may isle

may isle

CONTENTS

Welcome

Welcome to 'A Frample', a confused tangle of columns, prose poems and lyrics. It's not so much a blog as an online folder, lying somewhere between a drawer and the bin.


The family I briefly belonged to




October 1, 2019

A while back, in a conversation about squabbling relatives, the comment was made: “The best place for family is in a photograph.”

The fact this came from a young Polish woman was as ironic as it was wise as, for many a year, being half Polish myself that was really the only place I could see my family.

Through the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, when the Cold War was at its chilliest, my father’s family was on one side of the Iron Curtain, and we were on the other. With my mother being an only child from a broken home that meant my closest relations were virtually beyond reach.

Communication was restricted to letters that were checked, censored or ‘lost’; travel was expensive and difficult, and almost impossible in the ’50s as it could have seen my father, a former officer in the Polish free forces, being unable to return, or just disappearing into a Soviet camp.

As the ‘exiled’ part of the family we made just three journeys to Poland together, in 1962, 1966 and 1971.

So while growing up in Fife, like my friends and schoolmates, I had aunties, uncles, cousins, even a granny, but I rarely saw them and, of course, when I did, I couldn’t speak to them, my Polish was limited to the basics and they had no English.

So while there was the politeness of a “please” or “thank you”, there was never any real conversation. Given the cultural and political divide, the material side was also dramatically different. There were no birthday or Christmas presents, just a family Christmas card, and, of course given the Polish Catholic tradition, one at Easter too.

We would send parcels now and again, mainly clothing and, through special agencies, sometimes medicine. I have a vague memory of a winter coat being dispatched for my grandmother. And when we were next in Poland she expressed her gratitude. We’d never seen the shabby thing she was wearing. Our gift would have been exchanged by some postal customs worker and a substitute wrapped up. But she did get something, I suppose.

So I really had two homes, there was Leven, with my pals, my school, my language, my culture but we were ‘different’. It is almost forgotten now but after the war the Poles were another ‘Windrush’ generation. For many returning to a now communist country wasn’t an option, they were viewed as political enemies and an uncertain fate awaited those who took the risk. The Trades Union Congress in the United Kingdom, concerned about foreigners taking British jobs, launched an anti-Polish campaign after the war. Slogans such as ‘Poles go home’ were daubed on doors and walls and that contributed to that feeling of being ‘outsiders’ while reinforcing the bonds of the Polish community.

And then there was Zawiercie, with all my relatives, the school my father had attended, the touching little tributes of flowers in rusty old cans at various locations in the streets where men, women and children had been executed by the Nazis. But we were ‘different’ there too. We were from the ‘affluent’ West. I’d be stopped in the street by someone wanting to buy my jeans, or folk would approach my father wanting to buy dollars, or for us to smuggle out a letter.

But these three visits to Poland made a massive impression on me, one I still carry today. I received so much affection, so many hugs and kisses from a family I knew I would have to sob farewell to in just a couple of weeks. And, of course, on each of these three visits, there were less of them as time took them, but I remember them all, and how safe they made me feel. And, to me, that was probably how every child in my primary class felt all the time.

I suppose it also forged my politics, much to my father’s horror. While I am no apologist for the communist system or the Soviet era, as an ‘outsider’ the emphasis seemed to be on family, love, laughter and care. Materialism didn’t seem to matter. But, of course, it did, it was just that there wasn’t much to be had and life was a struggle to even put bread on the table. It was a hard, brutal and desperate way of life for a subjugated people.

But, and I still remember dad’s exasperation (and anger), as I’d naively argue that an empty butcher’s shelf in Poland was no worse than a full one in Leven that the most vulnerable could not afford to buy from. Or that full employment for a pittance of a pay was no worse than being unemployed, alienated by society and made to feel worthless.

To this day, I’m still amazed at how many different brands of toilet roll or coffee or beans or cars etc, we need and demand. Or that someone can indulge in luxury Christmas presents for a pet while a vulnerable neighbour can’t afford to put on a single bar on the fire.

I see pictures now on nostalgia websites and Facebook pages of folk sharing their family history and I still envy that people have memories of conversations with their aunties and uncles, of joking with their cousins, and being spoilt by a granny.


But I do have those relatives in photographs, and even though I only met them briefly, I loved them dearly and I miss them all.

2 comments:

  1. Some of us remember that the Polish people also fought for us during the war. Personally I respect and admire you all, just as much as all the races who joined us in fighting the enemy! I think it is a disgrace that some people, I would like to think very few; do not make you welcome in Britain. Without you, we would not have won the war. You are friends and allies and I thank you all. XXX

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  2. That's a powerful and touching piece of writing Jurek. Maybe all the more relevant today as the Government seem so determined to put up more barriers to people.

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