Poles apart
From Lady Belhaven and Stenton
Sir: I understand why Mary Wakefield decided to speak to the Federation of Poles in Great Britain (‘The misery of the Polish newcomers’, 28 January), but Andrzej Tutkaj does not speak for the Polish community as a whole. She would have been better advised to have gone to the Polish Consulate, which is the organisation which looks after Poles over here and has to pick up the pieces when things go wrong. The Federation of Poles was formed during the Communist period when few Poles would have considered approaching the Consulate, and the Polish community needed an organisation which could help people in trouble who could not return to Poland in the circumstances of that time.
The Polish community is now divided between what I would call the old hands who are well settled and integrated, as is Mr Tutkaj, and those who are coming over in large numbers looking for work. I think that there is a certain unease in Mr Tutkaj’s remarks which reflects the attitude of some settled Poles to the very large new influx of their fellow countrymen. His views, however, are by no means generally held. No doubt there are suicides, drunken brawls and the rest of what is only to be expected when large numbers of people mainly men — find themselves in a foreign country. We have only to think of Englishmen going abroad to watch football to realise that this is not a purely Polish phenomenon.
Malgorzata Belhaven and Stenton London SW1
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