This is a full text transcript of piotr-szkopiak-interview.

Oral history recording transcript
Duration: 57 minutes
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Chapters
01 Introduction and Childhood in the Polish Community
02 Polish Traditions and Activities
03 Polish-British Identity and Cultural Conflicts
04 First Visits to Poland and Cultural Differences
05 The Role of the Church and the Polish Community in London

Karolina Jackowiak: My name is Karolina Jackowiak, today is 28th of March 2021. This is an oral history interview for the project Poles in South London, and I'm interviewing Piotr Szkopiak. Piotr, could I please ask you to briefly introduce yourself?

[00:00:18]

Piotr Szkopiak: My name is Piotr Szkopiak. I was born in 1966 of Polish parents, both my parents were born in Poland, they came to England after the war and I have a brother and sister also born in London, England.

KJ: So we’re in London in the ‘70s, in the ‘80s, that was a time when you were a boy, a teenager – what was it like to grow up in those days in London?

[00:00:51]

PS: It's one of those things that now looking back on it, it's a very different perspective to when I was growing up, because when I was growing up, everything was Polish at home. I didn't learn any English until I went to English school. My brother and sister were older than me, so they were already speaking English. But everything at home was Polish, so… it's only when I went to English school that I realised I was different, I suppose, and obviously it was a different name, I didn't speak English, I only understood English, which is funny to think now, but always at that point you felt you were slightly different to everybody else. Obviously, I was aware of other children in the same position as me, but these were my friends, these were my parents’ friends. So it was a Polish community and it was different to the English community.

KJ: Okay, can you tell me more about the Polish community?

[00:01:52]

PS: The Polish community in London is the political emigres after the Second World War. So briefly: my parents or in my mother's case more so, she was deported to the Soviet Union when the Soviets invaded Poland in 1939. She then, after the amnesty that was given by the Soviets after the… after Nazi Germany invaded Russia, she then made her way to Persia. She was there under the auspices of the British army. Her sister, my aunt, joined the British army as a young girl. They then were, you know, in the care of the British army until the end of the war. They then came to England, they were demobbed in England, but because Poland was given to the Soviet Union, it was still under communist rule, they could not go back. That is a story that is kind of the story of most of the post-war Polish emigres. So it's not an economic migration, it was a political migration, if you like, and they stayed in England and they created these Polish communities of which I became a member born into. So born in England, but born into a Polish community, a very strong Polish community.

[00:03:36]

You know, I went to Polish school on Saturday. I was in Polish Scouts. I played sports in Polish football teams. You know, everything was geared or my upbringing was very much geared within the Polish community. So all my early memories are of always having a kind of a Polish angle to everything I did. Now, looking back on it, obviously, as you grow up, your problems were: What were you? Were you English or were you Polish? At that time, when I was growing up, obviously, you're just a child. You just… you go with what's around you. You're not really aware of the significance of that. So, you know, there was a kind of cultural conflict that happened in that we're not really sure what we were. To our parents we were Polish, but obviously we were born in England and grew up in an English culture as well as a Polish culture. So you had that, you know, a slight cultural conflict there.

KJ: Okay, so did you consider yourself as a Pole or Brit or was it difficult to put any labels?

[00:05:02]

PS: You know, what I say now is I'm a Londoner, more so than I am an Englishman, but I am British, there’s no question about it. I was born, born and bred British. I didn't really go… I went to Poland as a little boy, sort of in the ‘70s and then much more now as I got older and I'm much more involved sort of in Polish matters now than I was when I was younger, but, yeah, I mean, the best way to describe it is that when I go to Poland, I'm clearly English, but when I'm in England, I've got the Polish thing going on. So you are caught between the two cultures, but, you know, on paper and the, I suppose, the culture that has the most influence on me would be the British culture. You know, I'm definitely a British Pole, if you like, and that's different to being a Pole Pole and Poles see that, obviously, it's also… Now to think that I knew college before I knew and English seems weird, but thanks to my parents I speak Polish, and thank God for that, because then without that language, I would be very much, very much English and not Polish, because it's the language that allows me to kind of appreciate the culture. So, yeah, I think rather than thinking it's a bad thing, I kind of think it's a good thing, [laughter] because obviously I can be Polish whenever I want to be Polish and English when I want to be English. And you're always… You're… you're getting the benefit of two cultures rather than one. So whereas some people struggled with that, I know friends struggled with that, you know, in the end, you realise that it's not a bad thing, it's a good thing. You know, everybody wants to belong and, you know, who are you? It's always that question. Are you English? Are you Polish? Well, I'm kind of both. And that's not a bad thing.

KJ: Of course, it's a bonus, I think.

PS: [laughter]

KJ: I wanted to ask you more, if you're okay with it, about activities and when you were a little boy or teenager, because as I understand, the weekdays were devoted to English school and weekends to Polish school and Polish activities. Can you tell me more about it, about those activities, those clubs?

[00:07:33]

PS: Yes. So everything sort of Polish happened, I suppose, on the weekends. Obviously, I was in a Polish household and we had Polish traditions. My parents kept those traditions going. Obviously, they spoke to us in Polish. Now, when I think about it, in most cases, I spoke back to them in English, which now seems quite rude. But at the time, it's just how it was. And they were fine with that. You know, as a result, as I say, we were always bilingual. I don't remember learning Polish. I just always had it. So as far as activities goes, the main one was Polish school. So whereas all my friends would have the weekend off, Saturday morning we would all go off to Polish school. So these were schools that were rented by the Polish community. These were English schools that were empty on the weekends. And the one I went to in particular was the Roger Manwood School near Catford. And we would have lessons from, as I remember, nine o'clock to one o'clock, and they would be Polish history, geography, religion, you know, all the cultural… cultural and language, obviously. So all the kind of cultural lessons, really. So we wouldn't do maths or anything like that. We would do subjects related directly to Poland, Polish history as well.

[00:09:03]

And that also led into two organisations. So Polish Scouts would happen after school or any sporting events would happen after school. I played football with my friends so we would have Scout meetings after school or maybe on Sunday as well. Sunday obviously was church because it's a Catholic community, so everybody would go to church on Sunday. In our case, again, it was an English church near Roger Manwood, so more towards Lewisham and New Cross, and that was one o'clock every Sunday. And I was an altar boy as well [laughter] at that time.

[00:09:52]

So as you can see, you know, and yeah, the weekends were very much sort of everything Polish. So the other thing, the last thing, was that we would also have not theatre so much, but obviously the parents would like their children to dress up in Polish folk costumes and dance for them and do little shows at school as well. And in particular the school I was at, there was a particularly good musician and a particularly good dance choreographer who got together and created a dance group called Karolinka and I became a member of that. So I was with Karolinka from ‘81, I think I joined when I was 15, and I left in ‘89, so what’s that? I was 23. So that was very formative years and I spent a lot of that time… you know, all of my friends were at the dance group and it was… it was a great time and we travelled to Poland and we even gave shows at the Albert Hall in London and we travelled around Europe to Polish communities to dance. So it was a very successful amateur group. And it was just… you know, a lifestyle as well. And it absolutely kind of formed how I sort of felt about a lot of things, and obviously it influenced what I do now because I work in film and television and I can say that that would not have happened if I hadn't joined Karolinka.

KJ: Okay, so Karolinka, as I understand, it was a place for all that creativity or only the dance and singing?

[00:11:47]

PS: It was a combination of everything. I was very much into sport when I was at school. So I was a footballer. I played basketball. That was my kind of priority, really. I never thought of myself as a dancer or a singer. I still don't think of myself as a singer because I can't sing, simple as that. You know, I can't hold a note, but, you know, I've got some rhythm, I can dance. And obviously, the more you practice, the better you get at it. But I certainly didn't join Karolinka because I wanted to sing and dance. I joined Karolinka because all my friends were there and I kind of felt a little bit left out. And obviously my parents wanted me to join, so it was a combination of all those things. But I'm very glad that I did because it opened up a world to me that probably would have been not shut off, but I just wouldn't have been exposed to that.

[00:12:40]

And the fact that we also travelled to Polska in the ‘80s when, you know, still on the communist rule, that was that was also an experience. So it opened up a world and experiences that I wouldn't have had if I hadn't joined the group. And also, it's not just about the singing and dancing because during that time I opened my eyes to other cultural experiences, if you like, and very much got into films and that's what led me to what I do now. Watching films and making films is something I enjoyed from a child and my parents were very keen on watching films, so it kind of came from that. And it's a combination of everything, really, a kind of cultural awareness and just enjoying it – in the end, enjoying the dancing and singing, enjoying the experiences that kind created for us and then bringing in the love of film and so on, other cultural pursuits. So it all came together. I am now a kind of combination of all those influences, really.

KJ: Okay, so after Polish school, after Karolinka, did you also spend time with your Polish friends? Did you have any special places where you could go with them?

[00:14:15]

PS: Yeah, I mean, that's the thing… I had English friends, obviously, from English school. And, you know, those are the friends that I played football with and I didn't really spend time with them outside of school because all that time was taken up by my Polish friends. So, yeah, absolutely, on a Friday, we'd all be ringing round and deciding where we want to go. So we were going to clubs either in town or in or locally and meeting up, so we would literally meet up every week. It was, as I think most people have, a kind of a close group of friends and those were the friends that I spent time with. And yeah, obviously, I still do, those are my strongest friends, I still I still spend time with them and that's that, you know, we've had so many experiences together, that's never going to change. So these are the kind of friends that, you know, even if you don't see for 10 years, when you do see them, you pick up where you left off and it feels as if you just saw them yesterday. These are kind of the strong bonds from childhood, that are true friends.

KJ: Okay. Do you think it was difficult to connect these two worlds, Polish and English, it was even possible?

[00:15:32]

PS: Well, I kind of did it with my friends because obviously all my friends were like me. They were born here. They had Polish parents. They went to Polish school. So we all had that in common. And that was always the problem, if you like, with English friends because they didn't understand the Polish thing. You know, they had no… They had no awareness of the strength of the Polish community. And to be honest, you know, in the ‘70s and ‘80s, because Poland was part of the Soviet Union, joking aside, most English people didn't know where Poland was or what Poland was, was it actually a country or was it just part of Russia. So I had a lot of that as well. And that fed into this thing of when you're younger, you know, I'm different. I speak Polish. What's the point? Because Poland's under communist rule, we're never going to go there. You know, what's the point? French, German kind of made sense, but Polish? What's the point of that? So you had a lot of that when you were younger. And I had a lot of that, you know, friends had those sorts of conflicts as well. So… the two worlds, if you like, collided there. So I suppose that's why those friendships were stronger because we all had similar experiences and obviously our parents knew each other and this sort of thing. So that's where it crossed over and even now I suppose I've always felt like an outsider to a degree in an English setting. I feel very comfortable, but you're always slightly different. But that's not just for Poles now, that’s any ethnic group, I think, has the same cultural conflict, I suppose.

[00:17:18]

I was very surprised because when I made my first film and there's a cultural conflict sort of within that and I thought that was very specific to the Polish community, and when I was showing that to other ethnic communities, they were saying, “that's just like us!”. So they were having exactly the same sort of conflicts with their parents and with their friends, so their interview would be very similar to this because I thought always that the Polish experience was very specific. And it is, to a degree, it is more specific because, as I say, it's more a political sort of community than it is an immigrant community, because my parents and their generation didn't want to stay in England. They had to stay in England, if you like, because they couldn't go home. So that's a slightly different take on why they stayed and how they built their lives here, because the first few years they were all expecting at some point possibly to go back to Poland. That never happened. So a lot of them weren't expecting to stay in, stay in England for the next 50 years and create their lives because they didn't know what was going to happen. Possibly the Soviet Union was going to leave Poland or something would happen. So there was always this kind of edge in that they weren't thinking too far ahead because they didn't know what was going to happen. And that influences you as well. That's why everything Polish was so strong because they were, if you like, representing a free Poland outside of Poland. And it was a political lobby as well, the Polish government in exile was still here. My father ended up being the last foreign minister in that government before the Seals of Government were handed over to President Lech Wałęsa. So you can see there was a political lobby here as well, so even more so than in America, in England it was almost like a representation of pre-war Poland, that generation that was deported or in most cases kind of liquidated, or ethnic cleansed, were existing to remind everybody that there that there was a free Poland, that there is a free Poland and Poland is occupied and it's not democratic. So all that influences your upbringing and your experience.

KJ: So you say they always had a hope, as a generation, for coming back to Poland…

PS: Sorry, say again.

KJ: So they always had a hope they come back to Poland?

[00:20:13]

PS: Yeah, in the first few years, I think. I think as things progressed, that hope diminished or that they thought, well, if I wasn't if it wasn't going to happen soon, it probably wouldn't happen. So I think they came to accept the things are the way they are, but, yeah, always… there was always a hope that Poland would be free again and obviously they lived to see it, most of them lived to see the day when Poland was free again and was democratic and was a free country again. But that's what they were working towards always. So, again, when you look back at it now, that's a big deal. Definitely, it's not something that “we've come here, we're making a life for ourselves and so on” – that was always underlying their thinking.

KJ: Okay, so I'm thinking now that was the reason that the community was so strong.

[00:21:14]

PS: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely, because it wasn't just the community to keep each other going or keep themselves going and support each other, which they did, but they also had one eye on the fact that Poland was under communist rule and they were fighting for that rule to go and for Poland to be free again, as much as they could here. So, yeah, absolutely and that's why my parents absolutely regarded me as Polish and not as English, because it was that Polish community that was still so linked to Poland. Obviously, it’s the community that fought the war to free Poland from that oppression, so that's not going to go. I mean, they had all taken part in the Second World War, in some form, or had experienced that and, yeah, they wanted Poland back.

KJ: Did you at some point, maybe when you were a teenager and had that feeling like I want to rebel, I don't want to speak Polish, I don't want to have so many Polish traditions?

[00:22:28]

PS: Yeah, I mean, it was Polish school, it was language and Polish school. You're kind of thinking, well, you know, I want to play football on Saturday – I don't want to go to Polish school. You know, I want to rest on Saturday, you know, why do I have to go to school on Saturday as well? As we said, a lot of people didn't know what Poland was, so you kind of didn't see the relevance of Poland to you, given you were living in England and in London, but, as I say, I'm so glad that my parents taught me Polish and taught me those traditions and that I have that within me, because if I didn't have that, it could be the other way. I could now be resentful that they didn't do that and didn't expose me to all that, because obviously it's made me who I am today.

[00:23:19]

And it's also made me understand my own personal Polish history, not just Polish history in general and this community is part of Polish history. It’s not separate from Polish history. It's part of Polish history, because these are, you know, the children, the families of Polish officers, of the Poles that from 1939 to 1945, you know, under the auspices of the British army, the pilots, the paratroopers, the tankers, you know, the people that fought under the Monte Casino. You know, these are all descendants of these people, of the people that fought for Poland. So it's a huge deal. And it's something that is very unique and something that should always be remembered.

KJ: Your movie, The Last Witness, has a really strong connection with Polish history. Do you want to tell more about it, because it's especially about Katyn massacre. Why was that so important to you?

[00:24:35]

PS: When I was growing up I had a I had my mother, obviously, and her mother, my grandmother was living with us and she had remarried. And so my grandfather was, in a way, a step grandfather, so he wasn't my true grandfather. Now, when you're younger, you don't really know, you don't really understand these things. Why she remarried, what happened to my first grandfather. But then obviously when I grew up, I was told, and my first grandfather, so my mother's father, my grandmother's husband was a decorated Polish officer and he was executed in the Katyn massacre by the Soviets. This is something, again, when you're a child, it doesn't really register, but now and the older I got, obviously, understood what that meant, and also understood how controversial it still was because during the war, when the bodies were excavated in the Katyn forest, the massacre was blamed on the Germans. So the Soviet Union said it was the Germans that had done it, but all evidence pointed towards the Soviets and that the massacres had taken place in 1940. So from a political point of view this was huge. Obviously, only now when you look at the history books, you see the year after the war Poland was allowed to remain under communist rule. And so if the world had known that the Soviet Union had executed all these Polish officers, then things could have been very different. But because the Soviets were allies and politics was the way it was after the war, unfortunately, the Soviet Union was allowed to remain in Poland and Czechoslovakia, all these all these countries that became part of the USSR.

[00:26:47]

So this was hugely political. And this was another aspect of the Polish community that a lot of people are not aware of in that, you know, it's not just my family that has that story, a lot of families in that post-war generation have that story and you have the Polish Katyn Families Association. But in England, because England and America were part of that Big Three, and they allowed Stalin to take Poland and for the Soviets to remain in Poland, that was a hugely political decision. And so, for Poles to be saying the Katyn massacre was perpetrated by the Soviets was a no-no because they didn't want the public to think that the Soviet Union were in any way bad guys because they were allies. So this was, again, a lobby, because throughout that time, my parents’ generation was lobbying for the truth to come out. And there was a big moment in the ‘70s where they erected a monument to the Katyn massacre. It was going to be erected, I think, in the centre of London, in Westminster, but contentiously, it had the date 1940 on it, and that didn't obviously… that wasn't politically correct, so it ended up being erected in Chiswick at Gunnersbury Cemetery, but that was a hugely political moment because again, at that time, the official line was that the Katyn massacre had been perpetrated by the Germans and not by the Soviets. And that continued and it is still contentious today.

[00:28:51]

I made The Last Witness to tell that story. Less so of the massacre, because Andrzej Wajda made a film called Katyń from the Polish perspective about the massacre and how that affected the families in Poland. My film deals with the cover up here and in America. That the British government, the American government knew very well that it was the Soviets, but for political reasons, they covered that up and blamed it on the Germans. So that was the story. I wanted that story to come out and also to tell it from an English perspective, because that's what the Poles here, that post-war generation was dealing with all that time, sort of being told not to talk about it, being told not to say anything. It was an uncomfortable truth. And as a result, the Polish community really wasn't represented in the British media and in British cultural life, because no one… you know, you start talking about the Poles, you have to start talking about the Katyn massacre and so it's just easier not to talk about it. And as I say, I thought once Poland was free, ultimately the Soviets did admit that they had done it in 1990, you know, three times that they've underlined that it was the Soviets, but now it's gone back to what it was before, so President Putin is saying that that was all lies and that it's just all propaganda. So we're still dealing with that issue and I'm actually quite surprised that we're still dealing with it, but it shows how contentious it is because of the ongoing kind of relationship between Poles and Russians. But it's not between Poles and Russians, it's political, it's purely political history. And it's a huge subject still, so I'm glad I made that film. I'm glad it's out there because that story hasn't really been told. It still needs to be told, just as in the same way the Holocaust is revisited and needs to be revisited. The Katyn Massacre can't fall away just into history. It is a hugely important moment and continues to be relevant.

KJ: Okay, so do you think that Polish history was alive in everyday lives, you know, in England. That's why people try to cultivate all the Polish history and try to pass them to kids, to just… I don’t know… Did they pass the story to the kids all the time?

[00:31:50]

PS: Yeah, yeah, gently.., as I say, when I was a child, you know, you don't realise the relevance of these things, you know. In the end, it's just a history lesson, it's just the geography lesson, you know, where Poland is and then history, the kings and so on. For a child, it's just more information you've got to learn and, in most cases, it's just not relevant to you, it's just a king or it's just what happened on this… you know, what happened during the war, and you're surrounded by majors and colonels and you hear “Monte Casino”, and you hear “Battle of Britain”, and you hear “Katyn Massacre”, and “Soviets”, all these things. It was things you kept hearing over and over again, but obviously you didn't realise the relevance of that because, you know, it would have been brutal. It's always the same. Those are your parents. Those are old people. You know, it's nothing to do with you. That's what they went through, but I'm living my life. And, you know, I'm worried about, as I say, my own things, normal things kids are worried about, which is just school and being popular and playing sport and going out. You know, you're not that interested in what your parents are involved in. But that's because it was always there, suddenly, as you say, you get older, you start looking back and all that, you start realising what it is they were telling you and how relevant all that is to you. And it became obviously all the more relevant once Poland became a democratic country again in 1990. But I was already kind of living that through the ‘80s by going to Poland and dancing with Karolinka and so on, so I was absolutely plugged in to all those aspects of Polish history and as I sort of became part of it… part of it, because I now was creating… we were creating our own sort of Polish history in England. And as you can see now, you're now looking at Poles in South London from another perspective, but you can see the uniqueness of it all.

KJ: And you mentioned that you travelled with Karolinka to Poland in the ‘80s?

PS: Yeah.

KJ: So do you remember the first feeling when you were in Poland? It was strange, it was nice to be there?

[00:34:05]

PS: Yeah, it was strange. It was. I mean, my first memory is walking off the plane and just lines of soldiers outside the airport. So there's your first impression of landing in Poland. And then the fact that everybody speaks Polish. [laughter] You think that was obvious, but it's weird. And then the overwhelming, sort of, not thought, but the overwhelming impression I had was… Obviously here whoever speaks Polish is an aunt or a friend or somebody you know. So, by default, you think everybody who speaks Polish, you must know them. So to go to Poland, everybody speaks Polish… it's like you know everybody. It's a really odd thing to explain, but you just sort of felt very comfortable because everybody spoke Polish. So you had that. The taxi driver, the shopkeeper, whoever. You already felt like you knew them. I don't know if I'm explaining it right, but I think it feels really comfortable that everybody spoke Polish and I just immediately kind of felt very comfortable everywhere. Which takes me back to what I said, if I didn't know the Polish language, I don't think I would have had that. I probably would have felt the other way. I probably would have felt even more of an outsider, but because I could speak back to them in Polish and they liked the fact and they knew you from London and all this, it just seemed to draw you into that world immediately.

[00:35:47]

So that was the overwhelming impression that I was just sort of smiling. Everybody speaks Polish, [laughter] that’s great. And yeah, after that, obviously it was… because at that point in the ‘80s, it was such a different world, because here you're going from a kind of world of abundance to people not having [everything?], queuing up in shops and the whole thing looking very, you know, 20, 30 years out of date. It felt quite surreal. It didn't feel real and everything looked old. You know, we had dollars, you know, everything was kind of black market. We had Pewex shops, you know, it was a completely different experience.

And again, an overwhelming kind of sense I had when I came back from Poland is that everybody should go to Poland and they'll never complain ever again because it was so kind of tough and so, so different to us. And I almost felt a bit guilty. I was there when I was young and we just thought it was fine, it was a holiday, but on the other hand, you know, when we were going into Pewex shops and buying stuff and then coming out, you know, people would look at us, you know, who are they? You know, where they get the money from? They're just kids or this sort of thing. So now, looking back on it probably I feel a bit guilty about it all. It was… it was a good time, but also a very weird time. I'm glad I went to Poland in the ‘80s because, you see, you understood what they were going through, what the Poles in, again, were kind of fighting for back in London and in England and what we were trying to fix, if you like. So, yeah, it was both an experience and also kind of a sobering experience as well.

KJ: I'm thinking like, wow, it must be like a big clash, you know…

[00:37:57]

PS: Huge, huge clash – absolutely, just the way everything… in every aspect, the way people are dressed, you know, what they're listening to, you know, also not knowing how we live in the West because obviously… On the other side, they didn't know how we lived in England, you know, I remember because we went there to learn folk dance. It was in Lublin and it was a course on folk dancing. So it was all to do with Karolinka. We didn't go there, you know, for a holiday. We went there to learn about folk dancing, but obviously we got to know Polish friends and so on. And the dance groups there, when they would come to London to tour, they were on their couches and the curtains were pulled. So they literally came off the plane in the airport into a coach where they couldn't look out, straight into the hotel and they weren't allowed to go out and see what London looked like. So a lot of people had no idea what the West actually looked like. And that was also strange because they were told it's even worse in the West, not that it's better, for obvious reasons. So there was also that kind of lack of understanding from them because they were looking at us, going, well, “you're not what we're expecting”, and trying to explain to them how we live and everything, what we have, was almost quite difficult for them to comprehend. Especially the older generation. I mean, the stories you had when… when you could finally leave Poland and come to London, come to England and travel, you know, you had the older generation, you know, landing in London and going to Oxford Street and they were fainting in shops because they just couldn't believe it. They just said, “But we were told it was even worse here than it was in Poland”. They just couldn't comprehend what they'd been told was all lies. And this was the truth. It was just too much.

KJ: I can't imagine to faint in a shop, it's really… It was such a big gap. Now I just realised how big was it. You mentioned before that also church was a big part of Polish life. And every Sunday everybody went to the church. It was all only about religion or also was it a culture thing?

[00:40:54]

PS: No, this is community. I mean, again, you know the church… because the Catholic faith is so strong in Poland, obviously in England it’s Anglican, again, it's a way of keeping that community together and everything kind of stemmed from the church and the priest, you know, Polish school had religion, had religious lessons. Everything seemed to involve the church, Polish Scouts involved the church, you know, everything involved the church. So it's more than is more than religion, it’s the kind of the glue that held the community together as well because of the marriages, births, confirmations, everything… You know, there's always a kind of religious aspect to it. You know, all the traditions, Easter, Christmas, it's all linked to the church. So the church is a hugely influential organisation in the Polish community and was there. And as you say, the idea of hope. We all know how strong the church was as a rebel organisation during communist times. I mean, it's kind of down to the church that things happen in Poland the way they did. It was a symbol of hope, a symbol of rebellion, if you like, in Poland. But from a community point of view, yeah, everything is linked with the church.

KJ: The British government helped with funds for the organisation or Poles funded them by themselves?

[00:42:32]

PS: It all came from Poles. I remember asking my mother and she said, “No, we never asked for anything, we were just grateful that they allowed us to stay”, which is important to say, even though they felt quite betrayed that Poland had been given away to the Soviet Union and they wouldn't recognise the things that the Soviets had done to Poles. But on the other side, you know, my mum said they were always grateful that they were allowed to stay and that they were kind of given a home, they weren’t kicked out because they could have been kicked out of England, that would have been even worse. And, you know, and they helped them to relocate to New Zealand, to America, to Canada, this sort of thing. So the British helped from that point of view, definitely, but as far as funds are concerned for Polish schools or the church or anything community based – no. My mum said, “We never asked for anything”. And it was all just through their own means, to the point… I remember my dad even… They set up, especially in Brockley-Lewisham, they set up a kind of a bank. Yeah, I suppose you could call it a community bank, where everybody would pay in, people who could pay and would pay in, and that was loaned out to other Poles and that was sort of paid back at a kind of lower interest rate. So they even kind of set up their own financial system, really. So they were completely self-sufficient. And no, I think maybe pride or maybe they just didn't even think about it. They kind of thought, well, why should they help us or why would they help us? So we've got to do it ourselves, which I think is a Polish trait anyway, [laughter] because I think the Poles all around the world now, wherever they go, they just sort of get on with it and they do it themselves. I don't think they… they go for handouts first, I think, they try and do it themselves – and that's a good thing, I think. At one point my mum was saying there were so many Polish children in English schools, they could have easily said, “I think there should be Polish language in English schools”, but again, you think about that's why they set up Polish schools, because they said, well, “If we want our children to be culturally aware, we're going to do it ourselves. We can't expect the English to do it for us. You know, we need to do it ourselves”. And the Polish schools were, as I say, they rented English schools, so they paid for the space and it was all, you know, Polish teachers. In most cases, these people weren't teachers, so it was just ordinary people who just fancied helping out and sort of became language teachers or history teachers or whatever, because they were interested. There were obviously professional teachers as well, but I think they were in the minority, so everything was organised by themselves. It literally was. You know, if we're going to do this, we need to do this ourselves.

KJ: So as I understand, every person who was somehow involved. Even kids in, you know, make Polish community bigger, better.

[00:45:52]

PS: Yeah, but as I said, at that point, you know, my parents’ generation, I think there was a definite goal to kind of keep the Polish community going, but also just for themselves, because remember – my mum was only in her teens when she came to England. She was… she was born in ‘29, after the war, ’46, ‘47. I mean 18, 19… so they're also young people, so they want to go out, they want to meet people, they want to get married, you know, all that, you know, go to go to parties. So they had that social life as well, so they wanted that and obviously all their friends were Polish, so they would all sort of meet up together. Don't get me wrong that it was just all political and it was all about Polish patriotism. In the end, it was just to have a life as well, and to create a life because they were all young people, not just the older colonels and majors that fought in the war.

KJ: And that's what I actually wanted to ask, how was that private life, the parties and those Saturday, Sundays, you know, how was it look like, I don't know, big Polish party or something like that?

[00:47:16]

PS: For my parents, it was always zabawy, so it was always parties. I think the photographs and the paperwork I gave you of Gmina Londyn-Południe, you know, they organised their own zabawy, their own parties. Obviously, all dressed up and in evening dress, and that would become a big deal. And that was a regular kind of occurrence. That was one of the reasons Gmina existed, to bring them all together and to organise events for themselves. So, yeah, they would absolutely always be going out, always, always organising parties and as mama used to say, you know, a lot of people met at home. They would possibly go out and then come back and all go home at five or six o'clock in the morning, so there were a lot of parties at home as well. It was a very lively, lively social life. I definitely remember that as a child of my parents constantly going out and dressing up and going out. So my mum and long dresses and my dad and his dinner jacket and so on, I absolutely remember that a lot. And that was constant.

KJ: Did your generation cultivate that tradition of zabawa et cetera?

[00:48:47]

PS: No, we started going out to clubs because, again, you know, you don't want to do what your parents do. [laughter] Again, then, as I say, as you get past your own kind of formative years, you then go back to zabawy, so we definitely had, because we had zabawy, you know, after, you know, obozowe tango, which was Scouting zabawy and our own ones, and then obviously weddings. So it was a combination of the two, really. I always remember, especially from a Polish point of view, a lot of social, a lot of dancing, a lot of singing, a lot of food and drink. You know, that is a constant throughout my life, really, and continues to be, but definitely in those times around the ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s, there's a lot of going out, weddings, parties, zabawy, yeah, lots of that, which is great. Which is great. So, it was a fun time, definitely.

KJ: Do you remember the names of the places, where did you meet? It was just clubs or like your parents, where did they meet with friends?

[00:50:01]

PS: I mean, my parents would hire places. I think the first Gmina zabawa was just in the John Lewis store in Sloane Square, off Sloane Square. I think Peter Jones, they just hired the hall there and they had their first ever zabawa there, I think in the ‘50s or whenever that was. And then to the point they were hiring out the Cafe Royal in Leicester Square, you know, the Dorchester Hotel, so they were, you know, they were going to nice places, definitely. And then, once the POSK was built, you then had a lot of zabawy at POSK and New Year's was always at POSK, because I think POSK has three sort of different sala and they were all going. So it was a big deal. New Year's was a big deal at POSK, and my parents used to always go there. So POSK became a cultural hub as well. And POSK was built in the ‘70s, again, purely by, you know, the investment came from the Polish community. I don't think there were any kind of state funds or British funds that went into that. And that was all built, bought and designed and organised by the Polish community.

KJ: And I think POSK was really a big part of the Polish community when it was built?

[00:51:36]

PS: You know, again, they wanted a hub. Not just for London, but for the whole country. They wanted a centre where all the organisations would have offices, a kind of a one stop shop for the Polish community, really. And because there's a theatre there, you know, there's a restaurant… so it was just a kind of a centre, a symbol of the Polish community and in the UK…

KJ: Okay, one second. Yes, I think I've got the last question and what you can say, what advice you can tell to your younger self, like, you know, you can talk to Piotr, who's in his teens, he maybe doesn't understand completely about Poland, he's been maybe confused. What advice you can give him?

[00:53:03]

PS: Just to appreciate it more, appreciate what you're living through and listen to what's around you, see what's around you. And just to appreciate. I think just appreciate what you have and what you had. I think that's the main thing, because as you're living it, as I say, you have no real idea of what it is, what the significance of it is, it's just something that everybody is doing, all my friends were doing. And you didn't realise the significance of it. So I think it's a case of, yeah, appreciate it and enjoy it.

KJ: Okay, thank you. It was nice to have you. Thank you for sharing your stories with us. Do you maybe have something else to add in the end?

[00:53:57]

PS: No, I think the main thing is that once you start talking about it, once you start articulating the history, you realise how… important it is. You also realise how much there is to say, even just talking to you, we've touched on so many different subjects, but as you can see, each one of those could be an interview in itself. There's so much going on, from a social point of view, from a sort of economic point of view, from a political point of view, from a historical point of view. There's so much, it's so rich. That history, that generation is so unique and the experiences are so rich. It will never kind of be repeated because it was a very unique moment in time. And I see that so very clearly now, when I look back at it. Not just my own experience, but my parents’ experience and my parents' generation's experience from that time when the Soviet Union invaded Poland and they were deported to where they are now. I mean, just… I always remember this, I'll never really understand or feel what my parents must feel or must have felt – to be taken from their home at such a young age, with their parents, you know, bombs dropping left, right and centre, you know, being deported into the middle of nowhere, then coming out of there as refugees, you know. Starving, with malaria, all these sorts of diseases and so on that they went through. Then to come to England, not be allowed to go home, to have to create a new life in a new country where they don't know the language, you know, they’re then told not to talk about their experience. They then get married, raise their children, lobby for this country that, at the moment, doesn't exist in a political manner, to then see that country finally sort of return… but that country is no longer the country that they left. I mean, it just goes on and on. It's a… it's a hugely important experience that I… you know, I'm really glad that you're doing this.

KJ: Thank you. Thank you, Piotr, so much. It was really touching and it's a really valuable lesson for all of us.

PS: Thanks.

KJ: We're really happy that we can have you and did something amazing sharing the stories with us. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.