Andy's quest to bring 'Little Poland' back to life
For the first few years of his life Andy Bereza lived at "Little Poland" on the Shropshire border, a place now wiped from the map, but not quite from the memory.
With its own facilities including a shop, church, and a theatre, and speaking their own language, it was a self contained Polish community at Iscoyd Park, near Whitchurch, which has disappeared so completely that you would never know it had ever existed.
But now, before those memories fade forever, Andy is trying to trace people who remember Iscoyd Park's Polish hospital – a vast expanse of huts in the grounds of the grand mansion of Iscoyd – which for around 10 years was home to many Poles.
"I feel I was brought up in Little Poland," says Andy, who was born in 1950 and lived for the first four or five years at that Polish hospital where his father, Colonel Michal Bereza, was assistant director.
"I sound English but am totally fluent in Polish," says Andy, who lives in London.
"The source of my character is my upbringing in a country that's disappeared, the community that existed in Penley area. It was like a little bit of Poland stuck in Wales.
"It was a thriving community. We had a fence around it, kids together, teenagers together, who went to the same school, learned our Polish tongue, ate Polish food, and because of its country location it was like a kibbutz."
