Adam Arseniuk likes English winters. Of all the reasons to come to Britain, our winters wouldn't normally top the list. But for Adam, our winters are warmer than the ones back home and that's one reason here's here, writes Andrew Thomas.
That and the money, of course. Adam earns four times here what he would make in his native Poland. And that's assuming he could find a job there.
I'm at a wholesale nursery on the outskirts of the New Forest, interviewing a Polish plant-tenderer for a piece on the extent of Polish immigration. It's illegal immigration that currently makes headlines, but the quiet phenomenon that's been underway over the last two years is legal immigration from the new accession countries of Eastern Europe.
Southampton might seem an unlikely magnet for Poles but in two years it's got to the stage where 6 per cent of the city's population is Polish.
Generally, they're accepted because they're useful. Adam's boss tells me that he simply couldn't find a British person to be foreman to his flowers . . . and we all know how valuable Polish plumbers have become.
It helps, I think, that Poles are white and tend to be more snappily dressed than most Brits. Until they open they mouths, you'd never know they were foreign. That, in Britain, is how we seem to like our immigrants: smart, white and above all non-Arab. No threat from Poles. Most go to Catholic church.
From the forest to the city. One thing we never show in TV packages is the time it takes to get from one location to another. Every different backdrop, every minute of report involves a journey, getting from one relevant place to another. If one place is in the New Forest and it happens to be Half Term week, 10 minute journeys can take hours.
I am, then, late to meet our next lot of Poles: DJs at a Southampton community radio station where the sheer numbers in Polish community mean two have been given their own show. Still we're in time to catch a snippet. Southampton rocking to an East European beat.
Watch Andrew's report on Poles in Britain here
My name is Katya Lightman and I am a 3rd year geography student in Southampton University. I am currently undertaking research for my dissertation regarding the experience Polish workers working in the UK. Please could you take a few minutes to answer the following questions to help me with my research? All information given is anonymous and confidential and no information will be released to employers or authorities.
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Posted by: Katya | Tuesday, 24 October 2006 at 03:07 PM