Are you Polish, or do you have a Polish connection? Tell us about your journey to the UK, or the one made by your Polish grandparents? Maybe you have a story about a Polish neighbour, or a Polish person you admired locally. We want to hear it all.
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I am a Leyton Orient supporter and I remember Stan Gerula when he played for the Orient. He was born in Poland in 1924 and came to the Orient from CARPATHIANS in 1948 and he was Orients goalkeeper for 15 games in season 1948/9 and 15 games in 1949/50 before departing to Walthamstow Avenue. His first game for Orient was away to Exeter City on 19th Feb 1949 which we lost 1 – 0, his last game was away to Brighton on 19th Nov 1949 which we drew 2 – 2. Stan being an amateur player he was eligible to move to Walthamstow Avenue and one of his greatest games must have been when he won an Amateur Cup Final medal with the Avenue in 1951/52, when the Avenue beat Leyton, you could not have got a bigger derby game, 2 – 1 at Wembley in front of a 100,000 attendance.
I remember Stan as a fearless goalkeeper who always played with his sleeves rolled up and I was very Sad when he left the Orient to join the Avenue.
I wonder what happened to him.
My name is Magdalena. I am Polish and I moved to London in 2000. I am not the only member of my family who has made England their home. My grandmother’s brother Victor Niewiarowski, the former RAF pilot, escaped from occupied Poland during the Second World War. He trained navigators and bombardiers in England. When the war finished he didn’t come back to Poland fearing persecution from a new Soviet regime. He settled down in Leamington Spa and became a successful businessman in charge of a chain of hair salons. He was happily married to an English woman and had two children. Both my uncle Victor and my untie Margaret died and are greatly missed by both families in England and in Poland.
In the late seventies during the bleak years of communism in Poland my mother and her sister came to London in search of a better life. My aunt stayed and my mum decided to come back to Poland.
The reason I moved to London had nothing to do with a turbulent history of my country. I simple followed my heart as I fell in love with an English man born and bred East Ender. A few years later my sister Dominika moved to London too. In 2006 my husband Tony sadly passed away. I’ve lived in Polar for 15 years now and I am happy to call it my home. I teach in Barking and Dagenham College.
My family’s story includes second wave migration from Poland. My grandfather’s family emigrated around 1904 when he was just 2. he was the last part of my family to reach the UK, marrying Dorris Moss, whose family had been here for several generations. The family changed their surname from Burkofsky to Burke. Most people think I’m Irish now.
My grandparents were Polish and both had extraordinary journeys through the war – from work camps, armies etc in Siberia, India, Pakistan, Afganistan etc. They met in Italy at the end of the war and came to the Uk with the British army and settle in a camp in Caversham. They had my mum and moved to Reading. My grandfather opened a tailors on Savile Row. I never knew him but lived with my grandmother until she die in 1999. I love my Polish heritage and embrace the recent wave of Poles to the UK.
My grandfather was in the Polish cavalry in WW2. he spent much of the war in a German POW camp, then he was rehabilitated in Scotland. My dad was born there, then in his 20s moved to the US where I grew up. He later moved back to Scotland and I moved to London in 2009, gradually making my way to Walthamstow, which is hopefully my home for many years.
My grandfather was one of four jewish sons who left Poland in the late 1880s because they were drafted into the Russian army and used as “canon fodder” or forcibly converted. So my great grandparents smuggled each son out by the time they were 16, across Europe by horse and cart. Two brothers went to New Zealand, one went to South Africa and one came to the UK. They were all very successful businessmen (e.g sold goods, gold prospectors in NZ)
My mother used to teach English to Polish migrants who settled here after WW2. Having come out of the military they were very formal and, she said, very polite. I learnt some Polish myself. I find it interesting hearing so much Polish spoken in Walthamstow today as I do understand some of what is being said.
Jozef Pilsudski (1867 – 1935) was the Polish Head of State (1919 – 1921, 1926 – 1928, 1930 – 1935) and lodged in Leyton for around a year while in exile. He lived with a Polish couple. This is recorded in his memoir by his widow Madame Pilsudska. No further information could be found through additional searches.
My mother’s great first love was a Polish Navel Captain called Vicktor, I suppose in about 1940. As he was foreign she was not allowed to marry him. She married a Yorkshireman, my father. He was almost forbidden to marry him as he was from Yorkshire.
Mikolajczykowie in London
Mikolajczyk Stanislaw came to London, UK as the emissary for the Polish Government Abroad between 1943-44
His father and my grandgrandmother were siblings. She is buried in little burgomaster village, province wielkopolska.
This year is appertain by 50th buried ceremony exactly 1966 acclaimed as a inhumed hero but not in the eyes of everybody.
with best regards
heiress, survivor
anna