my stock response is: "There is compulsory education in Poland ['obowiazek szkolny']. Parents who do not send their children to school are imprisoned. That I'm here and not behind bars implies that my son does go to school. So why the bit of paper to prove the obvious?
The upshot of over-checking tickets on PKP is that ticket inspectors do not focus on revenue protection. My line out of Warsaw, run by Koleje Mazowieckie, is an excellent example. At all the unmanned stations between Warszawa Zachodnia and Piaseczno, passengers are requested to board the train at the first compartment of the first carriage to buy their ticket. The guard writes tickets out manually. Our regular ticket - "One adult, two children, three bicycles, from Warszawa Dawidy to Czachowek Poludniowy, return, coming back today". The guard needs to check the number of kilometers between the two stations, check my children's legitimacje, work out the tariff (family discount, excursion discount), tot it all up and write out the ticket longhand. The ticket will cost something like 13.67 PLN, and he's always short of change, so he's fumbling through his pocket for tiny coins worth a fraction of a penny. By the time he's written the ticket, the train has passed two intermediate stations. From the back of the train, where they can travel safe in the knowledge that no guard will ever have time to control, dozens of people hop on and hop off, knowing there's very little chance they'll ever be asked to pay.
And revenues are lost, management thinks no one's using the trains, services are cut back to save money, trains are cut from eight carriages to four - because the most elemental thought process has not been carried out.
It's a social mistrust thing. Over-checking costs. Management distrusts its ticket inspectors, controllers control controllers, the cost of revenue protection must be out of all proportion to the revenues actually collected.
Have your tickets ready please - passengers at the rear of the train travel free.
(This train is the all stations to Skarzysko Kamienna from Warsaw, pictured between Warszawa Dawidy and Warszawa Jeziorki, 19 March 2006.)
Like a German in Alte Breslau
My first visit to Lwów/L'viv/Lvov/Lemberg was a deeply emotional affair. Since childhood Saturday mornings at Polish school in west London, 40 years ago, where we learnt of this city, torn away from Poland by the Yalta betrayal, Lwów has had a powerful hold on my imagination.
In the post-war Polish emigre communities in the UK, Lwów was everywhere. The stained-glass windows of Polish churches in Chiswick and Manchester with the crest of Lwów 'Semper Fidelis', the Koło Lwowian - the association of old Poles from Lwów that many of my parents' friends belonged to - my scout cub troop, named Orlęta Lwowskie (Lwów eaglets) for the children that took part in the fighting for a Polish Lwow in 1920, Lwów was as Polish as kiełbasa, bigos, krakowiak and polonez.
Communist Poland had a different shape to the pre-war maps adorning the living room walls of patriotic Poles living in West London. One day, Poland would be free. Would it revert to it's pre-war shape? Every Sunday, at the end of Mass we sang "Boże Coś Polske" in our churches: the last line - which still brings goose-pimples when I think about it - "Ojczyznę wolna, rać nam wrócić Panie." It occurred to me that so many people - praying so intently, for so long, for something to happen - it would happen. Even though in the darkest days it looked like the Evil Empire was there to stay and Poland's chances for independence were negligible.
But what about the borders of a free Poland? In the 1980s, opinions differed. I had a heated argument with Ryszard Czarnecki, today a leading light in the populist Samoobrona party, in the pub garden of the Haven Arms in Ealing Broadway in 1987. He called me a 'sprzedawczyk' (sell-out artist) for suggesting that a free Poland should not include a Lwów and a Wilno, but should retain the post-1945 borders. I argued that any claims that Poland might have for these two cities would be mirrored by German claims for Breslau, Stettin, Allenstein, Kolberg etc. And while Poland today is smaller than it was in 1939 by more than the size of Belgium and Denmark combined, it is now central rather than eastern Europe, ethnically homogenous and more industrial.
Visiting Lwów does leave me with an ambivalent feeling though. The saying that 'every cobblestone in Lwow is steeped in Polish history' rings true. The streets, cathedrals, churches, pre-war, pre-Partition Polish buildings, make the city feel every bit as Polish as Kraków. And it's larger than Kraków. While the Piast dynasty's Poland did not originally include Lwów, the city had been Polish for the best part of half a millennium. As I walked the pavements my forebears walked, I felt just like a German must feel in the Stary Rynek of Wrocław.
The sights are a marvel. There's a certain old house, where the drainpipes on one side feed rainwater into the Baltic while the drainpipes on the other feed rainwater into the Black Sea. The old cemetary chapel with its polychromed bas-reliefs. The Armenian cathedral. The dilapadated factories on the edge of the cities.
But ultimately, Lwów must stay Ukrainian. Poland needs good neighbours to the east. A strong, free and friendly Ukraine is crucial if Russia - which has had its fair share of leaders with bisyllabic names ending in '-in' - is not to threaten Poland's raison d'etat.
And while Poles will continue feeling strong sentiment for Lwów, the countryside around had never really been 'Polish'. It looks and feels different. Huge post-collective farm prairies rather than the narrow strips of Polish villages. Even before the deportations, ethnic cleansing and further deportations, the proportion of ethnic Poles living in the countryside around Lwow was low. My mother's childhood memories square with this.
Is this 1945? No, 2006. The old market square, L'viv.
My first visit to Lwów/L'viv/Lvov/Lemberg was a deeply emotional affair. Since childhood Saturday mornings at Polish school in west London, 40 years ago, where we learnt of this city, torn away from Poland by the Yalta betrayal, Lwów has had a powerful hold on my imagination.
In the post-war Polish emigre communities in the UK, Lwów was everywhere. The stained-glass windows of Polish churches in Chiswick and Manchester with the crest of Lwów 'Semper Fidelis', the Koło Lwowian - the association of old Poles from Lwów that many of my parents' friends belonged to - my scout cub troop, named Orlęta Lwowskie (Lwów eaglets) for the children that took part in the fighting for a Polish Lwow in 1920, Lwów was as Polish as kiełbasa, bigos, krakowiak and polonez.
Communist Poland had a different shape to the pre-war maps adorning the living room walls of patriotic Poles living in West London. One day, Poland would be free. Would it revert to it's pre-war shape? Every Sunday, at the end of Mass we sang "Boże Coś Polske" in our churches: the last line - which still brings goose-pimples when I think about it - "Ojczyznę wolna, rać nam wrócić Panie." It occurred to me that so many people - praying so intently, for so long, for something to happen - it would happen. Even though in the darkest days it looked like the Evil Empire was there to stay and Poland's chances for independence were negligible.
But what about the borders of a free Poland? In the 1980s, opinions differed. I had a heated argument with Ryszard Czarnecki, today a leading light in the populist Samoobrona party, in the pub garden of the Haven Arms in Ealing Broadway in 1987. He called me a 'sprzedawczyk' (sell-out artist) for suggesting that a free Poland should not include a Lwów and a Wilno, but should retain the post-1945 borders. I argued that any claims that Poland might have for these two cities would be mirrored by German claims for Breslau, Stettin, Allenstein, Kolberg etc. And while Poland today is smaller than it was in 1939 by more than the size of Belgium and Denmark combined, it is now central rather than eastern Europe, ethnically homogenous and more industrial.
Visiting Lwów does leave me with an ambivalent feeling though. The saying that 'every cobblestone in Lwow is steeped in Polish history' rings true. The streets, cathedrals, churches, pre-war, pre-Partition Polish buildings, make the city feel every bit as Polish as Kraków. And it's larger than Kraków. While the Piast dynasty's Poland did not originally include Lwów, the city had been Polish for the best part of half a millennium. As I walked the pavements my forebears walked, I felt just like a German must feel in the Stary Rynek of Wrocław.
The sights are a marvel. There's a certain old house, where the drainpipes on one side feed rainwater into the Baltic while the drainpipes on the other feed rainwater into the Black Sea. The old cemetary chapel with its polychromed bas-reliefs. The Armenian cathedral. The dilapadated factories on the edge of the cities.
But ultimately, Lwów must stay Ukrainian. Poland needs good neighbours to the east. A strong, free and friendly Ukraine is crucial if Russia - which has had its fair share of leaders with bisyllabic names ending in '-in' - is not to threaten Poland's raison d'etat.
And while Poles will continue feeling strong sentiment for Lwów, the countryside around had never really been 'Polish'. It looks and feels different. Huge post-collective farm prairies rather than the narrow strips of Polish villages. Even before the deportations, ethnic cleansing and further deportations, the proportion of ethnic Poles living in the countryside around Lwow was low. My mother's childhood memories square with this.
.0.jpg)
Is this 1945? No, 2006. The old market square, L'viv.
03 September, 2005
Remembering Poland's contribution to the Battle of BritainThe 2005 Radom Air Show, took place the month before the 65th Anniversary of the Battle of Britain. Time to remember that Polish pilots destroyed one in eight German aircraft shot down over South East England during the battle. Krakow air museum's Spitfire LF Mk XVIE, representing 308 (Polish) Sqn's aircract TB995, ZF*O, was on display.
The Red Arrows made their second appearance in Poland at the 2005 Radom Air Show, and were greeted with great enthusiasm by the 140,000-strong crowd. Below, the Red Arrows' BAE Systems Hawks pass overhead in Diamond Nine formation. The RAF team were without doubt the stars of this year's show - although individual performances by F-16s from four NATO air forces were highly impressive, as was a Polish air force MiG-29 and a French Mirage 2000.
Bottom: A Dutch F-16 climbs steeply after deploying flares
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)