6 The


Gdansk diaries


with David Laing


Travelling daily between the three population centres of gdansk, Sopot and gdynia which together make up the Tri-City, the eccentric honking, clanking and buzzing sounds of the elderly railway system encouraged me to imagine myself living in communist Poland. it dismays me that the


endearingly shabby carriages with their hard plastic seats are gradually being replaced by (admittedly more comfortable) newer ones. Some distance down the line


from gdynia lies the gdansk


suburb of Przymorze and another


of my temporary homes, this one forming a difficult-to-forget part of my Polish experience. Bemused to find myself living


in a building bearing the Marxist- leninist-sounding name ‘Blok leningradski’ – in new free- market Poland? - i’d had my doubts about the landlord from the beginning. When he arrived at the flat one


evening to collect something he’d forgotten, my girlfriend Kalina and i knew exactly what the ‘something’ was. We had already discovered the loaded pistol in the bedroom.


dlaing05@yahoo.co.uk NEXT ISSUE: The General


Picture by ADAM WARD www.makers.org.uk


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HERE for more on General Maczek


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HERE for more on the Great Mapa


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HERE for more on Barony Castle


THE campaign to save General Maczek’s Great Polish Map of Scotland has been launched. At a meeting in the Barony Cas


Hotel at Eddleston, near Peebles group of enthusiasts from acros Scotland met with representativ of the Polish community to elec the campaign officials and formally adopt a constitution. This paves the way to the


campaign gaining charty status and becoming eligible for grant aid. Applications are to be made local and national bodies for financial support. Created by a team of Polish


students in the mid-1970s, the m is a huge, three-dimensional representation of Scotland. Over the years the structure ha


fallen into disrepair, and the concrete structure became overgrown with weeds. At one point it came within a fraction o


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