I treasure the memory of my late father-in-law - a Pole who at the age of 20, fought his way out of wartime Poland and adjacent countries, with just a few coins and his father's old Mauser pistol to get to North Africa. From there he was flown to Scotland where he joined the Polish section of the RAF and became first a rear-gunner and then a bomb aimer, flying sorties over North Africa and Germany.

He married an English girl - my wife's mother, contracted TB from his war work, was 2 years in a sanatarium, got work as an engineer, bought a house, raised a family, sent money back to his relations in Poland, and was a hard-working, principled man all his life.

When we want to Poland as a young married couple to visit relations, we were treated with wonderful courtesy, kindness, love and generosity from people who - by our standards in the West - had virtually nothing. All the Poles I've met recently - young workers - have been of similar mould.

Some memories or knowledge may be short - mine is most definitely not.