The artist Marek Zulawski, translation & Polish-British culture

Hi,

This week, a translation about when my father first came to London in 1936. He talks about his efforts to find somewhere to live and also mentions one of his early, odder, jobs: drawing sketches of Labour MPs.

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I feel like death after a whole day trudging through this awful city

A street in Notting Hill during its poorer days, via arundelandelgingardens.org

It's 1936. I'm walking around with a newspaper in my hand, looking for a room.

Staying at the boarding house in Kensington is no longer an option — for various reasons. Chiefly because I have no money.

I want to live in the city centre, despite Feliks’s disingenuous advice — he says it's cheaper across the river, and once you're in the Tube, it's all the same however far away you are. Not true — for one thing, the commute costs more, and for another, all those hopelessly identical South London streets are enough to make you want to hang yourself. Feliks himself lives in leafy Kensington, but in the spirit of the cool hostility between us, he’d rather I lived as far away as possible.

So I keep walking and searching. Bayswater, Queensway, Notting Hill Gate, Holland Park, and finally even Ladbroke Grove… I can't find anything.

Finally, Elgin Crescent.

A corpulent lady in a black, oddly bent hat opens the door and invites me in. I collapse into a dirty armchair and show her the ad. I barely know how to say anything in English. I feel like death after a whole day trudging through this awful city.

The landlady amuses me with an endless stream of words I don’t understand, but she speaks with such a charming smile that I feel nothing but gratitude.

That’s how I met Miss Dora Wyn Hartley — a Welsh old maid and violinist. She was a student of Hubay, something she needs to remind me of constantly. She seems to be talking about her studies in Budapest — the city’s name jumps out during her monologue. I don’t have the strength to resist.

My attempts to explain that I don’t know English make no impression on her.

She considers herself a European and, unlike most Britons, doesn’t expect everyone to speak English. She also doesn't take any notice of me tapping on the ad with my finger from time to time. Instead, she brings tea and starts to toast bread in the fireplace using a long brass fork.

It starts getting dark and reflections begin to flicker around the large cluttered sitting room. In that light, my attention is drawn to some sheet music on a wooden stand, a bucket of coal with an axe lying on it for breaking up larger chunks, and a pair of wire-rimmed glasses.

It's only after tea that Miss Hartley remembers the reason for my visit.

“Ah, of course. The room — you want to see your room,” she says, and she heaves herself up from the broken armchair.

I follow her, trapped by the situation and ready for anything, but luckily, the room is large, front-facing, with a semi-circular glass bay window. But even if it hadn’t been, I would’ve stayed anyway. I simply don't have the strength to keep looking.

The evening ends with Brahms. She plays very well using exquisitely refined hands and — despite the general neglect — the natural poise of a so-called society lady.

But she wasn’t a snob. She often hosted a travelling tailor named Brown. He would alter the coats and dresses she bought from second-hand shops.

Tailor Brown was a philosopher and inventor. He once asked me to draw a passenger airplane with two large jets instead of propellers. They were supposed to be tubes mounted at the base of the wings. In his opinion, this was how planes would look in the future, and it was an invention he wanted to patent. In 1937, no one had even dreamt of jet engines. The only problem was that he couldn’t figure out how to make air flow through the jets. Or maybe I just couldn’t understand him.

He sewed a beautiful model of that plane out of canvas, the kind used to stiffen suit collars. It actually glided through the air, kept balance, and landed without spiralling down. Tailor Brown looked at me triumphantly after.

So I drew everything properly according to his instructions, and Miss Hartley wrote out the description in her lovely 19th-century handwriting. The invention was provisionally submitted to the Patent Office, although it later turned out that the money we'd raised for the fee had been drunk away by Brown down at the pub.

Despite this, Miss Hartley held him in high regard and had long political discussions with him, which I strained to follow. Little by little, I started to understand the language, though it would be a long time before I could speak and write English. But I had to learn it in the end — or perish.

Naturally, I didn’t go to any school — I didn't have the money for that. Nor did it ever occur to me to do manual labour, as many young Poles who come to England tend to do today.

So I earned money by painting, which meant occasionally selling a small picture. I ended up enthusiastically drawing portrait sketches of Labour MPs, because Retinger said there was a chance they'd be published in an album along with some text by a well-known journalist.

Retinger knew everyone, so I had the feeling that I now had a purpose and would soon be making a lot of money. I worked hard, went to Parliament daily, didn’t slack off at all and kept sketching.

So there was Clement Attlee with a pipe, Jim Griffiths and George Hicks — “two up and coming men”, as everyone said — and Lord Strabolgi, who was once a champion boxer in the Royal Navy. Then there was Lord Stansgate — father of today’s revolutionary Anthony Benn, who later renounced his title — who I drew with a cat on his lap, and Francis Williams, the fat editor of the Daily Herald, Roberts, and Herbert Morrison, head of the London County Council.

They’re all long dead now, but back then they were in the prime of life. A time of youth, a time of hope.

Miss Hartley supported my endeavours — even though she considered Labour MPs scum and always voted Tory. But she believed in the necessity of parliamentary opposition and trusted I would later make a second album of Conservative portraits.

The publication never happened though because I was pressed for cash. I ended up selling the drawings one by one. Miss Hartley mainly made her living by renting out that front room, so I had to pay her regularly.

Every morning she brought me eggs and bacon, jam, tea and toast, which had to last me the whole day.

Uninvited, she’d sit down and comment on the day’s political events that she'd read about in the morning paper. She showed me a photo of Mussolini reviewing a military parade and burst out laughing. Later, we started calling the cluttered attic space above us, which could only be reached by ladder, Abyssinia.

The world's earliest jet airliner, the Comet, first flew in 1949, via Wikimedia

Although Elgin Crescent is expensive and fancy today, it's worth remembering that Notting Hill was a decidedly poor area from the mid-1800s until the 1980s. It's actually where the term "slum lord" originates, thanks to Peter Rachman - a Polish Jew and former Anders Army soldier.

Finally, my father claims that in 1937 nobody else had even dreamed of jet engines, but he was mistaken, as this early development wasn't well publicised.

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Polish news in English is suffering a bit

For English-language readers interested in Poland, there is no better news source than Notes From Poland. Founded by Cambridge professor Stanley Bill, it's become a reliable and decidedly objective place to learn or just understand what's happening in contemporary Poland. For example, here's a recent analysis of the current presidential race.

But recent changes in how the USA gives foreign aid has affected the site - a large part of its funding was from the US government and this is coming to an end. They are currently on a drive for funds, so if you value having a news site about Poland dedicated to English-language readers, please do consider giving them a copper or two. 

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That's all for this week. Many thanks for reading. If you want to support the newsletter, please forward it to a friend or donate here.

Adam

Adam Zulawski

TranslatingMarek.com / TranslatePolishMemoirs.com / Other stuff

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