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.

Mist

For JS Missed or mist? When this word was suggested to me two things came in to my mind at once – the mists of time and great misunderstandings. I look back on my time at St Augustine’s with great affection. I arrived in September 1964 thinking it was going to be like Fourth […]Read Post ›

Plethora

For HH Pam Dudley I have been doing a lot of de-cluttering lately in my classroom. A job long overdue as my school moved from Hammersmith to White City two years ago, and then it was a case of getting rid of as much as possible, but still taking with me all that I thought […]Read Post ›

Christmas 1998

Happy New Year everyone! i’m at home in London waiting for the fire brigade to come – very exciting – a piece of lead flashing has half come off our roof in the recent storms and looks in danger of coming down and killing someone. So hopefully the men […]Read Post ›

Christmas

Happy Christmas to everyone who reads this. I’m really pleased you read my blog, but next year I’ll be even more pleased if you would let me know that you have read it, or bits of it. I know it’s difficult to comment on it here, but please let me know what you think by […]Read Post ›

Island

(for AL) My first concept of the word island was when I was very small, (four in fact) and we were going on a family holiday to the Isle of Wight. That was very exciting for many reasons, some of which I shall write about another time, but one in particular: there were […]Read Post ›

Stranger Danger part 3

I Bus diary continued (1980 ish) I did once invite a gentleman I’d just met on the bus inside the flat but it wasn’t a very good idea, as we’d already been for an orange juice (he drank coffee but I had given it up for Lent) and conversation was getting a little awkward though […]Read Post ›

Stranger Danger! Part 2

Bus Diary circa 1981 With Belinda it was a different story. For about six months I used to read my morning paper, do the crossword – well, about five words – occasionally with the help of the conductor, and gaze at this extraordinarily slim young woman who would look to neither right nor left but […]Read Post ›

Stranger Danger part 1

Bus Diary I have three particular friends on the bus. There’s Sophie, who’s thirteen and very clever; Belinda, who’s a little older than me, and extremely well read, judging by the volumes she gets through – or got through until we got acquainted – and John Martin – or Martin John – or something like […]Read Post ›

Grandmothers part five – written 1978.

For AC My fourth grandmother, on the other hand, was the only one for whom I found difficulty in bringing any granddaughterly instincts to the fore. She was my stepfather’s mother, an aristocrat by birth, bearing and marriage, and the last ten years of her life exactly spanned the middle years of mine. She […]Read Post ›

Grandmothers Part Four (written in 1978)

For EMO My third grandmother- Babunia- was no blood relation – she was a holiday relative, and I loved her. Two school friends of my mother had married, begotten two children, and gone to live in Wales. Fresh air, a damp cottage on a farm, children, animals, flowers and a loving guardian were all […]Read Post ›

	Basia Korzeniowska on Washing
	swabby429 on Washing
	Patti Aliventi on Washing
	swabby429 on Mothering Sunday 2026
	Patti Aliventi on Mothering Sunday 2026