UK, Ireland /
London is Poland's 24th largest city [85]
Are Ealing and Acton still. big centres of Polishlife in London?
When the Polish government in exile came to London they based themselves in Kensington and Hammersmith,which still has some top class Polish restaurants and the Polish cultural centre called POSK.My dad bought a large house in Kensington in 1968 which had been converted into nine bedsits.Most of the tenants were Polish war veterans and were overjoyed to get a Polish landlord.
When most of the Polish war veterans reached London after the war,Kensington and Hammersmith were getting a bit expensive,so they opted for Shepherds Bush and Acton.Those that could afford it moved to more leafy Ealing.My extended family was drawn to Willesden,largely because it had an Irish Catholic church that ran Polish masses on Sundays.My dad bought our first family house in nearby Cricklewood in the mid fifties(He had only been in England since 1947!)
By 1964 he had decided that the area was going downhill and we moved to Harrow Weald.Closely followed by many of my parents family and friends.
When Poland joined the EU in 2004, Acton and Ealing had become too expensive and the Poles centred on nearby Greenford.They soon spilt over into nearby Sudbury and Northolt and also a bit to Wembley and Harrow.
As an aside, nearby Kingsbury was very Jewish when I was a kid but as the Jews got wealthier and moved out, the Indians moved in and as the Indians got wealthier and moved out, the Poles moved in!
es, but you're a suburbanite.
Guilty as charged!
I've known many Londoners who consider anyone from places like Harrow to be pretty much country cousins :)
I am sure that is still the view of many Londoners.If it doesn't have a London postcode it's not really London!
But that is to ignore the fact that London has vastly grown in the last 50 years.
I live in the borough of Harrow which in 1965 ceased to become part of the Middlesex administration, we have London tube stations and London red double decker buses.Plus we are now in the "London Borough of Harrow".
I may live in the leafy suburbs, but this is now part of London.
