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--- transcripts:barbara-klimas-interview-transcript [2025/01/18 18:45] – created Wojtek
+++ transcripts:barbara-klimas-interview-transcript [2025/02/23 22:39] (current) – ↷ Links adapted because of a move operation Wojtek
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-====== Transcript of the interview with Barbara Klimas ======
+====== Barbara Klimas interview transcript ======
-This is a full text transcript of [[:stories:pfsl:barbara-klimas-interview]] with polish summaries every paragraph.
+This is a full text transcript of [[stories:pfsl:barbara-klimas]].
+  Oral history recording transcript
+  Duration: 1 hour 31 minutes
+  ----
+  Chapters
+Traditional Polish Folk Costumes
+Beginnings of Passion and Development of Orlęta Dance Group
+Festivals and Performances of Orlęta Dance Group
+Family Life and Traditions in Streatham
+Historia rodziców i ich losy podczas wojny
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 Now, the red beads are very important for a girl because they denote her dowry. So the more red beads she has, the richer she is. And there are many Polish songs that sing about: “Mama, tata, please give me a string of beads, but a very long string of beads to show that I… that you love me as your daughter”. So that was a dowry from… with a proper string of beads which were made of coral probably imported from the Red Sea because there was that trade route up to the amber trade route. You could buy a cow with it or you could buy two cows or whatever. So that was there.
-[00:04:30]
+  Password access wall
-The next costume, Gervais, please. I think you would have to move the thing. Look, this is very different…turn the bodies first. This is a costume of the nobility. This is a ghost costume with slash sleeves. She wears a… there can be various, but she wears a white blouse through here and the sleeves would normally be like this. But they're slashed open as they were in medieval times with fur trim and a skirt that would go with it underneath down to her ankles or thighs. Take off. Sorry. Thank you, Jeff. That's the girl's costume. Then there is the boy's costume. The men, they would wear… These costumes, by the way, I use mostly for the mazurka [mazurek] or the polonez. This is made out of velvet. Okay, so he is wearing slash sleeves again. Here are the sleeves. But they’re slash open, as you could imagine at the time of Leonardo da Vinci, this time. Sometimes at the back, they're held together like that, or often they’re just let loose around the waist. I haven’t brought it here, I have it downstairs in my room. They were a beautiful wide belt with which is dropped on to the side to tide and drop down to the side.
-[00:05:52]
-And for that… Can you put that back, Gervais, while I'm doing it? For the girl’s costume, it's even finished off again. That square hat, with the lovely hats for the girls and the boys. Thank you, Gervais. This is fun.
-AT: Feathers.
-BK: A beaver hat with pheasant feathers. So thank you very much. The next costume, Gervais, is a… from Lublin in eastern Poland, what a difference! This is a boy’s costume, the boy’s costume is white shirt with red ribbon, black trousers, of course, there are black boots to go with it.
-And this is embroidery. This is appliqué. If I can just bring it a bit closer to the… there. So, it's appliqué. So you start off with lots of coloured ribbons and some fringing, then you lay a black felt, a piece of material on top where you cut out little diamonds to show off the different coloured ribbons underneath. Very unusual. But the other thing that's lovely are the belts. So they wear a white shirt and then belts. These are belts which I made personally myself, from the historical atlases of costumes. So these are different from the ones you can buy nowadays, all very different with sequins. Again, you've got these little it seeming to be insets on this particular belt but decorated very differently from the front. Often the belt you buy nowadays look very much like that. But I did the old way. So there we are. That's the boys outfit now. The girls looking… By the way, I made all of these Lublin costumes except for the boys’ jackets. Okay, so put that on top here. So again, you've got a different bodice to the Kraków costume and on the back…if I can turn it round for the back. Very simple… and turn it round again… but very flattering. And these will come in different colours, different appliqué braids. The skirt, the skirt is a double skirt, very deep, very long, very heavy. This will weigh at least two kilograms. Many ribbons, obviously a big petticoat underneath as well. And this overskirt is actually called an apron, zapaska. And it doesn't necessarily do up at the back, but some of them do and they come in contrasting colours.
-[00:08:21]
-Could you show the other costume? This is one of the Lubelskie costumes that I made. The other one is a different colour component. Oh, it took me hours to decide which colours should go with which colours, which braids to go with which braids. Can you show us the set again? Again, a different combination. Pink with purple. Now which red shall I put next to which braids in the over here as well. But we got there in the end. Thank you. And what's the next costume? Bring your thing up because I can’t see, Gervais, could you move along? [Gervais: Yeah] Thank you. You were very patient. [conversation in the background]
-Okay, this is…put it at the back at the moment… this is Rzeszów costume south-east Poland. My favourite dancers are from Rzeszów. Very exciting. And interesting pompons at the back. Again, we've just got a nice little split at the back to lay nicely, especially if you're on a horseback or sitting. Trousers. They have an interesting embroidery on the upper thigh, which shows what's underneath the coat here and the belts. You saw the boys from Kraków had big white leather belt, not so much white leather belt. This is also a leather belt that has different type of jangles. It has… Can you see that? It has chain. It's very different, but… well, not very…but are different. And if you put that back, then we’ll look at the girls’ costumes.
-AT: Would it also make a sound?
-BK: No, they don't make a sound, but the Kraków ones definitely do. And it's important that they do. The girls costumes. So you've got a single-coloured skirt, very… a variety of colours with ribbons, an apron on top, which is embroidered, white apron embroidered, and then the bodice is a kabatka, not a gorset. Kabatka with long sleeves there, but nice design on the back to make you look slimmer still. And the front again. Appliqué braid and also beading and sequins and they come in different varieties so you can show us the other ones, Gervais, please. He’s being so patient. Mind the Łowicz man. Okay. I love that colour and the combination of these two colours, this also has an apron, but I didn't bring that. So this is, again, very interesting appliqué. And on the back. And it does up like this, so it's completely closed with a wide skirt and lots of aprons as well. Thank you.
-[00:11:18]
-And next, we have… Oh, we’ve gone down south to the mountains, this is the lower mountains of Beskid Śląski where the men were… they were shepherds. And they were… everything in wool. They love their pompons, the front and the back. The trousers should be tight, white trousers worn with this sort of shoes called kierpce. Okay. And socks on top of the bottom part of these trousers. This particular set of costumes has a long belt threaded through the waistband here. Very long belt, never ends. Would you wrap around your bottom and then tuck into the waist? And it has to look underneath your bottom. That's the mark of a really elegant man. Not particular country, part of the world. However, very close to them in Beskid Żywiecki, another mountain area where the men also wear jackets like this, but mostly blue jackets with red pompons, although they wear red as well.
-They would wear a different belt, also white trousers, but a belt such as this. Very heavy leather belt. This is a child's belt and men's belt, bigger and heavier. And yeah, that one back again to this. [soft clanging sound] Right.
-[00:12:47]
-And then we'll go on to central Poland for Opoczno. [Gervais grunts with effort] Ah… and Gervais is finding it very hard to lift it up because it weighs two and a half kilograms. Then add the apron, the petticoats, then add the boots and the blouse. So we're talking about three and a half or four kilograms to extra to lift a girl when you're dancing. So these I didn't make but I did make a few aprons, not this one, but I have made a few aprons from bits of material that I have managed to purchase. Otherwise, these come in different colours, very big, very heavy. When you're dancing in them and you're twirling because of the weight that very heavy to stop your twirling and also for it to be lifted is very hard work for the boy. But it's fun. So that one can go back.  Comes with lovely blouses, of course. Am I making noise with my chair?
-AT: No, no, it’s okay.
-BK: For the central Poland you’ve got Opoczno again. The men also wearing woollen costumes, also woven in different designs. So that has blue background, pink, white and purple and dark blue.
-And this is a pink one. But these little jackets, which are waist length, again, they also come in different colour combinations. They like to be contrasting colours as well. And this is a very, Opoczno is a very vital, excitin-, energetic area with lots of twirling and… dance is called oberki. Another one. You see a different combination green. And this is also a dark blue, dark pink. But there we are. And we are nearly there at the end of that set. [background sounds] Oh, that’s the end of that one. Oh, now that's a surprise, isn't it? It's a flapper dress. Why on earth do we have a Polish flapper dress?
-[00:14:45]
-One of the sets of costumes that my dance group does is… one sort of dances that they do, songs and dances, is from Lwów, which is now called Lviv, which is now in Ukraine, but was a very important part of Poland. And these are sets of very famous sets of dances and songs from the 1920s and ‘30s before the First World War. And I created all of the dresses. Each one is different, based on the same style that each of the dresses are different in a different colour. Some have sleeves, some have a b-shape, some a round neck, some a fringe with layers like this. Others have a different style of skirt. Thank you, Gervais.
-[00:15:22]
-And for the boys, I went around all the charity shops to find waistcoats and caps and the sort of trousers they would have worn and the shirts they would have worn.
-So that's the men's. Then we have Łowicz [background noise] which although I didn't make these costumes, I did actually have to alter some of the girls’ costumes. Look at the lovely design of the… Can you see the design of the…?
-AT: Yes, I can.
-BK: …on the shirt and on the cuff, also on the neck there. And of course, he's wearing a red ribbon. We now know why. And with that, he should be also wearing…
-AT: Hat?
-BK: A hat like this.
-AT: [laughs]
-BK: A similar hat. Another hat, a similar heart, which is with the Rzeszów costume. As you can see, it's similar. Sorry, wrong one. This belongs to him [laughs], to Łowicz, and this belongs to Rzeszów. [background noise] Similar but different decorations. Okay, so his tie, his, his sash or belt has to have a special way of…, needs to be worn in a special way. In this case, like a little ribbon over the top and then hanging down. We can't do very well on this particular mannequin, but you get the idea. So black jacket, the trousers are…
-AT: Long…
-BK: A wool woven into stripes and very exciting costumes, very exciting dances and Orlęta love that set of costumes and enjoy these dances as well. I don't know which they enjoy more, Rzeszów or Opoczno. They enjoy all of the dances. You put this back very carefully.  And now behind me [background noise], I'm making noise. I'm sorry. Behind me, we have the girl’s costume. Can you see from there all right?
-AT: Yeah, I can see.
-BK: D I need to be closer need to be closer?
-AT: No. I can see it now.
-[00:17:35]
-BK: Right. So we have beautifully embroidered bodice at the front. That's on velvet. And on the back, the embroidery is also very lovely. And again, all the embroidery is different. Each girl would have had a different plan of how she would embroider her outfit. The skirts, as you can see, again, this weave of multicoloured weave. Can you see that? That's at the bottom. Wonderful embroidery, hand-embroidery of beautiful roses. So as you turn it round again, the apron again, the same sort of weave. Decorated in the middle, but also embroidered roses on the bottom here. And the blouses. Two different types of blouses. I've got the blouses that are short, like this, which are more popular now, again with the embroidery on the sleeves. And this is a… this is a… What do you call it? [inaudible] A lace, an anglaise, it’s called lace anglaise. And, again, it’s hand-pulled, beautifully done. More embroidery. They wear headscarves. Mostly [inaudible] variety. Girls wear this hat for the mazur and the polonez. But also… If you could…. Yes, the flowers. This is a Kraków headdress. Flowers. That's usually just for tying up. You can have ribbons, but it doesn't have to have ribbons. And this is traditional that you would wear with that first costume that I showed. And that compliments Gervais’s costume. This… can you see? It’s got beads hanging there. You see the beads?
-AT: Yeah, I can see a little one.
-BK: This is a child's one, so it may not fit on my head. There. It’s worn like a crown. The children love wearing them, they feel like princesses. So this is from Rozbark, in Śląsk, in south Poland. Again, different. They have different costumes as well. You put those back. Is there anything else I want to show from there? I'll just show that. Just another very unusual headdress again from the children from Kurpie. This is northeast Poland.
-AT: Was that [inaudible]?
-BK: Sorry?
-AT: So was that for a boy or girl?
-BK: A girl. A girl.
-[00:20:07]
-BK: I wouldn't put it on because it wouldn’t look nice on me, it is too small anyway. That's all the costumes so far. Oh, thank you. This is a funny little hat. Can you see the blue tassels?
-AT: Yes, I can.
-BK: Yeah?
-AT: Yeah.
-BK: It’s from Biłgoraj, again, eastern Poland. Biłgoraj. I didn't bring the rest of the costume up because it wouldn't have looked particularly interesting. The boys wear dark brown coats or white with a big, big skirt part, [background noise] big skirt part which flows nicely when they're dancing, but otherwise they're dressed in a white shirt and white trousers with black boots. And the girls wear white skirts, white blouses with embroidery, red embroidery or blue embroidery here, and a white apron, very white, and a white apron with embroidery down the front as well in red or blue or black.
-But it didn't wouldn't have shown to be interesting on a hanger. So I didn't. Two more things. I've been, it’s been suggested that I show you that we… of course, we have musical instruments in the group, but we also have various props. This is one prop. We have sword-fighting with the little children, with the boys. The girls want to join in as well, but on stage it's the boys who learn how to fight with each other in order to pretend to be soldiers who are going to… or knights fighting against the dragon in Kraków. We also have a dragon that is in the Polish club at the moment, and the boys learn to do tricks with the ciupagi.  Jumping over them with both feet, swinging them around, pretending to fight with them, all the boys, never with real ciupagi. This is a much more senior people, and this all helps to bring up, to bring up… Oh, we got a little picture here of three of our boys who are now joining the older group.
-Yeah, so all of these things like the fighting with the swords or the ciupagi encourages the boys to feel manly and feel proud of their heritage. It's very important. And also for Orlęta, you remember all these people are just used to wearing trainers and just, you know, comfortable gears they’re walking around. And yet the number of times they've had to put on these costumes, don these costumes and walk down the road to somewhere else in costume, and they're very proud of it. So it just makes them feel that, you know, this Polish diaspora is something worthwhile to belong to. Well, I think that that's it with the costumes. Gervais, you've been very kind. Thank you so much.
-AT: Thank you so much. I wish I was growing up in your times so I could, you know, take part in those.
-BK: When you have children, send them to me [both laughing].
-AT: Thank you so much. That was amazing.
-BK: I was a bit long maybe. Sorry, you can always cut the take…
-AT: As I said, I hope we will use the costumes and everything which you have in your special room for, you know, for the video and an exhibition, hopefully. Shall we go back in past so… that memory lane?
-BK: Okay.
-[00:23:49]
-AT: Okay, so just like to imagine this time, the beginning of your passion. Where did that start? How? You know, the beginning of that.
-BK: Well, my passion for dance started when I was a child, because my parents, who… they were in the Polish army and when they got out, when they were demobilised, they managed to buy, eventually buy a small house with a small garden where we kept chickens and vegetables. And in… on Sundays at the weekends, we very often either went to visit friends and for dinner, for lunch rather, or they would come and visit us very, at least once a month. We would swap and after the dinner people would start to sing. Maybe somebody would bring out an instrument, and people singing with the instrument as an accompanying music. Or they would…. And then perhaps if they finish with singing, they’d move the table aside, small room, as it would have been in Poland as well. Small rooms. Move the table aside and then they would start to put maybe a record on the radiogram, as it was in those days. And it started on sauteuse and tangos, maybe the occasional polka, but mostly waltzes and tangos and similar things like that. And that's the older people, the grown-ups. The children – and I was the oldest child – the children would disappear and go play in our bedroom. I would hang out because I like to listen to what the old people were talking about. But also I wanted to dance. So my father sometimes took me on his feet and would dance me around the floor. And then, I would then try to teach my sisters and the friends in the bedroom. But they were never interested. But I loved it and I would often dance around on my own when there was nobody there. I would often dance around the dining room table on my own. I just loved to dance, but I was also always a patriot, a patriot, because I was the first foreigner in school, then there was a year of no foreigners and then there was a whole bunch of children who were born, Polish children who were born, including my first sister and then my second sister. So whereas I was the only Polish child in my in my class in my year, in subsequent years, there were maybe 10 children in one class who managed to do very well. But, as a result of, I had to fight for myself, there was a lot of prejudice against me because I couldn't speak English initially, that I didn't sound like them because I had a foreign accent, because my mother would just be in Polish costume on special days like 3 May, the Constitution Day, and they’d call me a show-off or whatever.
-[00:26:45]
-And it wasn't me, it was just my mother wanting to share our culture. So I ended up by being very defensive and patriotic about it. I was very proud of being Polish. And we listen to Polish music on the radiogram, on the records. My parents managed to acquire some Mazowsze and Śląsk. We listened to those. And then in 1957, Mazowsze came to England and I think they probably appeared in the Albert Hall. And we… My parents took us and I was, I can still remember the first thing that they showed was dances from the town of Żywiec, where the girls wear wonderful, tea cosy, like bull dresses, covered in lace, absolutely covered in lace, very white and big lace standing collars, almost like Queen Victoria. Queen Elizabeth the first, if you like, with big blouses and ribbons at the back. And they were very stately. And the men's costume wasn't as interesting, but it was it was the girls that I noticed particularly, and then all the different colours and exciting dances they were doing. I just fell in love with it.
-And at the very end, I was just so, so amazed by it all that my father kindly took me backstage. I don't know how he managed to get backstage and took me by the hand and introduced me to some of these Poles, Polish dancers. And of course, they were excited, the Polish dancers, because it was their first trip to England, one of the first trips abroad to Europe in 1957. So one of the, and when one of the dancers who was dressed in Kraków costume, when he, when he heard that my father actually comes from Kraków or came from Kraków, and that I was in love with Polish folklore, he managed to break a little, maybe was already broken. He took a little feather from his hat, a peacock feather, and he gave it to me. And I have it to this day in my photograph album of that period of time. And it's it just sort of cemented my love for Polish folklore. And then whenever we could, we'd watch other dance groups perform because they were already some dance groups in London and around England. The first dance groups that started, in fact, were just after the war. One was in Southampton, what was in Birmingham, and then there was one in Ealing called Mazury. And so they're all very old Dance groups. We would watch some of them occasionally.
-[00:29:20]
-Then when I was 16, I was able to join a dance group in central London called Syrenka, and the teacher was amazing. We all fell in love with him, well, all the girls did. He was… he looked like a stallion in flight. His hair streaming, silver hair streaming, amazing gestures and pride in his dancing. Great choreographer, also a great tailor. He made our costumes with help from various people. So that made me also very concerned that when eventually I started, I decided to set up a group, I decided that I would also do my own costumes. I would try to make them as authentically as he did, studying all the books and finding the right sort of quality material as opposed to crimplene and nylon, which had been traditional previously because that was all available. Anyway. So I joined the dance group, had really loved it, and then even for one year I was teaching another dance group in Slough, no, in Amersham, where a friend of mine dragged me into it because they were missing a dance teacher. And I was one of the solo dancers, so she felt that I should be able to do it. I was basically teaching them everything that I knew from my one teacher that I'd had, but I enjoyed that. I enjoyed the teaching. And although I never wanted in my life to be a teacher, but this was a different teacher. Teaching dancing is not the same as teaching in the classroom.
-[00:30:56]
-So, yeah, and then I went abroad to study for a PhD to do research into a PhD I was writing. And I spent one year in, the first year I spent in Spain. But a Christmas, what was it then? I can't remember which year was which. It’s a long time ago now. Anyway, I spent a year in Poland and while I was there in the Polska Akademia Nauk, which is a learning institute in Warsaw, I found in the library… I found a whole wall of books on ethnography and folk culture. I'd never even knew what the word ethnography meant before then. So I started to look in some of the books and a lady approached me and asked me, asked about me. And I told her who I was and that I had already done some teaching. ‘Then you would be very interested, she say, in a new programme we’re setting up for Poles from abroad. You can come for one-month intensive dancing, intensive tuition, theory as well as practical, and for three years, and get a diploma at the end of it.’ Which I did. So once a year in July, I spent the whole of July dancing, sweating profusely. I was always very hot and very… even dancing a polonez, you have to work your muscles into such wonderful positions and intense your muscles, but also relax. It made you sweat in that heat. So I learnt the set and… I mean I studied for three, three years. I used to come back for this intensive course.
-[00:32:47]
-And then when I finished, I met my husband just before I finished the course, about a year before, and he came out to join me actually when I got my diploma, and this is before we were married. And then after that, I started to look around for where I set up a dance group. There were already… Syrenka had changed. The teacher wasn't there anymore. He had moved off to Australia with some of the costumes. It was run by a couple, another couple, an English couple, actually, who'd been dancing with us for many years who were used to teaching, but it wasn't the same. So I didn't want to go back there. And the other dance groups that were that were around was Kolberg, which was coming to its end anyway. Mazury, which was doing well as they still are, and Tatry, which was also doing quite well. But I didn't like what they were doing. It didn't fit in with the style that I had learnt in Poland. So I decided I have to start a new, a new group of my own. And then I was wandering around everywhere, going from Polish centre to another and just thinking hard about it. And one day I bumped into a colleague, an old friend, who, in fact, used to be boyfriend of one of my younger sisters. And we went for coffee and to Ognisko, the Polish Hear in the Exhibition Road, lovely place.
-And I explained to him what I was looking for. And he said, ‘Oh, I may be able to help you and you help me because I teach the Polish scouts in Clapham in Balham, and they're aged 15, 16, 17, and many of them have started to go the Saturday [?] in the Polish White Eagle Club. And they called it a dance. They're standing around pushing up the walls. So if you wanted to come along, and taught them some basic dancing, you might well get them interested.’ So that's what I did. Fifty-eight years ago at Easter. So, 1973. And we just showed them, I just showed them a few dances, including rock and roll. And then in September, we officially started classes. September 1973. And a year later, we already started to perform. And it was then that I started, I think just before we started to perform, I wondered about costumes, so I quickly made some like this, some Kraków trousers, relatively easy, managed to, already had a few boots that I managed, I got from Poland when I got my diploma. I managed to buy some. And also, I was given a couple of pairs as a prize, and I made some skirts for the girls. And otherwise, they all had to find whatever set, little bodices they could find, and blouses and shirts that they could find. But we performed after one year, we performed, and then more. And then I was making costumes all the time, making costumes.
-[00:36:07]
-The name. So we were a dance group without a name, and then my husband, bless him, he said, came up with the idea, ‘What about the White Eagle? It's the Polish emblem, isn't it?’ Yes. ‘And you rehearse in the Polish Club, White Eagle Club. And these are children of the parish, of the White Eagle Club Parish.’ I said, ‘yes’. ‘Well, why not the children of the White Eagle?’ And I said, “Ah, Orlęta.’ My mother is from Lwów, where orlęta is a very important word denoting the children who defended Lwów at the early part of the 20th century against the Ukrainians and Bolsheviks and others. And they became Orlęta.
-And somewhat later, with I managed to learn the style of orlęta, of Lwów from pani Włada Majewska, a very famous lady who worked in the Polish radio and the Polish, and on the Polish stage and various singing and dancing shows as well as just talking. She was from Lwów and… a wealth of knowledge. She died very recently. But pani Włada Majewska really introduced me to the way to dance in Lwów, because nobody else could, I asked in Poland and nobody could really do that for me. But and then I created a set of dances and with costumes and it became one of our most famous sets around the world, in fact. And then other people started to do more and more of Lwów dances as well.
-[00:37:51]
-AT: Have you ever been to Lwów?
-BK: No, and I want to. I've never had the opportunity, but I would love to go with my dance group as well, but even on my own. Have you?
-AT: No, unfortunately. Can you tell me a little bit about the festivals you went on with your, you know, with Orlęta?
-BK: Okay, festivals. We perform lots of different places, small performances, big performances. But the first festival that we took Orlęta to was in 1980. And I had seen this festival when I was doing my dance course in ‘73. That was the early days of the festival and then it continued every three years. So in 1980, it was due to happen. And I desperately wanted to take my young group to see what other people dance like, you know, people who have been taught by Polish… the choreographers and the ethnographers, the people who'd done the research into the way Polish dancing should be, and you know, how they dance and also to get the feel of the love of Polish folklore from across the world. Unfortunately, I had a lot of problems because that was a period of time when Poland was under communist rule. And although there is no way I supported that particular government because I was always a patriot, a patriot. [bell rings] Sorry about that. I I'll say that again, shall I? You hear that doorbell?
-AT: Just wait.
-BK: That's finished. The sound is. So I… We went to Poland, but with difficulty because there was a lot of opposition, people would call me a communist and you know, my father was in the in the army with General Anders. He'd been through Siberia. My father had the Virtuti Militari cross for bravery and other crosses for bravery as well. So there was no way that applied to me. But we went and my dance group was amazed, amazed at what they saw, amazed that the people they met and how important Polish folklore is across the world. You know, you can forget how to speak Polish, but you don't forget how to dance Polish. You don't forget how to do Wigilia or eat pierogi, and you don't forget how to do different types of Polish dancing, though, even non-Poles in there or people with fifth-generation from Brazil. So this was very inspirational for the group. We weren't able to go back until 1989 when this was already after Solidarność, and after the Berlin Wall. And then we went with four other dance groups. Since then, we’d been going every three years and Orlęta, each year they said, each time they said to me, ‘We're going next time, aren't we?’ And I said, ‘I don’t know, there's a lot of work for me. I can't be bothered.’ And each time they push me and, of course, I really want to go anyway because it's so important for them. They love it.
-[00:40:58]
-AT: You just mentioned that you went to Poland with your group in the ‘80s. Can you just tell me a little bit more about it? What was that like? What was the Poland like at that time? And you said they were really impressed by, you know, by what was happening there. So just a little bit more. Maybe you can we can just explore a little bit more.
-BK: Well, we didn't really see very much of Poland because we were in a student campus for most of our, and then we were taken from place to place by buses, you know, by coaches. And everything was very organised so that we didn't have much free time to go out. And about the younger ones did manage to go to the shop sometimes, I think. But generally speaking, it was… we were isolated, I suppose, from the rest, but the people who were involved with us were the same people who had been teaching me in the ‘70s, in the early ‘70s, in ‘71, ‘72, ‘73, when I finished my course. And also, I then went back and did more courses, by the way, between ‘73 after I'd finished my course and 1980, I went on kursy doskonalające. In other words, improvement courses, in Lublin they were. And so, we I can't really say very much about it other than people were extremely hospitable. Some people then, some people, some of the members went off and visited their families and their families were as traditional in Poland, open arms, but everything on the table. And they had a lovely time in Poland.
-I lived in Poland for a year and ‘73, I think, or ‘70, ‘71, I think it was, or two or thereabouts.
-And, you know, I experienced the queues. Oh, of course, I remember in 1980, after the festival, my husband and I and our children were in a camper van, in a [?] automobile, which we had prepared. And we drove around Poland and there were queues. And there were also when we arrived somewhere to eat, it was often a non-meat day. So we wanted to have some food in the restaurant. ‘No meat today.’ Okay, next village. ‘Sorry, today is no-meat.’ Every day, a different village was a no-meat day, but that was okay. And interesting things like, you know, you go to a bread shop and you ended up by walking out with a piece of technology that my husband said, ‘Oh, I could use that for my lathe in my workshop.’ So, amazing things that you would find as you do now in Cuba, I understand. My daughter was recently in Cuba. And when she told us about the things that she saw there, it reminded us so much of Poland in the 1980s.
-[00:44:00]
-AT: How would you compare this to your life in Streatham, you know, like the you know, the social life in Streatham, the shops?
-BK: Oh, yes. I mean, in England at the time, still in England, you could buy simple things and bring them as presents to Poland, and people would be very happy because they had never had, they couldn't get this in Poland, whether it was some cosmetics or nylons as they were then, or various… I mean, I remember that there were also raincoats, but that was in the ‘70s, I think. Raincoats were very popular, and everybody wanted raincoats as well as nylons. And I don't know, lots of different things. You could buy interesting biscuits, you could buy English tea. And now you can get everything in Poland. You can you go to Poland, you want to bring a present and there's nothing you can because everybody's got everything. [both laughing] And then it was, yes, Poland didn't have what we had, and also the clothes. And then you would have to go. If you wanted to buy something special, you'd have to go to a komis shop, which is run, I think, on by the communist government. I don't know, was it? But, certainly, run in such a way that… or you could go to a shop where you could buy things only for foreign money, not Polish money. I remember that although we didn't use those shops.
-AT: Let us go back to Streatham. So that when you had to buy the fabric for your costume, where would you go? Who would you ask for help?
-BK: Right. First of all, we didn't have the Internet then, so, but the phone. So I'd ring around looking at the phone book, looking for haberdashers and clothiers, textiles. And I found the best place to go was east London, where there were the Asian and Jewish community. They specialised in these materials. And we found one particular company which was called Levy or Levy, because we went, Gervais and I, both, and there were the children in tow. Maybe not, the children weren’t there yet. When we went to the East End, went from shop to shop, and then people said, ‘No, you really have to go Levy’s at the lights, at the lights over there. Go ask Levy. He has all the materials you'll need.’ Bales and bales of materials. I usually bought too much because it took me a while to learn how much I needed to cut because I'm not a tailor.
-I've never been taught. I am self-taught. So I made all of the Kraków costumes on my own, all the Lubelskie costumes except for the jackets, all of the Beskid costumes. Except for… All of them. Yes. And some of the Rzeszów costumes, all of the Lwów costume, girls costume are so many others. And if I haven't made them, I've had to alter them or repair them or make duplicates other than things like the special woven ones. But even with this costume, the Łowicz, the belts for the apron were wrongly made. They were too narrow. So much so that this this ribbon, this rope around the waist would sag and the whole apron would drop. It was awful. They needed, I had to make wider waistband. So with this very heavy material, I had to work on my sewing machine and make them. So, yeah, there's always something to do. Something more to make.
-[00:47:53]
-BK: You didn't finish your question, I can't remember the rest of your question.
-AT: It was about, you know, the experience of Streatham, and the way, maybe also the way you celebrated Christmas, you know, Christmas or Easter. What was that like? What was your family? Traditions? Yeah. At that time.
-BK: We always had Christmas as Wigilia at my parents' house. And then my sisters would bring their fiancés and they became husbands and bring them along. And I was, I'm the oldest, but I was the last one to marry, the last one to lose her heart. And to a wonderful Englishman, I got to say. So they would be sitting there, all of the three daughters and their partners or husbands, and then later mine. And then the children would sit around one table, then we added second table to make it bigger. There was a slight extension at little, a little greenhouse at the other at the end of the sitting room. So it would open the doors and put the put the table in that room, and we just fit and how… we would usually eat something like 12 courses. We tried to. So it would start off with opłatek. No, I think we usually started with a zakąska, with a little hors d'oeuvre while we were waiting for the meal, we usually started with śledzie and bread, which we shouldn't, but we did. Everybody loved their śledzie except for my husband. He doesn't like fish. So, the first time he came, he was in a bit of a shock, but he's coped for the rest forty-seven years since we've been married to have, to enjoy Wigilia. Anyway. So we'd have that then we'd have opłatek, we'd all stand around and pray and then share the opłatek and everybody kiss each other, go round the table and wish what they could do to everybody in the family. And then we'd sit down, and I think we usually had soup first. And then my mother would make a barszcz with uszka, which we still do. And… But for my father, because he’s from Kraków, he’d insisted he'd have a grzybowa zupa na głowie karpia, so a soup of, a mushroom soup with a carp's head floating around in it, which everybody else hated it because of the head and the eye. [laughter] So he liked that. So we had the soup and then my mother would make… this we've never repeated because we don't particularly like it. It’s a fish in aspic because it’s a ryba w galarecie, sometimes it would be szczupak, a pike, or it would just be a carp. My mother always beautifully, dressed it beautifully and it looked lovely.
-Then we'd have... Do I remember now? [laughter] That, we don't have that anymore. So then I suppose we'd have fish again because we always have fish. So we'd, traditionally in my family would have breaded, panierowana, breaded fish with potatoes and vegetables. In my sister, my brother-in-law's family, they would have ryba po grecku in a tomato sauce. And sometimes we would also have that tomato sauce fish. Otherwise, we'd have that. Then we'd have gołąbki, which are cabbage rolls without meat, but with mushrooms and rice, with a with a sauce on top. Then we'd have… probably pierogi, two types of pierogi. And… Coming to the end now, I think, because we tended to count individual things sometimes as a meal, as a dish, and then we'd get to have a fruit salad, a warmed fruit salad made of dried fruit that my father particularly liked. Some people had kutia as well, but we never did that. And then coffee and all sorts of cakes that my mother was so good at making. She made a wonderful makowiec and orzechowiec, a poppyseed cake and a walnut roll cake, [?] they were mashed walnuts, but delicious. And there were other sernik, a cheesecake and various other cakes. We still make various cakes, but we tend to buy in a makowiec, the poppy seed cake. I made one once, it wasn't bad. So we still do that. So that was when my parents were alive and then we started to do it in each other's houses and three sisters, they would take turns. So in the end we there was 30 of us around the table. Very tight squeeze because the rooms… they weren't small, but they weren't that large either. So we're sitting like this, really, eating like that, but it was lovely until my youngest sister, who is the one who has the biggest family, there were 16 in her family, decided that she needed to have it separately because there were too many of us and she couldn't really have a chance to speak to her, to hang out with her children, which because they live in lots of different towns, they don't all live close to her. She didn't have much opportunity for them to be all together at the same time. So she just wanted to do Wigilia on her own with her children, and we would meet another day. So that ended up with just one of my sisters and myself with our families, 16 of us.
-[00:53:36]
-So there were 16 of us. That's big enough for us. There's quite a lot of people. But there was more space then. And we do a traditional Wigilia with opłatek, śledzie, barszcz. Sometimes we have to make a second soup, like I now make a tomato soup to have with, just a clear tomato soup to have with uszka, because my husband really hates beetroots and some of the children don’t like beetroots either. So there's two varieties, but there's still red. They look the same, but they don't, I suppose they're pretending it's beetroot soup. So we might have that. We have fish, sometimes we have grilled fish. Sometimes we have in breadcrumbs with the side vegetables. And then we'll have even though we're really not hungry, but we try to take a long time eating, will have at least half a gołabek each. That's the cabbage roll. And then there's pierogi. Everybody waits for the pierogi. And because of the pierogi and everybody waiting for the pierogi, my oldest daughter, Aleksandra, who is a singer songwriter, had created a song called Pierogi. Don't touch them, my pierogi. Mama made them for me. And she created, she recorded this song and she played them on Christmas. She played it for the family, for a 16 people family at that point. And they loved it so much. They said, ‘You've got to produce it. You've got to send it out to the big wide world.’ So she then, a month later, started to prepare with my other daughter, Laura, who is a stylist, and they both work very hard together to create a video.  And it's a tongue in cheek video. It's just, it’s a comedy. And she created this video of a housewife who received some pirogi from her mother. And it's online, it’s on it's on YouTube. And it's funny. And it's had so many views from people from all over the world. Don't touch, my pierogi. Or it’s just called Pierogi.
-AT: I'm writing it down.
-BK: Have you ever seen it?
-AT: No, I haven't.
-BK: Oh, you'll love it. It's so funny. Children, one of the children in it is actually one of her two sons. He's… he's wearing one of the costumes. In fact, to make this video we also used some of Orlęta in Łowicz costumes. We lent some English dancers and British dancers, various aspects of Polish costumes so they could do a little bit à la Polish, not really Polish, and also to dress, there was a whole, this… Aleksandra acted as a mother of, I don’t know, six, eight children, and they all had some aspect of a Polish costume as well around them, sitting around the table.
-It was fun. It was such good fun. And it's fun to watch. And she, her name is Mee and the Band. M-e-e and the Band, and if you're going to look at that just between you and me, have a look also at her latest video, which is called Chase Me.
-This has nothing to do with Polish, it's, she used my husband and me and her sister, Laura, my other daughter, to create a video that she and Laura both created a video for Valentine's Day. And it's ever so sweet.
-AT: Maybe we talk about this off the record.
-BK: Yeah, off the record, I'm just telling you.
-[00:57:13]
-AT: I'm just thinking where I want to take you back. I'm still thinking about Streatham. And I think I remember you mentioned in our first conversation Klub Orła Białego, and we haven't covered that yet. So can you talk more about it?
-BK: Initially I lived in North London, but when I was 16, my parents moved us all down to Streatham by the Common. And we went to school locally and through them, we also met the Polish scouting people, because we used to be girl scouts, Polish girl scouts up in North London. There were some of the dances. There were occasionally some dances held at the Polish Saturday school on Nightingale Lane in Wandsworth. Not a big venue, but it was fun. And we'd meet people from, that we knew from scouting and we're getting to know friends locally. And then, when we got to, I think I was 16 when… or 17, when my father took us to our first dance. And that was not in London. I was all… and then afterwards in Ognisko. But by the time I was, I know… I was aware of the Polish Club and sometimes my parents went there, went to church in in Balham. The actual Polish church wasn't initially bought, but my parents went to church. And then we'd perhaps sometimes go to the Polish Club to have coffee and cake or something like that. But we were aware that there was a big community in Balham, that all, that the people of the parish, we would be like between parishes, we all between Croydon and Streatham and Balham, my parents would sort of go between the two at the time.
-And so, they, I think they had more to do with the community work in Croydon. But they would visit Balham, but we knew that in Balham there was a lot of people there working very hard to make something of this club because it used to be a casino. It had to be made into a family friendly club for the Polish community. It was a casino with a bad reputation with the police. Again, it had to be a family friendly. Apparently, the Kray twins had something to do with that club as well.
-[00:59:41]
-So, and they would, the women of the parish already then would collect together. Some of the women would collect together once a week and sit in the kitchen talking and making pierogi. So it was a lovely way of meeting up with each other and yet doing the way things used to happen in Poland, in the villages and towns. Women would get together when the men were out in the fields, perhaps, if they didn't need to go into the fields themselves and they would be doing things, creating things and then gossiping, maybe singing a song, arranging marriages even. But when I really started to get involved with Balham club was when I was 25. So 10 years later, really. This is after I did my course in Poland and I looked for a dance group location. And that's when I came very much involved with Balham Biały Orzeł Club, the White Eagle Club, first of all, in ’73. Actually, what am I saying? The Club didn't exist until ‘69, and then earlier on there was, it was an English church, and then there was an English coffee and cake, well, a Polish coffee and cake in an English church hall. But in ‘69, when the club was started, that's when we became aware of the club and what was happening. But in ’73, I actually approached the Polish scouting organisation in Balham at the Polish Club and spoke to them about starting a Polish dance group where many of the people who would belong would come, would be the Polish scouts. As soon as we were talking with this this ex-boyfriend of my sister’s, that his scouts would be involved.
-[01:01:37]
-So we then rehearsed. First in the Polish Saturday school, then we rehearsed in an English school of an, at an evening institute, but on Sundays we would meet at the Polish Club and do extra rehearsals in White Eagle Club. During the holidays, we would meet at the Polish Club and then at the Evening Institute. I think two years we were able to be at the Evening Institute, which was very useful because they paid me, not much money, but they paid me and they paid my musician, and the money they paid me, I used to buy materials for costumes and not a lot, but at least it was some help because by that time I started to work, I was still working. So that was in the early days. I was still working. But then by ‘77, I had to stop work because I had my first baby, and I wasn't earning money after that. But by then already… I'm trying to put it all in order… by then already, in fact, we had left the Evening Institute and we were only in the Polish Club.
-[01:02:42]
-AT: What happened at that club?
-BK: I'm sorry?
-AT: Who would come to this club?
-BK: To the Polish Club? Well, we used to go to Polish dances, and everybody would come. We'd have people from the age of 70 down to the age of 15 or 14, and people dancing with everybody, you know, young with old, old with young, young with each other once they learn how to dance, of course, the young people. I loved going because I loved being danced around the room by an older person because they always knew how to dance. It was nice to be done by somebody who can dance and lead you. So there were lots of dances. There were shows already. I tended not to go to the shows. I heard about them. I tended not to go because my husband didn't understand them being English. But, yeah…
-AT: What the shows were about? What were they about?
-BK: There were music and rewie, various rewie. So I don't know how to call that in English, just a comedy and singing and, and maybe some political comedy with it as well. And there were also obviously there were also meetings of the various different Polish organisations, such as the scouts. They would have the scouting kominki there, the social gatherings where they would sit around a pretend campfire and sing scout songs. This was a few times a year as special occasions. There was one of the things that I, I wish would happen again, but it took a special type of person, of young person to create this. When my children were very little, we'd go to the pantomimes that the young Polish scouts and dancers, Polish dancers, would put on, and these pantomimes were on the stage and they were… a pantomime is an English thing. So what they did is they took a pantomime and translate into Polish, play on words. You had to understand both languages and understand both senses of humour, they’re different. And it was just so funny. It was just such an amazing thing to watch. English people couldn't, although my husband did enjoy watching them. You didn't understand what was going on other than visually. And we still remember that Marek Banasiak, whom I believe is one of the people you'll be interviewing or have interviewed, he was always, he was one particular pantomime. He was [out of work?], a spindle maker, the spindles for weaving for the Sleeping Beauty. And I think it was Sleeping Beauty that another friend of theirs, Janusz Marczewski, who was not only very tall but very large, and he was dressed in a pink tutu and came swinging down a rope as the fairy. And it's just so surprising and so funny. They did a wonderful job. And I think three years running, they did a pantomime, but not since then. Um, yeah.
-[01:05:47]
-So there were the pantomimes. There were meetings of… until quite recently, there were meetings of the Women's Circle. Unfortunately, the Women's Circle is now virtually died out. A few people left, but the young women don't seem to want to get involved. But maybe if the club were slightly different, maybe somebody could start one up again and go on, do it. So what they did was, apart from having meetings two or three times a year, they would organise a bazar, a bazaar of stuff before Christmas. So they'd bring in lots of foods. And then they would the money they got from that would go to charity. People would put out stalls as well. So there was several times a year. Christmas and Easter always, and sometimes other times of the year. They would also meet together for Maundy Thursday for Wielki Czwartek, that have a… to jest Wielki Czwartek? Nie. Przed postem. Before Lent, the Tursday. Tłusty Czwartek!
-AT: Tłusty Czwartek!
-BK: Tłusty Czwartek! For pączki and things! They would meet, they would have a big meal and sometimes they would invite Orlęta or somebody else come to do a performance. We enjoy performing for them. Then there was, there were various religious organisations which also met socially there, lots of things were going on and downstairs there's a basement where young people would sometimes meet up and play rock music. So periodically a new band would start up and then they would try to invent something new. Then they would stop and then somebody else would start up. So that would happen. That was also down in the, it was called the Sala młodzieżowa, the Youth Room. There would also be a table for billiards or snooker. I think it was billiards.
-And people played them and darts, so it was a meeting room for the young people and a lot of things were very parish-orientated. There was a lot of things happening. Sometimes there were films shown as well. Then they'd have to bring out a special screen for it, a standing screen. There were many parties, weddings.
-[01:08:10]
-AT: What is your best memory from time?
-BK: From Biały Orzeł or from…?
-AT: Yeah, from Biały Orzeł.
-BK: I loved it all, but I suppose in terms of dance group, after we performed, we used to rehearse, not to perform. We used to rehearse on a Friday, which is, has now become.. they were young. So that was there going out night. They were aged 17, 18, 19, and they had so many friends in the group. So we would after our rehearsal on a Friday, everybody would hang out there in the club. And it was just such a friendly atmosphere, not just amongst the group itself. It was just, they blended and had fun and laughter with each other and just hung out there. And the club was very open and hospitable, which was great. So that was one thing on Fridays, and some of the young children and when I started the children's group in 1980, I think it was, they, the parents would sometimes hang out on a Friday because that was on a Friday as well initially. We had two young groups and then the older group and we could squeeze it all in. Now, there's no way we could do it in one day because there are three young groups and an older group and both, all of the groups need more time than they actually get. So it's going to be, it's hard now. But now we have, we're supposed to have two days now, on a Thursday and on a Tuesday. Anyway, that was that was a Tuesday night, um, the many performances we did on that tiny stage. Somebody once was falling off the stage while they were dancing, didn't hurt themselves. And then afterwards we put into the choreography in our mountain dances that one or two of the boys with perhaps by accident do a roll over and almost fall off the stage and go, whoa, as the little children in front of them are sitting on the floor looking up, ‘oh, no, he's going to fall on me.’ So we had fun with that.
-So what else was there? The garden was nice as well, using the garden to sit in afterwards of the Polish Club. Now that the club belongs, doesn't, the club has no access to the garden. The garden belongs to the old folks homes around, the round the back, which the Polish Club actually built many years ago now. Yeah.
-What are the memories, my best memories? I loved zabawy, the parties. It was such fun dancing there with good music. Good, that's before they stopped having, before we stopped having bands, live bands, Polish live bands who could play. Rock and roll, tangos and waltzes, but polka z oberkiem, kujawiakiem, whatever, and it was just, it was such fun to be able to dance so many different dances with so many different people. People were very friendly. And I knew each other. They were… They were very involved with the parish, it doesn't happen anymore.
-[01:11:16]
-If there are dances now in Balham and Polish Club, it's discotheques and it's mostly, it's virtually just young Polish people from Poland, very few of the second generation or third generation, and they're not people who are actually getting involved with the community as such, other than some of them do belong to the religious circles that the church has. But they're at the church itself, not in the Polish club. But things will change. Things changed before and things will improve. I'm sure. But it would be nice to have the old dancers back. [laughter]
-[01:11:57]
-AT: Did you always speak Polish in your family?
-BK: Well, when I was little, obviously my parents spoke Polish to us because that's the language they knew best. As I said earlier, when I was little, I would speak Polish-English with a Polish accent, which I lost when I was about 12. And then at that time, also my sisters and I started to try to speak to my parents in English, which they fought against. They tried to make us speak Polish while we still continue to speak Polish. And we did our A-levels, GCSE and A-levels. So when I married my husband, I made sure that if we, that he knew that if ever we had children, I would speak to my children in Polish because I wouldn't know how to do it otherwise. And then we had children and he learnt a bit of Polish through them. The first Polish sounds like ku-ku and ga, but the vowels were important and he's very good at mimicking anyway. And this is, he went to Polish lessons for a year. Didn't continue after the year because the teacher changed and he couldn’t cope with a new teacher, the old teacher was wonderful, but she left, but he continued. So I always spoke to the children in Polish. Our dance lessons, with Orlęta, that bunch of people speak in English amongst themselves because that's what happens. They've been to school in England. I speak English with my sisters, occasionally speak Polish with them, but mostly they speak in English with them because they feel it's more natural.
-And yet, as you know, I speak Polish pretty, pretty well. [laughter] And I like speaking in Polish whenever I can. So we… the lessons tended to be in English. Now, because we have more new Poles in the dance group, Poles who have been here maybe 10 years, five years, three years. And we have musicians who are from Poland. Occasionally, I turn to speaking more Polish and I try to have the lessons in Polish mostly. Even my daughter Laura, who teaches with me, even she tries to speak Polish as well, which is good. I mean, her Polish is really pretty good. I mean, she's got GCSE in Polish, but it's you know, she makes more grammatical mistakes than I do. But she's learning and improving and she's enjoying trying speaking Polish. So, I used to speak to the children in Polish. Until my husband, when the children were about five, six, he came home from work. I mean, he had very long hours. He'd come home from work and say, ‘Basiu, I really want the children to speak Polish. It's so important for me. But when I'm here, please, can you speak in English? So I don't feel so left out.’ So immediately I, as soon as I heard him next door, in the corridor in the house, I turned to speak English, so like a double language. But when we’re on our own, I always try to make the children speak to me in Polish. I did everything because they tried to speak to me in English being at school.
-So when they spoke to me in English, I would take, I'd have a pot of money, I'd give them pennies every time they spoke Polish, take pennies out when they spoke English, or I put stars on their star chart or black marks on their star chart, or I would translate everything they said to me in Polish, then answer them in Polish. They basically understood me, but they wouldn't, they didn't speak back. And they both went to Polish girl scouts, where they also speak English amongst themselves, but except until they have to speak Polish, and I tried to teach them some Polish reading and writing, but it's awfully difficult to teach your own children. Something turns up, the doorbell rings or Chinese food or it doesn't work. I taught them a little bit. Obviously, I was talking to them in Polish, singing to them Polish. They were part of my dance group. I was teaching in Anglo-Polish and I was singing in Polish with them and they were learning the Polish, they can sing fluently in Polish, but speaking is another matter. And I've got to say that a number of people have come to Orlęta either as children or as adults, unable to speak Polish. But because of the songs and because of the contact with others, they picked up Polish and some of them really well.
-Anyway, with my children, Alexandra, the oldest one, found that her friends at school and harcerstwo were doing GCSE Polish and she asked whether she could do it as well. But you don't speak Polish, you won't speak Polish. So she asked for private lessons, she didn't want to go to Sunday school, and there was a reason why I couldn't send her there as well. But so we, I found her a private teacher and within a year, Alexandra got A in her GCSE. So basically, it was always there at the back of her head. A year later, Laura wanted to do it. So Laura actually had a year and a half because she was a year and a half behind Alexandra, and Alex and Laura got a year and a half as well. So they both got their GCSE and they can both speak Polish. And I'm very proud of that. I have three grandchildren who can't speak Polish because they live too far away from me to give them regular conversations. But they know how to say certain things in Polish. They understand a bit of Polish, they can say ‘Dziękuję za obiad, babciu, było bardzo smaczne. Czy można wstać od stołu?’ They can say that! ‘Thank you, babcia, that was very nice. May I leave the table now?’ We have to teach them politeness if nothing else. Śpij dobrze, dobranoc, kocham cię, daj buzi. These little things and a few more things. They hear the sound. They can pick it up one day. We try. We really try. I’ve tried to give them lessons. Kaya, the older one, who's now turning 19 this summer. Oh, my God, they grow so fast. She had a year of lessons in Polish Saturday school, Friday night school actually in Croydon. And she knew her colours, her numbers, she could put sentences together a bit. The boys weren't so interested. But it'll come. It'll come. With time
-[01:18:30]
-AT: It seems like you have a really lovely family. [laughter] I want to ask you about your father. If you can just tell me about, a little bit about him, you know, the history…
-BK: [inaudible] 15 and a half, I think, when the Soviets came to her block and called her mother, her, the foster mother was her aunt because my mother was a… an orphan. So they took, my mother's aunt's husband was, had been a policeman. They'd been killed by the Ukrainians in that particular time. But, you know, she was the wife of, she was there for inteligencja. So they, as you know, they, the Soviets came and they took away all the inteligencja or anybody with authority and so on and sent them off to various parts of the Soviet Union. My mother and her aunt were taken to Kazakhstan to work on one of the coal kolkhozes and the it was brutal. It was brutal there. She was out for two and a half years. Meanwhile, my father had already, he was 10 years older than my mother. He had already been in the army for a few years and was fighting on the pograniczna defence. He was fighting on the eastern border defence because after the First World War in 1918, there were still problems with the borders and there were incursions from the Ukrainians, from various other nationalities, actually the Ukrainians and the Soviets, and they had to be defended. My father was in that particular section of the army, and in ‘39, he was captured by the Soviets crossing the river San. Part of his… he was on a mission somewhere with a group of other soldiers and he was imprisoned. And then luckily, he was already a sergeant, I think, at the time. So he wasn't sent to Katyń. He wasn't an officer, became an officer afterwards, and he was sent off to Siberia near Lake Baikal. And that was a brutal journey and that was dreadful conditions there. If any English people have read Solzhenitsyn, they'll know all about it and. And he survived and my mother survived and both, when the jungle drums came out because nobody was told officially that Stalin had given armistice to… is that armistice? Released the Polish prisoners.
-And they could join the army. He wanted as many to join the Russian, Polish division of the Russian army.
-But Poles, many, multiple Poles managed to actually find, walked thousands of miles or jumped on trains, and found ways of getting there. And my father found his way to the Anders army. My mother found her way to Anders army, the same place. And my father was… It was in Kazakhstan, I can't remember. I’ve got it written down, but I I'm sorry, I can't remember exactly where it was, but is where the army was actually started and stationed. And my father was… Well, first of all, they tried to feed these people up and shave their heads of lice and give them a wash. But they did... They [had?] uniforms for ages. Anyway, my father was in charge of a group of young volunteers like my mother to teach them the basic army drills, you know, marching, standing to attention and all the various different, shooting probably, and so on.
-By the way, my mother always looked very young and she… the army didn't want to take her on. They said, ‘We don't take children. You'll have to go to India with the women and children.’ ‘But I'm 18’, she said. ‘We don't believe you. But anyway, let's take down all your details. Date of birth.’ So she said, ‘Well, my name is Irena Małecka and I, my birth, I was born on the 3rd, 3 Maj, the 3rd of May 1923.’ Or ’22. And he said, ‘Well, for the 3 Maj, for that 3rd of May, the day of the Polish constitution, we will take you on even if you're not 18.’
-So it's because of that. Because of 3 Maj, that my mother got into the army, that my mother met my father, that I was born and I was able to set up Orlęta. [laughter] So, for me 3 Maj is quite important as well.
-[01:23:08]
-Yeah. So what was I saying about my father? They went through. They went, they came out on the first ship across the Caspian Sea before Stalin closed the exit point again. I think there were two ships that were allowed out and a few smaller boats, and it was so crowded, so crowded, you know, they were like, you've seen the Indian trains where people are standing on top and hanging off the bottom. It's a bit like that. And they went, they arrived in Persia where the Persians were wonderful to them, so hospitable. They saw them as victims of a dreadful regime who have suffered. And they were refugees. And they gave them help and shelter. They gave them food. In fact, they gave them so much lovely food, especially fruit, that many of them died of the typhoid and other stomach related illnesses. So anyway, there was illness prevalent. And my mother told us one of the jobs as a new soldier was to, when it was her turn, she would have to guard the mortuary tents at night and she was terrified of it. But she did it. Yeah. Then from there, Persia, they went on through. They ended up in in Palestine. Where there were, where my parents… I didn't think they met in Persia, but in Palestine is when their romance really started. My mother had to go back to school. There was a school set up for people like her where education been broken through the war. And she did, I think, a year, perhaps not a complete year there while she was also doing army training in Palestine. And my father was doing army training and, basically, they were recovering before they were sent off to India. My father went to Italy. My father, the men went first and then the women went second. Not all of them. And some of them stayed at the school. But my mother found her way into the women's army that was going there. She joined. She did everything. She had different, different times she did different things. So she was part of the transport. So she would deliver food, she would deliver ambulances with people or brought them back. She was in the office as a, you know, filing or writing or typing, in the canteens, preparing food, various different jobs, but always trying to be as close to my father as possible, she was very much in love with him. And obviously, he must have been with her as well. The war ended, obviously, Monte Casino and various other battles in Italy before that and after, and then when the war was declared finished, the Polish soldiers were very upset because as far as they were concerned, Poland wasn't yet free.
-[01:26:17]
-And, you know, they were at a loss, the army wasn't initially disbanded, but the army was then, the people were given the option of either returning to Poland or going back to Britain and from there maybe to Australia, Canada or America. And some people chose those. My godfather, he chose to return to Poland and he was never seen or heard of after that. And so many people were actually disappeared that returned to Poland, called fascists because they weren't communists.
-So my parents ended up in, they had married in Italy, I was born in Italy in August, end of August, and in November we arrived in England in a special military camp that was vacated. And it was made as a repatriate, no, a refugee camp, you know, a camp for Polish soldiers to wait their turn before they could move on. In about the year after the army was disbanded. Meanwhile, people had been given opportunities to learn trades. My mother had learnt somewhere along the line, sewing. So she could use the sewing machine. My father was extremely artistic and became a painter and decorator when they left. It was in Essex, this camp. They came to London, moved in with his sister, my father's sister and her family. She had two children at the time, and then was expecting another one in north London. We lived there for six months or a year before my parents actually were able to buy a little place in Kensal Rise in north London where I grew up initially until the age of… where we lived until I was 10. And then we moved to Willesden, also north London. But yeah, my father was a painter and decorator. Painting, decorating, hotels, cinemas, especially cinemas that had excellent painting and filigree, and he was so artistic that they used him for all the delicate work as well.
-And my mother took in sewing. Whether it was, you know, piece work in the home, sometimes she used to work in a sewing, small sewing factory and… but most of the time at home so that she could be with us. And that was how I brought up.
-[01:28:56]
-AT: Thank you so much for sharing your story with me. Is there anything else you would like to talk about that I haven't asked you?
-BK: I can't remember. I think I've spilt my whole soul out to you. [laughter]
-AT: There is always something. [laughter]
-BK: I have two sisters who are younger than me, slightly.
-Same differences between my two daughters, actually, and they speak Polish, their husbands speak Polish, but they speak English to each other. And their children, that their children leart a bit of Polish, but they no longer speak Polish. But they like to sing Polish carols at Wigilia. So I've prepared a sheet of carols and every Wigilia we… one of the sisters, the one who comes to Christmas with us, Wigilia with us, not the other one who's left because she's got such a big family. I mean, we still see her, but not in the context of Wigilia. And anyway, they don't like to sing, but my children and my other sister's children, Ewa's children, they like to sing and we all sing in harmony and have such fun. And then we go on to singing English and other carols as well. That's one. So there… but the children, their children don't speak Polish, whereas my children do and I have an English husband, but then I'm the one who has pursued the Polish folk culture and Polish culture and general. Yeah, I'm a patriot.
-AT: And on that note, we're going to finish our conversation today. Thank you so much, Basia, for sharing all these beautiful stories with us. And I really, really hope that one day we can meet in person, and you can show me all these beautiful things you have there. [laughter]
-BK: I would love to, really.
-AT: [inaudible] …it's not just about seeing, just touching them.
-BK: Yeah, it is. It is not just that, but also putting them on and feeling the weight.
-AT: Yes. Yes, definitely. [laughter] Especially that one behind you.
-BK: Thank you so much for your interest.