Leszek Wieciech writes:
As my friends know, even though a quarter of a century has passed since my return from Edinburgh to Warsaw, I continue to search for traces of the several hundred years of Polish-Scottish contacts. While finding commemorative plaques, cemeteries, monuments in Poland or Scotland is relatively easy, tracking down forgotten works of art is much more difficult. Of course, during my visit to the City Chambers in Glasgow I saw a painting by Feliks Topolski, someone told me about Alexander Żyw and his work, but somehow I did not come across any traces of Poles and Poland in Scottish literature. Now I know they are there, I just had to look deeper…
And some time ago, while browsing through copies of Dziennik Żołnierza (Soldier’s Diary), in the issue of October 29th 1942 I came across an interesting, hot discussion regarding the short story ‘Opowieść o szkockiej praczce i polskim żołnierzu (originally ‘The Laundry Girl and the Pole’) by Fred Urquhart, published in several previous issues of the newspaper. In letters to the editor, many readers criticized the author for presenting Polish soldiers in a distorting mirror, as men who unscrupulously exploited Scottish girls. There have been claims that it is a Scottish Decameron, with a Polish soldier in the main role. Some people doubted that the author was actually a Scot and not a Polish author writing under a pseudonym. Some readers were of the opinion that the author insulted the honor of a Polish soldier and that this short story should not be published in the Soldier’s Journal at all.
And that’s how I became interested in the short story and its author – Fred Urquhart, considered one of the greatest Scottish writers of the 20th century, a master of the short form, author of several outstanding novels. He was born in Edinburgh in 1912 and showed an interest in writing in his youth. Even before the war, he was recognized as an exceptionally talented writer with great prospects. His career in the elite environment of Edinburgh was hindered by his origins, as well as the fact that he was homosexual, had left-wing views and defended the rights of women and the working class. During World War II, he refused to join the army – he was a pacifist, a conscientious objector who believed that as an artist he could bring more to the country than as a soldier with a rifle in the trenches. In 1940 he appeared in court in Edinburgh twice and ultimately avoided prison sentence in exchange for being sent to work on a farm in Kincardineshire. In 1944 he moved to the English countryside.
‘The Laundry Girl and a Pole’ was written in the initial period of his work. The author placed the main emphasis on the moral transformation of Scottish girls during the war, largely as a result of their contacts with English and Polish soldiers. The theme of Scottish girls’ relationships with foreign – including Polish – soldiers also appears in other short stories and in the novel Jezebel’s Dust. Urquhart encountered Polish soldiers in Cupar, Fife, where in 1940 he worked as a gardener while living with his American friend Mary Litchfield – a communist party activist in the Fife district. At her instigation and through Lieutenant Stanisław Luxemburg, he contacted the publishers of Dziennik Żołnierza, offering his recently finished story. After long discussions, the editors decided to publish ‘Opowiadanie o szkockiej praczce i polskim żołnierzu’, but significantly shortened and reviewed due to fragments “bordering on pornography”. The translation was undertaken by Stanislaw (Stanley) Bogacz. The publication, which was serialized in 19 parts from October 1st to 26th 1942, sparked a heated discussion in the Polish community in Scotland. Stanisław Bogacz, in a letter to the Scottish writer Dorothy K. Haynes, Urquhart’s friend, wrote that there were “hundreds of letters of protest” when the story was published in Soldiers’ Daily.
First, I read the short story in Polish translation, in the version published in Dziennik Żołnierza. My first impression was that it was like a jigsaw puzzle with something missing. Moreover, I noticed some awkwardness and anglicisms in the Polish translation. After reading, I was left with some dissatisfaction, intensified by what I had already read about Fred Urquhart. Since he was the greatest Scottish short story writer and one of the best Scottish writers of the 20th century, a master of the short form, his works should have been more complete even in the early stages of his work. I decided to read the story in the original, which turned out to be quite a difficult task, as Urquhart’s work is not present on the Polish book market. Fortunately, we live in the 21st century and Uncle Google told me that ‘The Laundry Girl and the Pole’ was published in the collection The Clouds are Big with Mercy. I brought the collection from Great Britain and started reading it.
I quickly realized that the 1942 translation was a significantly censored version of the original, which is why my initial impression of the incomplete puzzle. Therefore, I decided that the Polish reader deserved the full version of Fred Urquhart’s story, so I decided to translate ‘The Laundry Girl and the Pole’. It was not an easy task. Fortunately I received support from my Scottish friends in Warsaw, especially Paul Gogoliński. Another challenge was reaching the copyright owner, Colin Affleck. Fortunately, after some problems, I managed to reach him and obtain the right to publish the short story in Polish. Along the way, I learned some interesting details about the circumstances of its publication.
Ultimately, my translation of Fred Urquhart’s short story was published under the title ‘Namiętność. O małej Nettie i polskim żołnierzu’ in the Res Humana periodical, starting from issue 1/2024, and on the related website. My translation is a translation of the full text and has not been censored in terms of content. I also tried to reflect in the Polish text, at least to some extent, the fact that the author used the Fife dialect in many dialogues. To make it easier for the reader to understand certain fragments, I have included information about songs, films or books from that period mentioned by the author in the references.
More than 80 years after the story’s publication, it is difficult to find any fragments in it that would be associated with pornography for a modern reader – or even come close to it. The author described the relationships of Polish soldiers with Scottish women in a realistic, often humorous way. In real life it resulted in a large number of mixed marriages and children born from these relationships. He simply described reality faithfully… I will never forget how, during a meeting with a representative of the local government authorities in Fife in the second half of the 1990s, it turned out that my interlocutor had a Polish uncle. He jokingly commented on his family history that if it had not been for the injection of Polish soldier’s blood during World War II, the Fife district would have suffered a genetic disaster. On the other hand, the text shows some false ideas of Urquhart about Poland and Poles, which is especially visible in the fragment regarding the ‘Dąbrowski Mazurka’:
“The Poles started singing a song that none of the girls knew. There was a foreign song about it, nostalgic and forlorn. The voices rose and fell plaintively… If you girls, you listened to the wireless on Sunday nights instead of gallivanting… you’d know it was the Polish National Anthem…”
Fred Urquhart died on December 2, 1995 in Haddington, a few months after I arrived in Scotland. Incidentally, the first place I set foot on Scottish soil in August 1995 was a petrol station in Haddington…
Why did none of my friends mentioned Fred Urquhart to me? Maybe it’s because – even before the war – he had leftist views, bordering on communism? Maybe the fact that he was homosexual and spent most of his life in the English countryside, outside the Edinburgh elites? Or maybe the fact that during World War II he was a conscious conscientious objector, which meant that, by court order, he had to take up work as an agricultural worker in order not to go to prison? Or maybe he and his short story were simply forgotten…
Either way, it is worth recalling this forgotten novella about the Scottish laundry girls Nettie and the Polish soldier Jan. Without stories like this, there would not be such a large Polish diaspora in Scotland after the war.
***
Leszek Wieciech is a former diplomat and a manager experienced in lobbying and government relations. He is actively involved in education on Polish-Scottish cultural and historical links, author of several articles on this subject, and a member of the GlobalScot business network.
2021-2023: Board Member, Head of the Anti-Corruption Programme at the UN Global Compact Network Poland.
2009-2019: CEO & President of the Polish Organisation of Oil Industry and Trade. Responsible for successful lobbing related to the fuel sector, including reduction of tax frauds.
2008-2009: City Director Warsaw, Clinton Climate Initiative. Dealt with climate-change related challenges faced by the C-40 members.
1999-2006: Government Affairs Manager BP Polska, responsible for integrated lobbying for the Polish branch of the global company.
1984-1999: Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1986-90 Deputy Chief of Mission in Islamabad, 1994-95 Deputy Director of Personnel, 1995-99 Consul General of Poland in Edinburgh).
Co-founder of the Road Safety Partnership, since 2019 Vice-President of the Board. One of the pioneers of CSR education in Poland, co-author of the “Corporate Social Responsibility in Poland. Baseline Study” (UNDP 2007).
Member of the Chapter of the Order of the Smile. Member of the Advisory Board of the Lower Saxony Memorials Foundation (since 2022).
