Andy's quest to bring 'Little Poland' back to life

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."

He has only vague and fragmentary memories of Iscoyd, before they moved to the Polish hospital a few miles away at Penley, which his father ran from 1954 onwards.

"Penley is incredibly well documented. I made movies there in the 1960s – I have hours of colour footage. But when it comes to Iscoyd, it's precisely zero.

"I'm finding it really difficult to find out about life in Iscoyd that must have gone on between 1945 and 1955.

"It's difficult to trace people who were in Iscoyd Park. The biggest problem is the age. If they're my age and about 70, they are not going to remember very much as they were too young.

"There is an age gap as our parents were 20 or so years older than us so are dead now as they would be in their 90s or 100. To have a grown up or adult who came through World War Two and who lived in Iscoyd Park and remembers it is highly unlikely."

However, Andy is hoping that there are children who have collections of their parents' photographs and memorabilia which can help him tell the story of Iscoyd Park.

Anyone who can help can contact him at bereza@blueyonder.co.uk by email.

Andy says that when he saw a plan of Iscoyd Park he was astounded by how big it had been, with around 100 buildings.

It was, he said, originally one of three US military hospitals in the area built by the British during the war to take casualties from D-Day, all built in the grounds of big estates. Two were at Penley, one in the grounds of Penley Hall and the other at Llanerch Panna.

"As soon as the Americans left in 1945 they were occupied by the Poles. England had about 130,000 Polish refugrees over here, some of whom were wounded, and some ill, who ended up in those hospitals. The three hospitals ran until the mid-1950s when everything was condensed down to Penley. I was born in Penley. Iscoyd Park closed around 1955 to 1956," he added.

"Eventually the Poles basically integrated. Those at Penley either married off locally or went somewhere else looking for work when the camps closed down."

Andy says he has his own "flashbulb memories" of Iscoyd, one of which was from the time of the Queen's coronation, which was in 1953.

"I have these memories that Iscoyd Park had been decked out. There were hundreds and hundreds of Polish patients there with nothing to do, they were just getting better, and I recall they put in an incredible effort to decorate the whole of the camp."

Andy was of course older when he moved to Penley and has played his part in recording life there with hours and hours of film footage which he shot himself as a teenager on cine film.

"We have brought that back to life. It would be really good to reanimate Iscoyd Park, a place that existed for a few years and then disappeared."