Various flavours of living in the UK

My specialism is preparing healthy puddings and making them a pleasure to look at, so that the children want to eat fruit! – says Renata Wroniecka, a cook at a Leeds Primary School in an interview with Maria Żukowska.

When did you first come to the UK and what brought you here?

It was in February 2013. I came first with our two wonderful children, my seven-year-old son Paweł and 13-year-old daughter Agata. My husband, Krzysztof, who is 65, joined us in late March that year. We were all born in Toruń, northern Poland, and our decision to leave the country was very difficult for us all – but mostly for my husband. What brought us here was the hope of a better future. It was the prospect of work, which would provide us with a stable income so that we could make ends meet, from one payday to the next.

What was the beginning like for you?

Our first few months in the UK were tough. None of us knew the language, we didn’t know where to start and in what order things should be organised. We couldn’t always ask for a Polish interpreter. For us, and I think for many Polish people, it was hard to get used to the fact that there is generally a long waiting time for formalities to be processed. At the same time, many things can be sorted over the phone, whereas in Poland unfortunately only paperwork will get things done. Thankfully, God put many helpful people on our way.

What’s your life in the UK like today?

Our lives have changed significantly since we moved to England. We live a lot calmer, slower lives, not running after everything all the time. Although only one of us works (it’s not easy for my husband to find employment because of his age and health), we still manage just fine. The children are doing very well at learning English now. It’s a bit harder for us parents, but we’re very slowly overcoming the difficulties and learn the language as much as we can. Agata is in Year 9 at a Catholic secondary school; Paweł is in Year 2 at primary school. This year we’re preparing for two important religious events in our family – Paweł’s First Communion and Agata’s Confirmation. Thanks to the Polish Catholic Community Centre, we participate in the life of the Polish community, but we also get involved and help build it through our volunteering there. It’s a great joy to be able to give something back in this way.

How do your children find their English school? And do they enjoy Polish Saturday School?

When the children first went to school, there wasn’t a single Polish-speaking student or teacher there. But they’ve now overcome the language barrier, and so they have no problems studying at their English schools. Going to the Polish Saturday School is very enriching for them, because it’s only there that they can continue to perfect their mother tongue and learn about Polish traditions. Of course, there are also harder days when they ask us ‘why do we have to get up on Saturday mornings to study, when all the other kids sleep in until 10:00 am?!’. But we know that if we stopped going there they’d soon forget their Polish and would only speak in English.

What are your plans for the future?

We don’t have a plan as such, but for now we’re staying here in the UK. Our children will finish their schools here and get their education, and then we’ll see.

What do you think of British people?

We generally think that British people are quite closed as a community. For centuries no-one disturbed their peace and now all of a sudden many people from different countries come here and complicate everything. Even though sometimes they smile, they never seem to show their true feelings. I can say for sure that a Pole is treated differently to a British citizen, for example at work.

What’s your contribution to the UK?

I work for Leeds City Council as a cook in a primary school. Together with my colleagues I prepare, arrange and serve children’s meals during their lunch breaks. My specialism is preparing healthy puddings and making them a pleasure to look at, so that the children want to eat fruit! I also have a secondary job, cleaning offices at the Leeds Media Centre. Through our work here in Britain, we pay taxes. Our children will most likely live here permanently. So they, too, will support the economy by paying their taxes and working towards their pensions, therefore supporting British society, which currently has an ageing population.

Any funny stories you would like to share?

Three weeks after we first arrived in England I had to buy a car, because I wouldn’t have been able to get home from work on public transport. Shortly after that, I decided to go to a B&Q hardware store. Unfortunately, my satnav died and I had no idea how to get back home. It was awful! Imagine that – driving a car on the ‘wrong’ side of the road, the vehicle’s steering wheel is on the side you’re not used to, you don’t know the language or the area, and you get lost. Instead of going towards home in Leeds, I drove in the opposite direction, towards Manchester. Of course, I realised that this was probably not the way, but obviously you can’t just hop off the motorway. I took the first possible exit and ended up driving down winding village roads. I couldn’t see any people, there was no one to ask, and not even other cars. So I started to pray – ‘please, God, give me a hand! Send a police car my way, or someone else who can help!’ And then, finally, a fire engine drove out of a side street and parked. I stopped my car in front of the fire engine and ran out of my car, satnav in hand. I called out to them: ‘Help me, please! My navigation is dead, my English is bad. Where is Leeds?’ [‘bad’ pronounced the slightly American way, so that it rhymed with ‘dead’]. The fireman laughed at me at first, but then he explained to me exactly how to get to Leeds. I got back in the car and just thought ‘thanks, God!’. To this day I always feel a warmth in my heart whenever I see firefighters.

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This interview was carried out as part of the ‘Poles in the UK’ project, and was first published in the book Poles in the UK: A Story of Friendship and Cooperation (by Brin Best & Maria Helena Żukowska, 2016).

You can download a free eBook PDF version of the publication from www.polesintheuk.net