Alice Miles and Anthony Browne
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It was, said the Ambassador seriously, “a beautiful day” when she was received by the Queen at Buckingham Palace.
The ceremony was beautiful, the two-horse carriage they sent for her was beautiful, and she had “a very lively and very nice talk” with Her Majesty.
The new Polish Ambassador to the UK was particularly delighted to be received at the Palace on December 13, 2006, exactly 25 years since the imposition of martial law in Poland and the banning of the Solidarity movement in which she cut her political teeth.
“I must say it gave me a kind of personal feeling of revenge being taken on the former regime,” said Barbara Tuge-Erecinska, looking small and determined in her vast ambassadorial office.
If we were half hoping to be greeted at the Embassy by a Slavic siren — all bosom, lip-stick and blonde hair — Ms Tuge-Erecinska was set to disappoint us.
It probably was not possible to be more understated without disappearing altogether. Dressed in brown, with brown hair and barely a trace of make-up, the slight 50-year-old has the sort of street-smart political background that most British politicians can only dream of.
Fresh out of university in 1980, with a degree in Nordic languages, she went to the headquarters of the newly created Solidarity movement to ask if she could help. Before she knew it, with two others she was setting up Solidarity international to coordinate help from trade union movements overseas.
With the sudden imposition of martial law on December 13, 1981 — “we woke up with thousands of tanks and military in the streets” — and a stamp in her ID book saying that she had worked for Solidarity, Ms Tuge-Erecinska was unable to find work for years. Her husband, a journalist whose weekly journal had been closed down, was in the same position. “We both got involved in underground Solidarnosc [Solidarity] work. I also recreated, immediately after the martial law was imposed, a committee to take care of imprisoned people and those who lost their employment.” They worked from a converted church in Gdansk.
“It took several years of my life. In the meantime I managed with my friends to get into Poland a big lorry with printing equipment.”
Had she been caught, she would have gone to prison. She was arrested twice, the police tried to force her to sign a declaration of support for the communist state and her house was raided soon after the birth of her only child, a son.
She said that it gave the security police “the biggest pleasure” to knock on doors at six in the morning. “It was at that time to make you nervous . . . to search in the bed where your baby was asleep.”
People in Western Europe underestimated the damage done by communism, she said.
“I think that there is a clearer understanding what Nazism and fascism meant. But when it comes to communism and Stalinism, sometimes I think there is quite a lot of misunderstanding, still not seeing what that system has really meant to the other parts of Europe.”
It must have been an interesting conversation with the Queen. “When I told her about the coincidence of the date, she remembered very vividly from her meetings and talks with President Walesa when he told her about Solidarnosc and the martial law and the underground movement in Poland.”
We unfairly encouraged the Ambassador into further breaches of etiquette by asking what else she talked to the Queen about.
“Her Majesty was very much interested in the Poles here . . . especially those that have arrived in your country after our accession to the European Union.”
What did she say about them? “Well the Queen, first of all, was interested if they felt they were well received here. I said that obviously they must be very satisfied because they keep coming.”
“She was interested to know how many there are, how they were doing and so on.”
The Ambassador said that it was hard to tell how many Poles now lived here. But she believed that the official estimate of 307,000 was an underestimate and that the true figure was about 500,000 to 600,000.
The inaccuracy had caused some problems in areas where councils were not funded well enough for the strain on housing and schools.
But the Ambassador insisted that she had never heard anything else than Poles contributing to the British economy. “If you stay here it means that you must have employment and pay taxes.”
But perhaps the trouble is those on the black market who do not contribute? “Black market is something that your authorities have to fight against,” she replied.
She had a straightforward message for British workers who protested that the Poles undercut their wages: don’t blame them, they might not even know they were being paid less. To them, the wages seem high.
Communication, she insisted, was vital. “First of all not to blame the Polish workers because they have a right to come and seek employment here. If they are doing their job in the proper way, that should be appreciated.
“Then if the British workers’ opinion is that their Polish colleagues are not being paid enough, maybe they should, instead of blaming the Polish workers, try to show them trade unions and discussions with employers.”
Changing subjects, she suddenly began to talk about one of the liveliest discussions in the Polish community: educating children about their home country.
“How to combine, on the one hand, helping children to learn to integrate into British society, the British school system but, at the same time, to preserve their knowledge of Polish literature, history, geography [so that] when parents decide to return, children are well prepared to fit into the Polish school system.”
She said that Polish cultural and religious organisations were working with local authorities and teachers to get schools to offer a broader education about Poland with extra teaching in Polish language, history and geography.
This programme was “co-financed”, she said, by the Polish organisations and the schools, which might give a classroom for extra Saturday lessons. But the Ambassador hoped it might soon go farther.
She spoke of discussions about Polish becoming the second foreign language at schools with a high number of Polish pupils, for instance. And she said that some schools were already keen to offer lessons about Poland to British and other children — something she would like to see go farther, as it would allow Polish children to show off their country and make it easier for British children to understand their background.
The Ambassador denied that she had noticed any resentment towards the Polish community. “Personally I haven’t met with this attitude.”
But Ms Tuge-Erecinska did say that people were mistaken to think that the Poles they meet today were here to stay. Polish families had close ties, with many generations often living in the same house — “it’s extremely important.
“So I think that for this reason the majority of those coming here to work eventually will return to Poland.”
What, we wondered, of the Ambassador’s own family? She divorced when her son, now 22 and studying in Denmark, was 12.
Her mother is in Gdansk, her sister and family in the Netherlands. She is in England alone, but “it’s not really lonely”. She spends a lot of time talking to her son, “face-to-face”, online.
“Behind him I can see his dishes . . . He showed me that there was a lot of snow around his halls.”
Ms Tuge-Erecinska, wary for much of the interview with her arms folded defensively across her chest, began to unwind and light up with enthusiasm when she talked about politics that was personal to her; whether the politics of martial law or of marriage.
It was rare, she suddenly suggested, for a married woman or an unmarried man to become a diplomat.
She referred to a Foreign and Commonwealth Office book that contained lists of ambassadors posted here. The lists had a name, a country and then a “small letter” that referred to marital status — a small “m” for married, an asterisk for married but not accompanied by a spouse or a small cross for the unmarried.
Ms Tuge-Erecinska is convinced the majority will be men marked with an “m”. Then there were those crosses. “I didn’t count it, but I think that 99 per cent will be women ambassadors.”
She is on the right lines: of 28 female “heads of mission” — ambassadors, high commissioners and chargés d’affaires — in the UK, just 10 are married. Of 143 male heads of mission, 138 are married — and one of the five single men is the Apostolic Nuncio, an Archbishop.
When we wondered what this woman, who spent her formative political years fighting Communism, would think of the reported plan of Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, to throw a huge street party to celebrate Fidel Castro, the Cuban leader, those wary eyes returned.
“I won’t comment,” she said, lips in a half smile. Then, after a pause: “Ask Cubans living in Cuba.”
She had closed up again. The Ambassador was back.
An envoy’s file
1956: Born on March 24, in Gdansk
1980: Graduated University of Gdansk
1981: Foreign Department, National Executive Commission of Solidarity
1987–90: Secretary General at the Consular Agency of Sweden, Denmark and Norway
1990–91: Plenipotentiary for Foreign Contacts, Gdansk
1991–97: Ambassador to Sweden
1997-99: Ministry of Foreign Affairs
1999-2001: Undersecretary of State, Foreign Ministry
2001-05: Ambassador to Denmark
2005-06: Secretary of State, Foreign Ministry
2006: Ambassador to Britain
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Since I was married to a British subject (Polish origin), I admire the Polish people, they are very industrious, caring and loving people. My late husband was a very intelligent, cultured and very fair man.
Good luck to the new UK Ambassador, Ms Tuge-Erecinska. I am sure she will be a very powerful person for Poland outside her country.
Nilda S Hidalgo-Batzes, Manama, Kingdom of Bahrain
Like it or not, the British Nation owes a great responsibility to Poland. We went to war against Germany because we had signed a treaty to defend Poland and then, when the war was over, at Yalta, we recinded our responsibility to Russia and condemmed the Polish people to half a Century of brutal oppression by the communists.
Polish men and women fought alongside us in the 1940's and are a strong part of my family history; my father flying with a Polish squadron in France during 1917.
Poland will bring with them a vibrancy that has been missing from Europe and are a nation that will, given time and a fair wind, repay our acceptance of them here today with full measure, of that I am certain.
I welcome them. Yes, we are seeing a short term problem with their taking some of our jobs, along with the other new entrants to Europe. But they are a strong part of the history of The United Kingdom and we will be better off for their coming to us to make a better life for themselves.
Chris Coles, Medstead, Alton, UK
Gentlemen,
Your estimate is probably right. When I was last on leave, in a very small village in the West Highlands of Scotland, the barman (a Pole from Canada, passing through and earning some money to open a business somewhere in Poland) and I were able to count 26 of his countrymen in the area. The village population is about 200?
Anyway, fine by me. The more, the merrier.
Steve Evans, Hong Kong,