Home From Home
Portraits celebrating the lives and stories of South London's Polish community
Since Poland joined the European Union in May 2004, Poles have become the largest foreign-born population in the UK. But what does the British public know about us, apart from the pre-conception that we are good builders and cleaners?
These photographs are of members of the Polish Community Centre in South Norwood, London. Some are old enough to have fought in World War II on the Allied side. These people have lived most of their lives here, and have worked as tailors, engineers, scientist and doctors... They have helped rebuild the British economy.
This project confronts the Polish stereotypes and reveals the real Polish people of Britain, whose stories are an integral part of the nation’s history.
Henryk Blachowiak (1933-2022)
During World War II, Henryk Blachowiak spent his childhood in an Italian refugee camp, while his father was fighting on the front with General Anders Polish Army in the East, a force mainly comprised of liberated Polish POWs. When the war ended, Henryk was one of around 150,000 Polish soldiers and their dependents settled in the United Kingdom under The Polish Resettlement act, placed in one of the 45 UK based camps, where Polish veterans and their families continued the political struggle for an independent Poland while maintaining their language, culture, and traditions for an eventual return to their homeland that for many proved impossible.
Henryk then moved to London, where he trained as a tailor and gained some renown including working on outfits for the Queen and Princess Anne. For three decades he taught sewing and tailoring to inmates in HM Wandsworth prison; on his retirement he received scores of messages from former inmates thanking him for the way he had treated them with respect and dignity, and in some cases, for helping them change the direction of their lives.
He died on the same day as Queen Elizabeth II, earlier this month.