'The Black Madonna of Derby'

‘The Black Madonna of Derby’ by Joanna Czechowska

Joanna Czechowska talks about her Polish background and her first, very sucessful novel now translated into English.

“As a small child, I spent a great deal of time in the company of my Polish grandmother. She was old but not so frail that she couldn’t cook Polish delicacies, play Chopin on the piano, make paper storks and teach me to speak perfect Polish. She was a lady who’d enjoyed a privileged youth and early married life, but had been widowed young and was living in increasing poverty and distress in post war Poland.

My father, who had himself come over to England during the war and joined the RAF as a pilot, brought her to live with us in Derby in 1957. As a result, I spent my early years steeped in Polish language and culture.

In the 1950s, my father helped establish the Polish Club in Derby along with his colleagues from the RAF. Known as the Air Force Club, my sisters and I spent most weekends there as children going to Polish School, attending dances on Saturday evenings, or playing tombola on Sunday afternoons.

The Polish connection lessened after my grandmother died and weakened further still when my father was killed by a heart attack only a few years later. We still went to the Club, two of my sisters had their wedding receptions there, but the influence became weaker and weaker.

I left Derby and went to University College London when I was 18. After my degree, I worked in women’s magazines and immersed myself in London life, the Polish part of my childhood become a distant memory, the Polish language fading into the background until it was almost forgotten.

About six years ago, after a few years of writing short stories for magazines, I decided to write a novel. Write what you know they always say, so I decided to revisit stories and memories of my childhood. Once I started, the novel almost seemed to write itself. I sent the manuscript to my cousin in Poland who loved it, translated it and found a small publisher in Warsaw. So the book came out first in Polish under the title Goodbye Polsko. The publisher invited me on a promotional tour to Gdansk, Sopok, Elblag and ending in Warsaw with an engagement at the British Embassy.

At the same time, an odd thing was happening in London. Every time I got on a bus, hopped on the tube, went into a shop all I could hear around me was the language of my childhood – Polish. Poland had recently joined the EU and large numbers of Polish workers were arriving to work here.

And these ‘new’ Poles seemed to find a special connection with the novel even though it was really a story concerning their grandparents’ generation. They too were strangers in a foreign land, struggling to adapt to a new language and culture.

The novel recently came out in English under the title The Black Madonna of Derby. Around 120,000 Poles were given special leave to remain in Britain after the war as a thank you for their invaluable help, so their children, the second generation, must number around a million. I hope they will be happy to have their story told, for the first time, as a work of fiction.

I was delighted when Dulwich Picture Gallery invited me to be part of their Polish Connection exhibition. I have lived in Dulwich for 20 years and also been fascinated with the origins of the Gallery and its association with the 18th Polish king Stanislaw Poniatowski (a namesake of his makes an appearance in the novel).
It was also tremendous that Rula Lenska, another second generation Pole, could attend and make it such a special event.”

‘The Black Madonna of Derby’ by Joanna Czechowska (Silkmill Press, £7.99)