Basia Korzeniowska

British born of Polish parents; educator, teacher, translator, chair of Polish Citizens’ Committee Housing Association Ltd., fundraiser and organiser.

I was born in Earls Court, centre of Polish émigré life at the time, then lived in South Kensington and went to a tiny boarding school in Ealing. I read Spanish and English at Sheffield University, and as I always knew I wanted to be a teacher I did my PGCE there in 1978. For the next forty years I taught in a wide variety of schools, eventually specialising in Special Education. The cohesive theme of my career was creative education in the widest sense of the word.
My passions are people, education, literature, theatre and inclusivity. I hate sport but enjoy walking and taking photographs and writing.
Now on my gap year I am enjoying volunteering my help with the Polish Cultural Foundation, chairing the committee of Antokol Polish Care Home and I promote knowledge of immediate history to school children about the events of the Second World War which led to my parents being here as refugees.

Tapas

I first went to Spain December 1970. I was seventeen, shy, tongue-tied to all intents and purposes, especially in Spanish, callow, and totally unused to alcohol. The family I stayed with were inordinately rich, very kind and hospitable and, I thought, extremely old. Now, when I think about it, they were probably in their late […]Read Post ›

Benidorm – Guadalest

March 1974. When I was invited to go for a weekend to Benidorm by my Uncle Dick – it was a works outing – I jumped at the chance. His wife, my Aunt Alice, his sister -in- law, my mother, and her husband Zbyszek, were coming too. This was going to be my first holiday […]Read Post ›

Skirting boards

Walls with skirts. Little additions to cover their joins with the floor. Modesty? Practicality? Custom? Not in every country I am sure. One of my earliest encounters with this phenomenon was when I was very small. My father, still a student at the time, was an almost perfect househusband. He couldn’t cook or diy but […]Read Post ›

Sailing boats

TTo continue on a nautical theme for a moment. I came home today in a bit of a rush as usual, and ravenous as usual, and with not a lot to eat in the house, also as usual. So choosing rapidly between a tub of cottage cheese and a slice of toast with Philadelphia I […]Read Post ›

Phobia

THE HQS WELLINGTON I always think I know London quite well and central London especially so, but I am often caught out. So when I received an invitation from The Apostleship of the Sea to come and have drinks on board this vessel, moored on Victoria embankment, in exchange for listening to their report, I thought […]Read Post ›

The Problem with Gardening

Gardening, like Guinness, is good for you. Gardening is a delight. Gardening is what we all aspire to in our old age. It will keep us healthy, and bendy, and occupied, but not necessarily clean or wise or comfortable. I am lucky enough to have two gardens – one tiny one in west London, north […]Read Post ›

Wayang

https://www.architecture.com/image-library/RIBApix/gallery-product/poster/wayang-coffee-lounge-207-earls-court-road-london-by-night/posterid/RIBA3354-53.html?tab=print Wayang is a Javanese shadow puppet – but I didn’t know that till a short while ago. For me the name conjured up the idea of a lovely, very exotic for its time, restaurant in Earl’s Court Road. When I was at primary school and a little later, my mother worked round the corner […]Read Post ›

Aldeburgh

This beautiful watercolour by Eric Ravilious, painted in 1938, 39 X 52 cm actual size, is of Aldeburgh, Suffolk, where I spent many happy weekends in the 70s and 80s. I came across this picture just now in an exhibition catalogue from 2004, ant thought it captured the very essence of Aldeburgh, not as […]Read Post ›

Inkwell 2

I read somewhere that if you have two or more items of the same kind then that makes the beginning of a collection. Last week I wrote about a special camel shaped inkwell my mother had brought back from Nazareth in 1946 or 47. This one however I know nothing about. It belonged to my […]Read Post ›

Earl’s Court

I was born in Earls Court, right in the middle of the Polish corridor as it was known in the fifties and sixties,but I’ve written about that before. When I was small my father and I would frequently wait on Platform 1 for a train to Victoria – he would often take me to the […]Read Post ›

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