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.