Polish storm
Sir: I greatly enjoyed reading Marjorie Wallace's highly amusing 'Storm in a Polish tea-cup', but I am afraid that she has got the wrong end of the stick as far as Polish snobbishness is concerned. There is not a single Pole on earth, from Comrade Gierek to Prince Sapieha, who would not give his back teeth to have the same mother as the Pope. I might also add that what she describes as the 'favourite phrase' of upperclass Poles is not one that I have ever heard before (but perhaps that only reflects on my own social standing).
Passing over such minor points as the fact that she reported Lord Lytton as saying exactly the opposite of what he did in fact say, and that the 'emergency meeting' of 3 December is a figment of somebody's imagination, there is one on which I must correct her. Prince Sapieha (who did indeed go to war on horseback, but, as I understand, fell off quite early on in the proceedings) has not 'fallen from grace', as she maintains. On the same day as Marjorie Wallace's article appeared, the AngloPolish Society's annual general meeting re-elected him as vice-chairman.
At the risk of falling into the same cliché as Marjorie Wallace, I cannot help feeling that she has made a mountain out of a very small molehill. Still, it's nice to get one's name in print.
Adam (ci-devant Count) Zamoyski Vice-President, Anglo-Polish Society 33 Ennismore Gardens, London SW7
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