Reality check

 

Had a weird dream last night. They are all weird and unsettling, but some are more memorable than others. Anyway, I was commander of a Ukrainian military unit facing Russian occupation forces in the village nearby. It seems we had made a secret deal. We would share food, power and water with the villagers, so that everyone could survive the coming winter shortages. Everyone local is pleased with this arrangement. Can I put that agreement formally in writing? Initially I want to say yes. Then with a great effort I come to the conclusion (thinking anything logically in a dream is so difficult) that I cannot. I would be considered a traitor and collaborator, and I could be shot. With this confronation with reality, I wake up.

That same morning I hear that a Ukrainian MP in Kherson, who cooperated with the Russian occupation of the city, was shot and killed as a traitor by a Ukrainian revenge squad. More ominously still, his wife had her throat cut at the same time.

In jumpers and blankets

 

                                        

Back at work on Tuesday after the bank holiday. It is difficult to find any of the girls working there interested in anything to do with politics or the economic crisis. However, one of them described the joys of living with her mother again. I asked how she would help pay her Mum's energy bills this winter. "We won't heat our homes at all," she said. "We'll just sit around in jumpers and blankets and go to bed early". Her friends agreed. It appears that the energy price rise announcement have affected absolutely every one. Albina is saying much the same. And the government still cannot offer a definitive plan on how to tackle the price hike, because the Tories are still waiting for the emergence of their leader this Sunday, while the retiring PM could not care a flying fart about the current crisis. With each day their likelihood of re-election gets less and less.

With Sandro in Cambridge

 I took advantage of the beautiful bank holiday Sunday weather to drive up to Cambridge to see my son and watch him perform his filial duties of setting right various problems on my laptop. That is why us old folk have children these days. What to them is simple logic, for us is a mysterious and hostile wilderness full of traps and obstacles to ensure we cannot write what we want or provide the pictures we need in the right place, especially when wormholes appear that can swallow up a text on which we may have been working for half a day.

Sandro Marcus Moszczynski is 32, a python programmer (for those who know what that is), working for a cutting edge of technology outfit in Cambridge which somehow links computer images with photography. For all I know, he could be taking civilization forward in the science of morphing images or be in the forefront of providing fake news. He has just had his 33rd birthday which he celebrated with his old university friends from Sussex. He graduated from there with an MSc in physics but more recently took a course at UCL which earned him a second MSc in  (wait for it) quantum technology. He is a number cruncher, in contrast to an airy fairy weaver of words like myself. He gets that more from his mother. 

He is renting a 3 bedroom house in a Cambridge suburb along with his long-standing Finnish girlfriend Liisa Kontas. They are happy enough and she seems to be a calming influence bringing elements of order and common sense to his hitherto chaotic approach to life. He has little sense of attachment to his Polish heritage, though he can hold a conversation in Polish, and did eventually apply for a Polish passport once it was clear that the UK would leave the EU. He seems to identify more with Finland than Poland. Neither of them seem to have any plans for progeny yet, much to Albina's disappointment. Probably by the time they decide to have children, we will be too old to enjoy them or to influence them.

Sandro sorted out my internet blips and we drove out for a proper roast lunch at a pub in Grantchester. We had an enjoyable walk along the Cam and passed the extensive land around a pictureque property called the Old Vicarage, with a statue of Rupert Brooke in the front garden. There were images of farm animals, including a magnificent horse visible in the gardens and the river bank. "It must be a rich guy that owns this," commented Sandro. Checking on Google, I found that this was an address that Brooke stayed in on a number of occasions before he went to the front. And yes, the current owner is apparently rich. It was Jeffrey Archer. 

Amazing how Google can give a context to everything we experience, if we have the energy to check our facts at each step. We discuss something in the abstract? Ok, let me check that bit of information. However, I normally prefer our imagination to fill in the gaps to what we see around us. Will I be googling everything when we are on our cruise next year?

   

Polish Solidarity Campaign picnic

 On Saturday 27th August I got together with my old friends from the Polish Solidarity Campaign for a regular annual picnic in Ravenscourt Park. In the 1980s we were organizing demonstrations on the streets of London and elsewhere, holding press conferences in the House of Commons, picketing trade union and party conferences, writing articles for the British media and making life difficult for Communist sympathisers in the UK, especially in the period after General Jaruzelski introduced martial law. In all, I attended nearly 200 meetings in the space of 3 years and others worked just as hard. There was even a book published about us and we had a strong media presence in that period. 

One of our best achievements was to convince the Labour Party in 1983 to disinvite Polish and other Communist organizations to their annual conference. We were a mixture of amateur Anglo-Poles born in the UK to Polish emigre parents, genuine Solidarity sympathisers from Poland and British sympathizers of freedom and trade union rights. Out tilt was initially largely left of centre, and in fact our organization was initiated by Trostkyist Marxists anxious to condemn Stalinist regimes. We invited prominent trade union and Labour MP speakers to attack the Communist regime from the Left. During the legal period of Solidarity we acted as liaison links between Solidarity leaders and individual branches of British trade unions. After martial law we becamse a mass organization with over a thousand members and more than £22,000 operating budget, and very much a broad church. We made sure however that any Tory MPs on our platform, such as Bernard Braine or Lord Bethell, were not sympathizers of apartheid, Pinochet and other military regimes. 

Why Ravenscourt Park? Well it was near POSK, where we had our headquarters for a number of years. Our most active supporter and long term Chairman was Giles Hart who, sadly, was killed in the bombing outrage in 2004 while riding a bus near Tavistock Square. We raised sufficient funds and obtained permission from Hammersmith Council to erect a monument in his honour and that of the Solidarity movement in Ravenscourt Park. The Polish Ambassador, the Mayor of Hammersmith and the Secretary General of the Solidarity Trade union from Poland assisted at the opening ceremony. Now every year, as we meet at the picnic, we lay flowers in memory of Giles at the moument, normally accompanied by Giles' widow, Danusia.  

Always attend with a pleasant sense of achievement for the past.

Sikorski Insitute

 

Yesterday I paid a brief visit to the Sikorski Museum to see the display before I describe it in an article for Tydzien Polski. The exhibits are extraordinary but the presentation is very out of date, with various items from different centuries and different battles piled in together higgledy piggledy. Also I wonder whether they should not open every Saturday, instead of only one day a week. The volunteer who showed me round was excellent, full of happy anecdotes about various items, and with a good knowledge of the different regiments and their badges and standards. He told me there was a shortage of volunteers, which is why they chose to open only one Saturday in the month plus Wednesday, Thursday and Friday afternoons for a couple of hours. That is a poor service, especialy as they ask you to book in advance. Hardly user friendly to the occasional visiting Polish family or the tourist coming in from the street. I think they should have more paid staff and a more hands-on forms of display. I was impressed with the captioned switches lighting up various vantage points from the maquette 3D display of the mountains around the battle site of Monte Cassino. It looked amateurish but it was instructive. There should be more of the same.

They are having battle currently with their sister organization the Polish Underground Study Centre. Two old institutions trading blows rather than investing in their archives and their museums. But at least they are alive.

In the evening there was supposed to be a meeting of the Federation of Poles in Great Britain on Zoom. But only The President and the Secretary showed up, both just out from hospital with mobility problems. There we were. Just three 70 year olds discussing the conference in Vilnius, the situation in Poland and the UK. The Federation was once a powerhouse of initiative and activity. Now it's just a spent force, with younger trustees not even bothering to attend. The AGM has been put back to January. If no new candidate wants to take over at that time, then I am ready to propose that the organization winds itself up, no matter how much such a representative umbrella organization is needed by the main Polish organizations in the UK. If they don't get their website up and running by this autumn they are finished. What a sad end to an organization that has spoken for Poles in this country since 1947.

UK infrastructure has collapsed

 The announcement came this morning and the whole country winced with pain. Cap on average annual energy bill from 1st Otcober will be £3549. That is a 80% increase on the summer annual cap of £1971. And that in turn was an upward leap from the January cap of £1277. It could even increase to more than £6000 in January. How can thousands on benefits and low incomes or state pension afford that? Although the figure was expected, yet millions are in agony, sick to the pit of their stomachs, as they consider their options. What cannot they afford? What to drop? Ibiza? Take away food? Netflix account? School uniform? Christmas presents? Visiting gran in the country? New shoes? A dilemma for all, but the well off. 

Albina is already saying we won't use any heating this winter. At least until February when we leave on our world trip. This latest price rise just smashes the current welfare fabric in the UK into smithereens. People are anxious, are hurting. There will be mental health disasters and suicides, people staying at work to keep warm, small businesses, and especially pubs and restaurants, going bankrupt. There will be rent strikes and gas bill boycotts, and one young lady who advocated a bill payment strike on Sky TV was promptly blacked out as she spoke. It is as critical and momentous as the covid scare. So where are the parade of ministers and wealth experts (as opposed to health experts) to calm people down, to reassure and to promise that a proper relief package is on the way, as happened during the covid crisis? Nowhere. Still fighting over the succession for a hollow thorny crown. And that remorselessly stupid and non-empathic Thatcher clone, Liz Truss, mouthing inanities, cutting green taxes, feeding the inflation cycle with tax cuts, humiliating the Scots and insulting Macron, and glorying in being able to push the nuclear button, all to Tory cheers. The last the public heard from the Prime Minister was to hear the link between the war in Ukraine and the energy price hike. That will only put off support for Ukraine in this war. God help us!

At least, a normally timorous Labour Party could say it found a temporary imperfect solution with a 6 month cap freeze at the current annual cap of £1971 and a windfall tax to fund it. Nothing concrete though from the Tory government. Nothing from the normally garrulous Tiggerish clown pretending to be a PM. He's in Greece, or pretending to be the hero in gullible Kyiv, with his bare arse stuck firmly out against the British people. What a country! The infrastructure is crumbling. Raw sewage in streams and rivers, and flushed out to sea; cutbacks on climate change despite the heat wave; roads flooding during downpours; trains, legal aid and post offices on strike; millions on hospital waiting lists; massive shortages of care workers; parts of the country with no NHS dentists; while 18% inflation lurks around the corner early next year. Still have 5 months to go before we can get away from it all, but having to pay all those massive spring bills will haave to come first.  

Goodbye Binia

 Got the news this morning from Bob. My darling friend Binia has passed away. Funny, brilliant, artistic, unconventional, a little crazy, often too honest for her own good. Earlier this year, after she collapsed into a temporay coma in Spain, she was diagnosed with cancer in nearly every organ of her body. Bob watched over her, first in the hospital, then at home, finally in a hospice, as she slowly sank into a form of semi-oblivion, but free of pain. She, who was such a key observer of life, who enjoyed good company and the fruits of a bohemian life style, and yet also a talented film maker (films on Yoko Ono, Phil Spector), painter, kite flyer and writer of screenplays. Ever a smoker, and a lover of good whisky. Friend of mine from childhood in Polish saturday school, after she left Poland early and settled with her aristocratic family in London. One son with Bob, Sandro, died tragically early when catching meningitis at Bedales School. Also one daughter Romana from an earlier marriage, who survives her. Binia moved with Bob to Spain and with her chow chow, Boyo, before Brexit (which she hated), to spend her last years in the sun in Murcia.

Goodbye, sweet girl. I still have your pictures in my flat to remind me of your talent, your humour, your vibrant life, your capacity to love your friends, but you will be in my heart and my memory for ever. 

The SPK muzzle is on.

 

My Press Release in English on the curious statistical phenomenon of the increase in Polish speaking children in UK schools, despite the reduction in the number of Poles in the UK since Brexit, has been published in the London Polish Weekly. But not a word has been printed in that newspaper from my article about the failure of the SPK Trust to sell the Polish Centre in Kirkcaldy. As I expected, the SPK has muzzled the Polish Weeekly, because its owner, the Polish Cultural Foundation, needs SPK's financial support to fund its new website. Perhaps the Londynek.net website may publish something, as they did ask about ownership of the two photos which I sent. Perhaps too, Cooltura may want to publish.

I got a call from a friend at POSK who told me that the POSK Council meeting last Saturday ended disastrously after I left. Once the minutes of the three successive meetings were cleared up, the meeting broke out into a very bitter and personal confontation over how the new Chairman of POSK was to be elected in October. I had originally raised this at the July meeting and the conclusion had been to have a vote only of those members present at the AGM, plus those who had left a proxy vote. However, Marek Laskiewicz desperately wanted to ramrod through a postal ballot, knowing he had a much better chance of winning that way, as many of the voters would be unaware of the omnishambles in the POSK administration. The battle ended in a draw, as it transpired that so many Council members had left the meeting. As it was now inquorate, the meeting was adjourned.

On Friday night I travelled down to Clapham to join George Scibor's 75th birthday party. I managed the the bulk of the car journey from Brentford in just about an hour, but at the last minute I took an earlier turning off the South Circular than I should have done. I found myself driving down a footpath on Clapham Common. There were no sign telling me I had taken a wrong turning. Luckily, I managed to get back to a road through a gap in a hedgerow, and some minutes later I turned up at George's house, armed with a wrapped gift of a board game called Gin, a bottle of Prosecco and a colourful bunch of flowers, which George's wife Teresa thought absolutely exquisite. I had originally bought the flowers for Albina, but she suggested I take them down for Teresa, as she was probably the main organizer of the party, anyway and "Why should George get all the attention", as Albina put it. I have known George since we were in the Polish cubs together at a camp in Kelvedon in Essex. In fact I was the one who first introduced George and Teresa more than 50 years ago. The party was initially very enjoyable and I had an enjoyable mix of weighty political discussions and flirty male-female dialogue. A delicious chilli con carne was served and George blew out the single roman candle plonked diplomatically onto his birthday cake. But the room was small, and virtually nobody stepped out into the adjoing garden. Unfortunately, as the party wore on, the din of thirty or so inebriated guests and family members talking over each other, began to deafen me. I could barely make out any words that were being said to me. So I slunk out quietly and drove home, explaining my boorish behaviour in a text message and an apologetic telephone call to George next day.

A further irritation. Went shopping to Waitrose with Albina and my debit card was declined. The cash machine refused to state the reason saying the card was inoperable. I sense it's that blasted unnecessary debit card they sent me last month, in place of the Barclaycard I had ordered unsuccessfully. Luckily,  Albina was able to pay with her card. I suppose I will eventually have to initiate the new debit card that I did not want, but the Barclay bastards are very low in my current estimation as a service. And it will play havoc in all my next online transactions.

Oh yes, and Albina sensed that I really did want to go to Vilnius and felt it important that I defend the record of the Federation of Poles in front of the arrogant Polish community minister, Jan Dziedziczak. So I told the Federation Chairman I could go on September 15th, arranged a day swop with Miguel at the office to cover me for missing a Monday at work, and went ahead and bought a plane ticket to Vilnius. 

No Vilnius?

 

I see the Federation of Poles in Great Britain have asked me to travel to Vilnius in late September to represent them at a world conference of Polish communities (World Polonia Council) and speak about our record on promoting Poland and defending the interests of Poles in our country of residence. 

Actually, I would love to go, even as a last Hurrah, as it is a subject I have held dear since the 1980s when I chaired the Polish Solidarity Camapign and was later the Vice-Chairman of the Federation of Poles in Great Britain. Also I have never been to Vilnius, a former Polish city and, even though it is now the capital of Lithuania, it still has a large ethnic Polish popualtion. Albina even went there along with her late friend Ewa Jarosz, only some 5 years ago, on their joint coach trip around the Baltic states.

 However, the days in question are a Monday and Tuesday and I would have to take time off from work after having reached a deal with them over working without a holiday until the big cruise in February. But most important of all, I know that my going would upset Albina. She is so sensitive now to my taking time off away from her. I have been abandoning her consistently with my comunity and political activities in the first fifty years of our marriage, and I am determined to make it up to her and spend more time with her. I am aware that compared to her I have invested very little into our marriage and the big tour around the world is my way to make up for it, now that we can afford it. So, sorry. No Vilnius. 

 

The ROL cruise draws ever closer.

 

The ROL cruise draws ever closer. 189 days to go

Today our clinic confirmed that it can give us 3 months' supply of all the repeat prescriptions for Albina and me, provided we give them at least a week's notice. However, they would not be able to give us the necesary inoculations, but recommended four local pharmacies that could do it.

I have learned that CIBT can arrange our visas for Egypt, India, Vietnam, China and USA but suggested we approach them with our passports no earlier than October. Hope this will not clash with a possible visit by Albina to a health spa in Poland. 

ROL have just reminded us that we need to pay another £2124 of our deposit by the end of this month. I have just arranged the payment. The full payment balance will have to be made in late September.

And yet life here goes on. 

On Saturday morning I attended another Council meeting of POSK in Hammersmith. We spent the first 3 hours correcting the minutes of the last three Council meetings from January, March and July. The new Chairman Marek Laskiewicz is floundering. He kept putting off a proper correction of the minutes until it was agreed we have a special meeting last month to finalize them. At the last minute he cancelled the meeting and suggested on Saturday that we leave the alternative versions of the minutes as additional documents attached to the full reports, a sort of minority report. The Council, pressured by Joanna Mludzinska and Andrzej Zakrzewski, the former Chair and Secretary of POSK, had this preposterous suggestion outvoted by the Council members, and we then went through the amendment report line by line for each of the three past meetings. After 3 hours, even though we were still dealing with the July minutes, I left the meeting as I had agreed to meet Albina and prepare for my friend Stefan's birthday. I honestly don't know what happened afterwards, but suffice it to say the meeting was highly distasteful and frustrating. I was even offered the chance, before I left, to sign nomination papers for an alternative Chairman to Laskiewicz. It was for former Treasurer Robert Wisniowski. Not sure though whether he would have the courage to stand. Laskiewicz is an honest but badly advised Chairman, with a very poor knowledge of the Polish language, although politically he is a Polish nationalist. He must go, as he has such poor judgement and he is surrounded with very inadequate Directors, while his best advisers have been prevented from being made Directors, as the Council blocked their nominations to the Council. Only Council members can formally serve as Directors.

Then off to Ognisko Club in Kensingtom with Albina to enjoy Stefan Przedrzymirski's 75th birthday. A wonderful meal on the terrace under a marquee with airflow towers protecing us from the heat outside. We each had two starters and a main course as well as a sweet (a Pavlova, of course), and we had plenty to drink as well. By the time we got home by taxi I was only able to lie flat on my bed like a beached whale and fall asleep. I did not even notice that I had an opened a bottle of water in my hand as I fell asleep and the water spilt over the bed. Albina had to find a towel to lay over the wet bedding, while I was just fast asleep.

Sunday was another hot day. I was supposed to drive to Cambridge to visit Sandro and seek his help to clear up anomalies on my laptop so that I can have it working properly on my voyage next year. But the combination of heat and a considerable alcohol intake left over from the previous day made me feel uncomfortable about driving. I had no hangover, but all the same I called off the visit. 

Instead, I took a long 3 mile walk along the canal path in the hot sun. I was dressed just in shorts and took my shirt off for most of the walk. However, I tripped at one point, skinned my knees and left arm and stubbed my toe. I bought the Sunday papers in a shop in Hanwell, hobbled into Lidl to get a large crate of strawberries, a fruit juice and some bread and then took the bus home. Albina was pleased with the strawberries but she gave me an earful over getting the wrong kind of bread and for getting her a Mail on Sunday without the colour supplement. Woe betide if something besmirches her sense of perfection. So much for my heroic efforts to keep her happy.

Monday and Tuesday at work, but I still found time to finish the press release on the confusing statistics on Polish-speaking children in schools throughout the UK since Brexit. Are there less, as one would expect? Or are there more as the Education Departments of all four nations of the United Kingdom were saying?

Then on Wenesday I went to Ealing Hospital for a decision on whether I should have my left eye operated on. It was supposed to be a matter of removing a cataract, but now they plan to give me an artificial lens so that my eyesight will improve considerably for distance. They did the same earlier this year for my right eye, but they made it near sighted, so I can now read a computer screen or a book with the naked eye. That is the first time I could do that since childhood. If I have one eye near sighted and one long sighted, will my poor old brain be ready to cope? I was also aware that this will be under local anaesthetic again. Can you imagine the horror of having a surgeon poking around in your eye for half an hour? I went through it once, and now will go through it again. It scares the hell out of me,  but what can you do now, once you have committed yourself and have a medical team hovering over you geared up to carry it out. I listened to all the things that could go wrong (blindness, pain, scarring), shrugged my shoulders and signed the consent form. At least I will be able to see better when I am on board the Borealis.

Following Brexit, are there more Polish speaking children in the United Kingdom?

                                     P R E S S       R E L E A S E 

Following Brexit, are there more Polish speaking children in the United Kingdom?

Since 2017, the Federation of Poles in Great Britain, based in London, has consistently reported a steady reduction in the number of Polish-speaking children in London schools in the years following the Brexit referendum. This information was based on statistics provided since 2007 every year by the 33 London Borough Councils to the Federation of Poles in Gt Britain. This follows logically from the fact that following the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement signed in January 2020, newly arrived Poles and other EU citizens could no longer settle or work in the UK, and this has dramatically reduced the number of new Polish families settling in the UK. However, latest statistics from the national education authorities of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland indicate that the national picture does not follow the same trend as the London one.

Reduction.

The current statistics for Greater London for January 2022 show 27,699 Polish speaking children in London schools. This figure covers all such pupils in primary, secondary, sixth form and special schools in the public sector in London. They include not only first generation children of Polish nationals arriving her in large numbers since 2004 when Poland joined the EU, but also children brought up in second and third generation ethnically Polish families that have lived here since the Second World War. The 2022 figure is a 17.3% reduction on the number of Polish speaking children from the high figure of 32,518 pupils in January 2017. The 2017 figure covers the highest yet intake of Polish speaking children the previous summer at the time of the Brexit referendum in June 2016. The referendum and its immediate aftermath had been a period of increased tension and uncertainty over the future of EU citizens living in the UK. Since 2017 this downward trend in London has been consistent year after year in all 33 London Boroughs.

In fact, this downward trend correlates with the London Councils based statistics for the number of Polish nationals on the electoral register of each Borough. From a peak of 11,0189 in 2017 the number of Polish citizens eligible to vote was reduced to only 96,296 in 2022, which was a reduction of 12.6%.

The downward trend of Polish schoolchildren and Polish citizens in London reflected other national ONS statistics.  The ONS recorded an almost 30% reduction in the number of live births to Polish mothers in the UK from 20,779 in 2017, to only 14,633 in 2020. In its Annual Population Survey the ONS indicated 696,000 Polish citizens resident in the UK in 2021. This had been a 30% reduction from the 2016 total of 1,002,000.

Increase.

By significant contrast, the national figures of Polish-speaking children in England, as recorded by the Department of Education, show an increase nationally, not a reduction, in pupils with Polish as first language in English state schools from 142,747 in 2017 to 145,659 in 2022. Closer inspection shows the increase of Polish-speaking pupils in the East Midlands, Merseyside, Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Hampshire, and the West country, as well as an increase in some West Midlands education authorities, such as Coventry and Walsall. (However, apart from London, there is a drop recorded in Polish speaking schoolchildren in former larger Home Counties concentrations of Polish children in Slough and Luton, as well as in Midland conurbations with a hitherto significant Polish presence, such as Birmingham and Sandwell.) 

The total upward trend for Polish schoolchildren in England since the 2016 referendum is mirrored in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. According to the Education Analytical Services of the Scottish Government the number of pupils with Polish as their main home language was 14,739 in September 2016 but increased to 17,611 in September 2021. Also, according to the Knowledge and Analytical Services of the Welsh Government the number of pupils with Polish as first language in Welsh schools had increased from 5,419 in 2017 to 5,867 in 2022. The Northern Ireland Education Authority, based in Belfast, recorded 6,671 pupils in 2017 having Polish as their native language, and this has increased to 6,935 in October 2021.

 

Question Mark

Why this disparity between the Home Counties and the rest of the United Kingdom? The question is important because the Polish population was the largest and most significant contingent of EU citizens who were able to settle in the UK after 2004 when the UK labour market was made available to all EU citizens. The Polish population had a high profile because of the sudden influx into the UK which neither the UK government nor local authorities had expected. At one stage there were more than a million Polish nationals recorded in the UK and the Polish language was recorded as the second most frequent language after English to be spoken at home in England and Scotland. 

There are two possible causes for the disparity.

First, this trend suggests that, while there appears to be an exodus of Polish families from London and certain high-density Polish communities in the Home Counties, these families may not just have gone back to Poland, or to other EU countries, but could also have moved to other, perhaps less expensive, areas in the United Kingdom. Certainly, there has been anecdotal evidence from Polish community organizations of Polish families with children moving from the larger more expensive cities to more rural areas with a lower cost of living than the Home Counties.

Secondly, another possible explanation could be a change in the age gap. According to the Education Authority in Belfast, the number of Polish speaking pupils in Northern Ireland primary schools has reduced between 2017 and 2021 from 4,544 to 3,969, but the number of pupils in secondary or special education has increased, not decreased, in that period, from 2,127 to 2,966. Regrettably, we do not yet have a similar breakdown in age for pupils in England, Wales, and Scotland. However, it is possible that, with the above mentioned reduced birth rate for children of Polish mothers, there are fewer pupils now in primary education, while the higher earlier figures for children in primary education had now been "pushed up" in the last 5 years into secondary education.

Possible inaccuracies

Yet there has been concern recently over statistical accuracy in relation to EU citizens in the UK. While ONS statistics had shown a decrease in Polish and other EU nationals in the UK since the Brexit referendum, this was not reflected by the figures given by the Home Office for the increased number of Polish and other EU citizens applying for settled status by June 2021. This had shown, for instance, 1,091,500 Polish nationals applying for settled status, but with only 696,000 recorded as actually residing in the UK.

"Polish families, along with their children, have integrated well in the United Kingdom over the years, playing a positive role in the economy and in the cultural and social life in this country," says Dr Włodzimierz Mier-Jędrzejowicz, President of the Federation of Poles in Great Britain. "While Brexit caused Polish citizens considerable concern initially, the majority have now obtained settled or pre-settled status and their numbers in the UK are stabilizing. More light could be shed on the statistical discrepancy in the actual numbers of Polish speaking children, when the appropriate ethnic statistics, based on detailed responses to the 2021 national census, are published in full by the ONS. We need to wait too for the education authorities in England, Scotland, and Wales to publish more details on the age distribution of the Polish speaking pupils in their respective territories."

The Federation of Poles in Great Britain CIO was founded in 1946 and is an umbrella organization representing the main Polish secular cultural and social institutions in this country. See the website www.zpwb.org.uk

Contact as Federation spokesman   - Wiktor Moszczynski

Got my mojo back

 Suddenly my life is re-entering the regular effect of a treadmill. After a prolonged period of reduced activities and avoiding conflicts and community comitments, I am back at the cutting edge of Polish community life.

The world of Scena Polska (the Polish Stage Company), of which I am ostensibly suddenly a trustee, is looming over me again as I continue to act as a firedoor between their ambitions and their demand to be loved and respected on the one hand, and POSK with its bureaucratic attempts to harness these exceptional actors into the orderly world of sharing the use of the theatre with other users. At one stage I was in the firing line between an imperious POSK Chairman, my old schoolfriend Joanna Mludzinska, and the fiery Scena Polska godmother, Helena Kaut-Howson, with her grand vision of what the theatre in POSK should be. Helena is a world class stage manager. She recently invited me for the first night of her King Lear at the Globe. She is an extraordinary person, who was  incapable of having a simple telephone conversation or zoom meeting without an eloquent hour long stream of consciousness monologue, which it was impossible to cut short. 

With the new POSK management, who had no clear idea of the role of the theatre, we initially had an even worse time, as Scena lost all access to the stage because of POSK's administrative mismanagement after a very successful run of Polish XIXth century satirical comedy drama, Moralnosc Pani Dulskiej. However, the atmosphere has improved now and I have put forward a plan to have five free access weekends to the theatre for Scena Polska, at the same level of time as the children's theatre, Syrena. For the sixth weekend Scena will still get the theatre for free but would share the income from ticket sales with POSK. Unfortunately, we could not get a meeting organized to agree the new contract because of the sudden tragic death of Magda Wlodarczyk's son, Bartek. The meeting has been put back to early September.

On Wednesday I was on the treadmill literally. At last I found the energy to pop over to the gym. The rowing machines are back and for me they are a therapeutic 15 minute session to the sound of splashing water while I reassess the world around me and work out strategies for coming problems in my community and my private life. A half hour walk on the treadmill, a chest press, a leg press, and some gentle weights and I'm ready to face the world despite the growing heat outside. I had an enjoyable cafe meeting in POSK with Kasia Budd, a regular Tydzien Polski columnist, and Janusz Guttner, poet, philosopher, photographer, film maker, actor , a true laid back cultural all rounder. Then I check some theatre bookings for Scena with the POSK manager and then head back home. 

Thursday. A long morning walk along the canal, a discussion with lawyer John Hamilton about the future of the Polish club in Kirkcaldy and an evening zoom session with the Federation of Poles in Gt Britain. They want me to arrange regular funding for them with PAFT. I tell them that they do not exist until they have updated their website. In the end I had to shout it. They've got the message.

I start Friday with another morning walk before the heat settles in. I take a plastic container and start picking blackberries. Because of the heat the season for berries has come forward a couple of weeks. I spot the rare Egyptian geese again, sone distance now from Brentford Lock, and take a picture. Then Albina and I visit our lovely Polish hairdresser. Albina wants to get into shape for the dinner invitation in "Ognisko" on Saturday with my friend Stefan on his 75th birthday. She did not want to go because of the heat, but Stefan's wife, Ewa, and I have won her over. The very fact that she was ready to go to this party was exceptional. She is still avoiding any visits to friends or to undergo the effort of attending a social event, whether at home or outside. This is partly her disgust with her own appearance and with her receding hair and partly the fact that she is still very weak after her operation which removed her two redundant kidneys last month. Three years ago, I had bought her a lovely wig of her own choice, but she never wore it and left it with a friend in Warsaw who has since died. I'm just happy she is in the mood to go. Stefan is to pick us up in his car tomorrow. For today, we had a meal at the Polish Bistro in Hanwell where Albina enjoyed her chicken liver and even took some meals home, including the soup.

Tomorrow, I face a dreadfully unpleasant session of the POSK Council with unconstructive wrangling over the accuracy of the minutes of the last 3 Council meetings. It is just soul destroying to rake over the past like this, but it is a gladiatorial combat between the old executive which lost in September, and the new one. I doubt if I will be able to stay to to the end to raise any issues of my own, including the possibility of organizing the Open House sessions in September for POSK, as I will need to get back to get Albina up and ready to attend Stefan's dinner invite. The deterioration of how POSK is managed is frightening, as this had once been the flagship of a well organized Polish community in London,

And I still find time to share precious TV time with Albina in the evenings. She resents if I cannot spend time with her doing nothing constructive, but just sharing quality time.

Maybe it is a treadmill, but I think I have my mojo back.

 

                                      

Prime Minister Morawiecki attacks Europe

 

Letter to Editor of "The Spectator"

Dear Editor,

Has it ever occurred to Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki in his lamentation on the failings of the European Union over Ukraine, (see issue of Spectator 05.08.22),  that the reason so few European leaders take notice of what Mr Jarosław Kaczyński, Poland’s actual strongman, says, is because he makes himself so obnoxious and uncooperative in his dealings with them?

I might share Mr Morawiecki’s view that the EU can sometimes be too intrusive into national concerns and that an ever-closer union is not the answer to everything. However, I also recognize the value of the continent-wide civilizational levelling up in the EU’s secular social and environmental agenda as being a useful template for most European countries to emulate, including those in Central Europe, and that the EU forms an important political and economic bloc to withstand the challenges of an aggressive Russia, China, and possibly a future Trumpian America.

It is no good just blaming Europe here. The current Polish leaders must realize that the EU’s overriding challenge to Poland lies in their own government’s decision to undermine both the European treaty and the Polish constitution over the independence of the judiciary. Also, there are genuine concerns throughout Europe about threats to freedom of the press in Poland. While Mr Morawiecki claims to be in the vanguard of defending Ukraine, his government is unwittingly playing the role of Putin’s “useful idiot” by seeking to undermine European solidarity and the European Commission, and by publicly indulging in their overt historical distrust of Germany. Instead of acknowledging the present German government’s attempts to wean itself off dependency on Russian gas, his government uses every opportunity to stir up nightmare visions of a Russo-German conspiracy to undermine European security. So, even when he is right over his criticism of Germany’s earlier energy dependency on the Russian pipeline, his opinions no longer carry the same weight in Europe as do those of his predecessor Donald Tusk.

Yours faithfully,

Wiktor Moszczyński

 

Brexit Acolytes fight for Power

 I am happy to see today that my article in Polish on the woeful Tory candidates for Prime Minister has been published both in the London-based Tydzien Polski (Polish Weekly) and in the Londynek.net website. I called it the "Brexit Acolytes fight for power". Both are pandering to the worst possible instincts of their 140,000 strong Tory electorate and Liz Truss is way ahead. She is trying to gain a total monopoly on having her cake and eating it. She claims that tax and national insurance cuts totalling £32bn will not hurt the economy and not spur inflation further. Also she is relishing a fight with the EU over the NI protocol and looking forward to sending more hapless asylum seekers to Rwanda and elsewhere. The Daily Express headline stressed that she is offerring Britain "a golden future". More like molten gold poured over our heads in "The Game of Thrones" style. As for mega-rich Rishi Sunak, who is also pandering to the hard-nosed electrorate, though it is not his style, is limping behind Liz Truss. He echoes the same hysterical drivel, but with less sincerity. He limps because he still has one leg firmly impanted in reality, and the other in Brexitland, and for that he gets no thanks from anybody. 

People, and not just Tories, want the dream. They will support Liz Truss. That is now largely Keir Starmer's fault, as he is currently offering nothing. Retired PM Gordon Brown is making more impact. I admire Keir as a principled man, but he is unsteady on the economy and too frightened to offer a vision. Politics is really not his forte. Perhaps he needs to let one of his first class team take over before it is too late and we have another Tory triumph.   

The text of my article is published on my Polish blog - www.polaklondynczyk.blogspot.co.uk.

50th Anniversay

198 days to go

 Yesterday was our 50^th anniversary. It was a quiet low-key affair, with no friends, no big expense. Albina had it as she wanted it, to spend time uninterrupted with me alone. We saw a film at the Westfield Vue. It was “Bullet Train”, an extraordinary feast of violence as various assassins run into each other and interact with extreme sanction, on a bullet train rushing from Tokyo to Kyoto, a route I am familiar with. Brad Pitt is in his element as a philosophical somewhat absent-minded killer. We see about 50 or so brutal deaths against which we become totally anaesthetized by the repetitive action and by a sharp upbeat script mellowed by mood music and songs. Not many jokes in the script, however. Albina appeared to be happy with the film. Afterwards, we went back to Brentford by bus and had a meal at the Holiday Inn Hotel.

I gave her a pretty ring with 3 amethysts interspersed with mini-diamonds, with which she was delighted. I know she likes jewellery with inset stones, not stones that jut out and get in the way. Also, the amethyst is her birth stone. However, my intention was to buy her a diamond ring for £2000 or so. Over the years I have given her rings with sapphires, rubies and emeralds, as well as pendants with other stones, such as tanzanite and peridot. A decent diamond would complete the quest.

Unfortunately, I was completely fucked up by Barclays Bank on this. For 3 years I have avoided using a credit card and cut up my last platinum card. I do all my spending from my debit card. However, I reordered my former platinum card 2 weeks ago to be able to get her a proper ring. Instead of a credit card, the bank then sent me a new debit card which I did not need. At the last moment the previous Sunday I convinced a lady at Barclays to send me the missing credit card. Instead, on the last Friday before the day, they sent my wife a credit card which she did not need. I was left high and dry, and at the last minute had to make other plans. Albina was unaware and seemed pleased with the ring I had bought her at the last moment, but I was incandescent with rage. No diamond ring and still no credit card. So for me it was a tense frustrating day. 

Albina has been worn out over the years by long night shifts at the airport and illnesses, as well as by her difficult childhood as an orphan. But sitting opposite her I still remember the soft spoken shy golden-haired beauty whom I married in a secret ceremony in Wandsworth Civic Centre in 1972. There were only three witnesses, and I only informed my bewildered parents a week later. It was all both foolish and romantic. We had met in 1969 when she lived for 5 weeks in my parents’ house in Ealing and worked in my mother’s restaurant kitchen in Gloucester Road at the SPK Club. She was pretty and quiet as a church mouse, wishing to avoid everyone’s notice. It was her first time abroad and she did not speak a word of English. I showed her London and we got very intimate, to my father’s horror, as he thought her a Communist plant. After a month she went back to Poland. Initially we corresponded, then she fell for another guy, and for 3 years we lost touch.

In the summer of 1972, she rang me out of the blue and said her aunt was going to invite her to England and if she came, could she please see me. I said yes straight away. I was excited. Then she rang very disconsolate some weeks later, saying her aunt had other priorities. Without hesitation I said, don’t worry as I will invite her myself. Only then the trouble began, as I was pestered by two police visits. They asked me why I was inviting a young lady from Poland. To shake off the Home Office, I resolved to marry her as soon as she arrived and afterwards, as my wife, she would be able to travel back and forth between Poland and the UK without hindrance. So there. That was my logic. I had not given any thought how we would live together, and where. I only revealed my plan to her the evening she arrived. I pressed her for an answer, and she quickly agreed, but she asked why I had not warned her of my intention. I said that I didn’t tell her because if I had warned her, she probably would not have come. “Well, you’re right,” she said.

She had only come for five weeks again, and I just had the time to sort out the licence with Wandsworth Civic Centre (at the time I lived in a commune in Battersea, as we were all employees of Davies Turner and Co.). For witnesses we had my former university flat mate John Roberts and his wife Anne, as well as Włodek Szechter, who had come to take photographs. Anne had earlier taken her to the junior section at Harrods and bought her a pretty white and yellow dress and I was wearing the green suit I had bought earlier that year in Carnaby Street. It was all very sweet. Albina repeated the marriage vows word for word in English on the script she was presented with, stumbling only over the word “matrimony”, and not understanding one word. Then she read the pre-prepared text again in Polish. Włodek took photos, we had a meal with our guests, and I took her next day to a Commissioner of Oaths to swear loyalty to the Queen as a British subject. Three days later we both went abroad, me to Italy as a guide, and Albina back to Poland. It was only after she had left that I told my parents and friends. They all thought we were mad. A madcap decision made impulsively with no chance of lasting. Well, that was 50 years ago and we’re still an item.

Polish Underground Movement Study Trust.

 Invited yesterday by my close friend Wanda Koscia to an unofficial meeting of Board members for the Studium Polski Podziemnej (Polish Underground Movement Study Trust) which is seeking a seperation from the Sikorski Institute. Not yet sure whether I should get involved. There is so much at stake at present with other texts I am committed to, namely on the Polish Club in Kirkcaldy and on the rising figures for Polish speaking children in Great Britain despite a pronounced fall in the London area.

And there is Albina still complaining that I am neglecting her. Especially for today of all days, when it is our 50th wedding anniversary.

China has a temper tantrum

The Chinese military have been  intimidating Taiwan with live fire manoeuvres on a massive scale in the Taiwan Strait, which we are supposed to be crossing next year on our cruise from Hong Kong to Shanghai. Jules Verne described how Phileas Fogg sailed up the Formosa Strait on a tiny ship that nearly sank in a typhoon as they crossed this area. I believe that at the time Taiwan was part of the Chinese Empire, but some 20 years later was captured by the Japanese.

The present Chinese Government is determined to cow and recover Taiwan, whether by diplomacy or by force, as it considers the island to be an integral part of China.  The world was used to a low (read that as "half-hearted") profile of U.S. commitment to Taiwan, but not something as blatant as the Pelosi visit, regardless of whether it was sanctioned by the White House, or not. Tolerance of such a visit by China would have been considered a retreat, a defeat even, and so Xi had to respond as forcefully as he could. The current leader is no longer paralysed by the American dominance from the traditional Seventh Fleet, because China's local firepower now surpasses the Amercans in the air. It is true that the Seventh Fleet is still the largest of the U.S. Navy's forward deployed fleets and consists of 50 to 70 ships and submarines, as well as 150 aircraft. But China can top that now. It has 11 new amphibious ships, 3 aircraft cariers and 500 other vessels plus 600 aircraft. with 300,000 active personnel. Yet if the People's Republic really intends to invade Taiwan by force, experts say it will need to amass 2 million troops and land them under fire over the full length of the Taiwan coastline. The Chinese Liberation Army fleet would have to commandeer many hundreds of commercial vessels in order to supplement its invasion fleet. Someday, at a moment of U.S. weakness, under Biden or under Trump, or some other successor, China could well pounce. It still nurses the grievances of how the Chinese Empire was plundered and humiliated by foreigners in the Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century with the Opium Wars, the suppression of the Boxer rebellion, and of course the Japanese invasion. 

China objects to the Western style values of democracy and freedom of expression practiced in the last thirty years in Taiwan, after the democratisation of the regime following the death of the American sponsored former dictator Chiang Kai Shek. The Taiwanese are proud to be Chinese but do not want to become enslaved by social credit scores on their i-phones, or to describe how loyal they are to the Chinese state. They want free elections of their leaders. Currently, the two systems of rule are incompatible and I do not see any alterantive but to maintain the status quo with a military stand off, until China relents. 

I just hope that a further outbreak in tensions will not prevent our passage down this route in March or April next year.  

Can I still appear on a screen? Can I still write?

5th August 2022 

202 days to go

 Visit the head office of the London Chamber of Commerce yesterday even though it wasn't a Monday or Tuesday, the two days in which I still work at the Ashford branch. I was asked to take part in a video in which I explain what an EUR1 Movement Certificate is. I was given the wording to read through, but I'm aware that my memory is shot to pieces these days. I have taken part in a number of TV interviews and debates in my life, but that was in the past when I had self confidence and full mental capacity. However, I absorbed the message in my own words and watched the agony of my normally very competent colleague as he struggled to give a similar description of a UK Certificate of Origin and kept forgetting what he meant to say. When I was asked to face the camera I did a trial run, saying it all in my own words. I even asked for a chance to pause to check the wording before delivering the final thoughts about the ultimate responsibility of the HMRC for the validity of the document. To my surprise they had filmed my trial run and said it was good enough as it was. They played back a bit of it and I felt very embarassed about the occasional "urgh" and"ehh". The girls doing the films said it showed the authenticity of what I had said and that therefore I would not be seen by the London Chamber's customers as some hired actor asked to do the part, but as a genuine London Chamber employee. I'm not so sure. I think I should have been slicker, but it's their baby not mine. 

Then they suggested that I write the occasional articles for the London Chamber magazine Business Matters. They were aware that I had written numerous articles, in Polish and in English, in the past. However, now, I'm a bit outside my comfort zone. Such articles require concentration and precision but I feel my ability to do that is receding. I definetely feel a reduction in my mental capacity in my last year. Those seemingly non existent 75 years have suddenly crept up on me and are subverting everything, my concentration, my self-confidence, and even my capacity to enjoy anything, including the terrifying prospect of that world trip Albina and I have signed up to. 

  After that I had a visit to the Arab British Chamber of Commerce where I could put a face to the names of those I was speaking to, and I could see the process of having documents certified and legalized through their perspective. Enjoyable, but I am still left with the dilemma. Can I still write? May be I should do a trial run.

But in the immediate future I need to write an article (in Polish) about the drama concerning the Polish centre in Kirkcaldy. Here my intervention could make a difference, or it could renew the tension as I stir up my enemies from the past once again.  

Around the World in 80 Days

203 days to go.

Time to get my act together and look forward to the Round the World Trip next February. If Albina, for all her poor health, is being positive, if all my friends and people in the know are being envious, then I had better start to be positive too. Just as positive and reckless as we were when we first made the booking so far forward on March 12 2021.

Albina and I decided then to book an 80 day cruise around the world. It is to commemorate the 150th anniersary of Jules Verne's "Around the World in 80 Da ys". It was one of my favourite books when I was a kid, and Phileas Fogg was a model character for me to emulate. It was expensive, but we were prepared to have a once in a lifetime experience, brought on by the fact that during the covid pandemic we were prevented from traveling anywhere at all.

The journey will take place on the Fred Olsen liner called the "Borealis" and here are the details.

Thursday 23rd February - sail from Southampton.

Sunday 26th February - Lisbon

2nd March - Brindisi

5th March - Port Said

7th March - Safaga (Egypt) - chance to visit Luxor

14th March - Mumbai - chance to visit Taj Mahal

15th March - Goa

16th March - Kochi, Kerala

21st March - Singapore

23rd March - Nha Trang, Vietnam

25th March - Hong Kong

28th March - Shanghai

30th March - Hakata, Japan

1st April - Osaka

2nd April - Nagoya

3rd April - Tokyo

10th April - Honolulu

11th April - Lahaina, Hawaii

12th April - Hilo, Hawaii

17th April - San Francisco

19th April - San Diego

23rd April - Acapulco

26th April - Puerto Caldera, Costa Rica

28th April - Panama Canal

29th April - Cartagena

30th April - Santa Marta, Colombia

2nd May - Tortola

3rd May - Basseterre, St Kitts

9th May - Azores

13th May - Southampton again.

That amounts to a total 24,000 cruise miles with 79 nights. We have our own cabin with a private terrace for sunbathing. A chauffer collects us from home and delivers us again after the tour. The vessel has 1360 passengers and 336 crew.

Will I survive this? Or will I actually enjoy it? It had better be the latter, at least for Albina's sake. 

Bartek's farewell and Oskar's dystopia

 Was a busy week last week. Because of a colleague's illness I went to work on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, instead of just the first 2 days of the week. On Wednesday I took Albina to Hammersmith Hospital to have her metal stitches removed after her double operation on her kidneys.

On Friday, a sad and extraordinary event, as I attended the funeral of 28 year old Bartek Wlodarczyk-Sroka, who died suddenly at Berkely, California, as a result of an epileptic fit. Didn't know him personally, but have cooperated for a couple of years with his mother, Magda Wlodarczyk, one of the leading actresses of the Polish Stage Company. It was a sublime event with over 400 attending, mostly young people who knew him from his Polish background or his amateur dramatics as a child, but also his university colleagues, and those who shared his music. The cemetery in Sewardstone Park, near Waltham Abbey, was set in beautiful rolling countryside, surrounded by meadows and forests, which was reached after a long 15 minute drive through a dirt track, surrounded by fields and trees. The cemetery is so new it is not marked on any map, and all its current occupants appear to lie under beautifully carved wooden headstones. Bartek's ashes were laid to rest to the accompaniment of poetry, music and reminiscenses from his professor and his colleagues. Then we had a wake at the King Oak hostelry set in the Epping Forest and reached only by narrow roads under the darkened canopies of Epping's majestic trees. 

An then on Saturday at the invitation of the indefatigable Joanna Dudzinska I attended a cultural event at the ActOne cinema in Acton. It was the site of the former Acton Reference Library. She had laid on a talk by George Szlachetko about his mother who was in the Warsaw Uprising as a girl. Then we saw the singular sculpture by Oskar Krajewski, who makes extraordinary mobile sculptures from recycled materials, and particulary from plastic and electronic gadgets. It is lit up by LED lights and puctuated by sound effects. I felt that I was looking at a dystopian future in which the nightmare in our hallucinating brain is detached from its umbilical cord and allowed to float up into a reality we can all share.  

The countdown to Round the World Voyage continues

 

.

205 days to go before embarkation

My company, the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, has now been informed of the details of my holiday, and has made an offer to extend my contract till September 2023 and to extend my current holiday allowances to cover the extended period. 

Albina seems quite resolved to enjoy the voyage and to delay any celebration of our fiftieth wedding anniversary from August 7th this year to February 28th 2023.  That is her pretend 75th birthday date. I say pretend because she is actually a classic leap year baby, born February 29th 1948. But I still intend to celebrate this anniversary on Sunday, come what may.

We still need to prepare visas through CIBT from October this year and to warn our doctors and our clinic to ensure the right supply of medicines for that period and the right inoculations. I note that we will need visas for Egypt, India, Vietnam, China and USA. Our last journey to the United States was in 2012, so we will probably need a new 10 year visa.

We will have to stack up our finances so that we can spend what we will need to enjoy the trip to the full and save money everywhere else. So no holidays in the meantime. Just as well, in view of the chaos at the airports.