I did not elaborate on my personal feelings as a grown-up person after that first glass of wine in Paris. Well, during the time of the Festival of Britain in 1951 which was extremely exciting to all Londoners, I met at a dance a handsome man, different to all the others I knew. To my relief, Stanislaw did not kiss my hand, a banal custom practiced by my compatriots, principally a gesture of respect. Was he, I thought, the long awaited Mr. Right?
I left the dance quite early because it was a long way to my lodgings. How surprised I was, to see Stanislaw the next morning on the door-step of Mrs. Rollason's, my landlady's house. He apparently tricked my friends into giving them my address in Walthamstow. The landlady was flabbergasted as well, as she considered me a career woman, not interested in men. Staszek became a frequent visitor and she was enchanted with him, as he paid much more attention to her or Marysia who was sharing my room for a few weeks. There would always be a fried chicken on the table when he would visit us on Sundays.
Although he was mysteriously secretive, I loved him and felt that he was exceptional. The wedding was set for the 19th of March 1954, a day of dispensation in the Catholic Church during lent. However, the night before, Staszek had to be taken to hospital and operated for acute appendicitis. I sat at his bedside with a wedding bouquet, while our friends were waiting for us at the church of Brompton Oratory. His first outing three weeks later was to the altar and we were married.
For the following four years we were sharing the house bought together with my parents and we were on the outlook for our own. Our salaries in the fifties were not big, but the Building Society where I was working at the time, was giving employees an interest free mortgage, on the condition the house was not more than twenty five years old. That in turn meant an unrealistic price bracket for us.
One day we spotted a sale notice on a very dilapidated property in Streathan. An offer made by my husband over the telephone was accepted, but the mortgage was subject to taking an insurance policy with Sun & Life. A meeting was arranged in their office and an amusing story begins: Staszek asked me to represent him, because of the proximity of offices. I was welcomed by a distinguished looking gentleman, who for a quarter of an hour was describing to me the greatness of his firm, then asked: "When can we expect your husband to come and conclude the business?" To my astonishment, I heard myself saying: Sorry, but it is me who wants to apply for the mortgage. It is absolutely impossible, he replied. Why? I asked. There is no need to explain, it is our policy, "no women". Why? I asked again and like being inspired by unknown forces, I engaged in a long speech, referring to the feminine movement at the beginning of the century, their brave marches, their chaining themselves to the railings, demanding women's rights. How they achieved the right to vote, a gracious gesture from men, but fifty years on it is still the same? I declared my belief in English justice shattered!
The gentleman looked bewildered and asked: "and what if you have children?" "The children belong to both parents, but I will work harder to provide for them."
After some further discussion the advisor succumbed to my arguments and admitted that I was so convincing that he telephoned the managing director. As it was lunch time the latter was not at his office. I took it as an excuse and had to return to my Permanent Building Society office, accepting the promise of being informed on the return of the director. My doubts were dispelled by the telephone upon entering my office: "Madame, your arguments won, when can you see us?" My victory was met with disbelief and congratulations of my colleagues, but I have to explain the motives for my action.
During the war, my husband was a prisoner in the German concentration camp of Mauthausen where his health suffered to the extent, that he was afraid of being not eligible for the insurers. He was very happy with my dealings for securing the mortgage of £1000 and we were organizing the other £800 with our savings and a little loan from friends. Before signing the insurance policy I had to make a list of all my illnesses, which was quite impressive. It reminded me of a cow being led to the market in pre-war Poland when I was lead to be weighed at the chemist's. About six months later, we read in the papers that any woman over forty could apply for a mortgage. This gave me a feeling of satisfaction of having contributed to the women's cause. The year was 1958.
All our free time was used on the improvements, decorations and furnishings of the house. Orange boxes were making good kitchen cabinets and long boards on bricks excellent book shelves. The Barker store in Kensington had a big quantity of wild silk and soon our windows were draped in it.
The wave of modernization brought freedom of expression and it was a time of crazy ideas and enthusiastic friendships. Our good friends Jan the painter and Dinah, who worked in the London branch of Christian Dior, were leading an artistic life in a big studio at the bottom of a garden at Archway, dreaming of their own house. After one of their Bohemian parties, my husband said jokingly that if their guests would lend them a hundred pounds each, they could buy a mansion. Dinah jumped at this idea and sent letters to all concerned.
We had to produce the first hundred, but not having it, Staszek wrote to a friend studying in Ireland, who in turn asked his landlady for a loan. Soon after, Dinah had collected further contributions, sufficient for the deposit on house and the renting of an old shop in Portobello Road, where they created their art shop "The Centaur Gallery".
To our almost presentable house, moved Jarek, a colleague from SW.E.T.C. Staszek started an evening course of engineering and I joined the very interesting group of Planning Forum, which organized lectures and weekend visits to the numerous new towns around London. At that time an excellent lecture was given by a planner upon return from a visit to Russia. The room was filled to the brim, among them Russian correspondents from TASS. Towards the end of queries I sprang up with the question: "Have you noticed any deficiencies in the building industry or in agriculture"? Quoting my experience in a brick factory and referring to the corn left rotting in the fields because of one screw missing in the harvester.
After a pause the speaker remembered one interesting detail. While walking with the town dignitaries along an alley, he noticed a banner stretched overhead calling the workers to produce 120% of bricks. When he questioned the figure, the answer was that 20% was for the waste. After that, the meeting was closed and the room emptied. Before I reached the door, two Russian correspondents cornered me and treated me to an outburst of wounded national pride. They called me a liar, a criminal, and threatened with all sorts of dire consequences. The older one, with a look of Serov, the NKVD chief, was speaking Russian, asking a smartly dressed younger one to translate. I said this was not necessary as I perfectly understood Russian and felt amused and light-hearted. I asked if they knew Siberia and offered to give some addresses, for them to check if a proper well had been built for the Kazakhs, adding that I loved the steppes! They admitted they never had been beyond the Urals and I told them they did not know the biggest part of their country. To my suggestion of joining a group in the next pub where the Planning Forum terminated their meetings they almost ran away, while I was received next with an ovation.
The life of a working woman in England was rather hard with only two weeks of annual leave. So, I was taking a month's break when changing offices. Staszek was not an enthusiast of frequent holidays, saying that it belonged to people unsatisfied with their reality. Yet, we went skiing to Austrian Tyrol, borrowing an outfit from Marysia.
Working in Bloomsbury square I had easy access to many interesting sites of London and during the lunch break I visited museums, galleries or libraries, even enrolled for an one-hour lunch time course in Russian at a college in Red Lion square. In the Holborn library I found in a book "Forgotten Monuments" two pages devoted to Sobieski, whose grand daughter Clementine married James II Stuart and was mother of Bonnie Prince Charlie, pretender to the Scottish throne. Intrigued what was the connection with that Polish king of the seventeenth century, I read a fascinating story:
At the time of Charles II, a port governor visited the city docks and noticed a huge case on the deck of one of the boats. When he was told that is was a shipment from Scotland to Poland he ordered it to be opened. To his surprise, he saw a magnificent statue of a horseman with impressive features and the figure of a Turk under the horse's hoofs. He called some craftsmen to change the fate of Sobieski to Charles the Second and that of the Turk into Cromwell's, but the removal of the turban was forgotten. The statue was placed on a big pedestal a the spot of the present Mansion House and was for years a major attraction of London. Tourists paid no attention to the beautiful monument of King Charles the First at the corner of Trafalgar square, but hurried to see Cromwell with a turban. Since 1883 the statue stands on the grounds of Newby Hall in Yorkshire, bearing a plate: "Originally King Jan III Sobieski, as a present from the Stuarts of Scotland to Sobieski fighting the Turks".
In summer we were hitch-hiking in France, leaving our old Austin behind. "You have not lived if you did not hitch-hike" was Dinah's and Jan's motto.
In the late fifties, her husband encouraged me to make a study tour of Italy. I bought a two week unlimited rail travel ticket and set off with great excitement. It was fabulous and could easily form a thick book, so I shall mention only an amusing episode. I was warned by Staszek of the temperament of Italian men and being a thirty years blonde that I may be troubled by them. In that case: "first, show them your wedding ring; second, call the police; and in a most desperate situation tell them that you are Russian." That summer, during a European sporting event in Switzerland, Russian women athletes gained a number of medals and the tribune collapsed under the weight of their sublime bodies.
It was not necessary to apply the last tactic until Sicily, where the almond eyed young men were very insistent of keeping me uninvited company. The word "Russian" had a magic effect, they distanced immediately for at least two meters.
After seeing countless marvels of architecture in different parts of Italy, belonging to many periods and styles, I boarded the night train in Milan. An extraordinary thing happened during this return journey at the end of September. I shared the compartment with an old couple of Italian peasants who were going to visit their son working in France. They offered me to share their bread, salami and wine, settling on the lower bench. I climbed to the one above, putting on all my clothes, because it started to be cold and the bench was bare without any blankets. After some time I could not restrain my shivers which turned into jumps. Then the head of the woman appeared, she ordered m to step down and indicated to lay alongside herself, facing the opposite direction. She lifted her ample skirt, took my feet and put them under her armpits, then covered us with her copious and heavy outfit. It was all done in complete silence. My eyes were full of tears, like years back, when I was covered with Persian carpets on the way to Teheran. I was grateful to God for the existence of such kind people in the 20th century.
At that time I was happily working at Sir Thomas Bennet's office, contributing to the design of many projects like office blocks, housing, an air terminal, Smithfield market and some Mormon churches. While designing their Latter Day Saints church I was quite involved with them and attended their functions, one of which, "Singing Mothers", filled the great Albert Hall.
Counter to the popular polygamy practiced among Mormons I shared the view of their founder Joseph Smith, which permitted only one single marriage between man and woman, even if one of them would die on the steps when leaving the church ceremony.
Created on ... September 27, 2003 by Pierre Ratcliffe
