Ealing North
| |
|
Steve Pound MP Ealing North |
|
|
November 2005 - Gazette Article Invitations to the Speaker’s House are few and far between for us anonymous back-benchers as it is usually Heads of State and Ambassadors who join Mr.Speaker Martin for lunch or dinner. Last week gave me the opportunity to lunch at the long candle-lit oaken table in the splendid apartments at the northern end of the Palace of Westminster and to take a very welcome break from the travails of the Terrorism Bill. The meal was in honour of a man who probably influenced my politics more than anyone currently living. Twenty five years ago an ordinary electrician in a shipyard took on the might of a totalitarian state and, in my opinion, started the chain of events that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the birth of a new Europe. I’d met him before in Ealing and in his home town but it was still a humbling experience to have my old friend Wiktor Moszczynski introduce me again to Lech Wałęsa. The former President of Poland and founder of Solidarity wears his years well and was bubbling with excitement at having just become a grandfather again. The Speaker made a wonderful speech in which he referred to his background as a sheet-metal worker in the Glasgow docks and the President’s similar experiences. I was sitting with a number of comrades from the Polish Solidarity Campaign which was our contribution to the struggle in the early eighties. Although it was so good to see Karen Blick and Naomi Hyamson again the mood was darkened by the absence of one of the founders of the PSC. Giles Hart was killed on July 7th.when the number 30 ‘bus he was travelling on was blown up. I sat next to his widow, Danuta Gorzynska-Hart, and I was not the only person who was thinking about Giles and the awful cruelty of his death. It is hard to explain to people today how important Solidarity was all those years ago and I still have to take a deep breath and wonder at the fact that Lech Wałęsa went from the Lenin Shipyard to the Presidential Palace and changed his world in the process. Solidarity meant a lot to us in Ealing but it meant a great deal to freedom loving people the world over. Seeing Lech Wałęsa sitting beneath the great oil paintings of England’s establishment and breaking bread with Shirley Williams, Glenda Jackson, Sir Michael Figgis, Neal Ascherson, Timothy Garton Ash and Professor Norman Davies brought it home to me that this was an extraordinary man who had made a journey that few of us would have believed possible. For a few hours I was able to escape from the pressures of parliamentary life and marvel at the extent of one man’s achievement. Giles Hart may not have been with us but his presence was felt by all and all those in Ealing who set up and supported the Polish Solidarity Campaign could be proud of their work to support Poland and the cause of freedom. A rough translation of “za nasza i wasza wolnosc” is “for our freedom and yours”. That saying may date from the 1830s but it was supremely relevant in Poland in the 1980s and still resonated in the Speaker’s state apartment this November. |
|
|
|
| Disclaimer | Copyright | Designed by Bassam Mahfouz. Promoted by Julian Bell, The Labour Party, Ruskin Hall, 16 Church Road, W3 8PP on behalf of Steve Pound MP |
