Polish Hearth Club

On 28 April 2013, at Gunnersbury Cementary, a ceremony took place to commemorate the 73rd aniversary of Katyn. As in every year, Ognisko Polskie took part by laying a wreath at the memorial to the 20,000 Polish people brutally killed in 1940. This year Ognisko was represented by its Vice-Chairman Piotr Michalik.

Gallery from the event.

Several years back I had the great pleasure of taking part in a small private dinner at which Baroness Thatcher was the guest of honour.

By then she was frail but still well able to capture the table with some steely wit and insight. I was struck by how often she cited her Christian beliefs, mustering a heartening consensus that Jesus had been more than ‘sound’ in his stout conservative principles.

As the dinner concluded she wistfully said that she was so grateful to have such friends who appreciated her work, “No-one ever says thank you to politicians.”

She had a point there. In the way democracy works, a leader who appeals to roughly half the population is likely to annoy the other half. Hapless politicians trying to maneuver between these two camps (and actually get something done) incur resentment from their opponents for doing the wrong things, and from their supporters for cutting corners. Gratitude? Not on anyone’s To Do list.

Not long after this dinner I was invited to an event hosted at the Carlton Club in London by the Conservative Friends of Poland for the unveiling of a splendid new portrait of Lady Thatcher by the UK/Polish artist Barbara Kaczmarowska Hamilton.

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