After stumbling four of five times as he tries — and fails — to start a sentence, Kristof Weizynczek gives up. Nervous breathing and “ah”, “um” noises give way to a laugh that escapes from his mouth like a huge sigh of relief.
“You ask me this in Polish, I speak for hours!” he says. Trying to express himself in English is still a bit of an ordeal. He and his wife, Katarzina, moved to Scotland with their children Kasper, 11, and Olga, 6, in January, but are still finding their feet with the language. Although his English is conversational and perfectly understandable, he realises he has progress to make. “I need to learn a lot more if I want to get better jobs here,” he says.
Weizynczek and his wife quit their respective jobs as philosophy and English teachers in Poland in search of a better life in Scotland. “It’s very difficult. We had to leave our friends and family. But the situation in Poland is very bad and we don’t think it will improve in the next 10 years. It’s very sad.”
The couple found work first in a nursing home in Paisley, but when it closed down just over two months ago, they moved to Inverness, where they had been offered employment as carers at Kingsmills nursing home. The children started the new school year at Crown primary, where one of the teachers gives them extra language tuition twice a week to improve their English.
Although the family are still adjusting to life in the Highland capital, Weizynczek is sure that moving to Scotland was the right thing to do. “It’s a lot wetter here,” he laughs, “but we are much happier than in Poland.”
Like the other 3,000 Polish immigrants who have settled in Inverness since Poland joined the EU last May, Weizynczek and his wife took up Jack McConnell’s offer of a fresh start in Scotland, hoping job opportunities and higher wages would mean a better standard of living. But it seems the Scottish executive’s Fresh Talent scheme — launched last year in the hope that foreign workers would bolster the country’s economy — could be a victim of its own success. The arrival of a new workforce may have plugged gaping holes in Scotland’s job sector, but the huge influx has placed a huge strain on language teachers, who can’t meet the growing demands for English lessons.
In the past year alone, schools in the Highlands have reported a 27% increase in foreign language pupils, with 400 new students now requiring tuition in English. Although Highland council is raiding its coffers in an attempt to fund the new batch, it admits they are struggling, and has asked for financial support from the Scottish executive.
Donnie MacDonald, the head of education services for the council, thinks schools owe these new members of the Highland community the chance to integrate fully into Scottish life. “By allowing foreign pupils to learn English, we help them settle into their new lives, and hopefully bring a bit of Scotland’s diversity into the classroom,” he says. “It should be beneficial for everyone.”
MacDonald is hoping that among the skilled workers who are arriving from eastern Europe, some can offer support to local teaching staff. “We are keen to find volunteers to help teach English and also want to fund foreign language assistants.” Although language assistants normally only stretch as far as French, Spanish or German, with 47 languages now spoken in Highland schools — from Bengali and Thai to Mandarin and Latvian — the curriculum is going to have to adapt if it wants to meet pupils’ needs. At Crown primary school alone, there are about 25 foreign pupils from Pakistan, Russia and the Philippines as well as Poland, which still makes up the largest minority population in the Highlands.
“This isn’t unique to Inverness and the Highlands,” says MacDonald. “Schools all over Scotland have pupils from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, the Czech Republic and so on. The diversity here only reflects what’s going on in the rest of the country.”
Michael Fry, the author of Wild Scots, a history of the Highlands, believes it is inevitable that some members of the community will feel threatened by the rapid rise in incomers, but he believes the new population is exactly what Scotland needs. “It is creating a completely new society for the Highlands, being led by those on a commendable quest for a multicultural society within Scotland,” he says.
“Some of the older communities, the crofters and Gaels in particular, may feel threatened by the changes and ask, ‘How do we fit into all this?’ In order to avoid the old and new communities being scared of one another, both parties need to show a willingness to adapt.”
For an area more commonly associated with departures than arrivals, Fry believes the recent influx shows a healthy turnaround. He points out that while certain areas of Scotland such as the Isle of Lewis are currently experiencing “the most rapid population decline any part of the Highlands has experienced in the last century”, Inverness is positively booming.
“Places such as Inverness are thriving because they are seizing opportunities and embracing new ways,” says Fry.
These new ways are already visible on the ground. The Inverness Spectrum Arts Centre has added English classes to its programme of Highland dancing and theatre workshops. The Inverness job centre has hired a Polish staff member after communication problems with jobseekers and, last month, Moray council organised an evening of Polish food and music, where they handed out a much-needed guide to living and working in Scotland, translated into Polish. Highland fish factories have even started offering English lessons to staff, after the gaps in their vocabulary were putting them at a serious health and safety risk.
Patricia Bloczynski, an Inverness local whose father moved here from Poland after the second world war, offers Polish arrivals an informal meeting point at her cafe, Ziozel, the only Polish restaurant in the Highlands. The menu specialises in Polish fare with a Scottish twist, so hearty bigos stews are filled with Scottish beef and game, while traditional platzki potato pancakes are Scotchified with a bacon rasher and a fried egg. As well as giving the immigrants a little slice of home, she provides a place for them to chat or swap advice on everything from flat hunting to taxes.
“At the moment we run weekly language classes and Polish-themed events. Our Polish Easter breakfast was a sell-out, even though we only put up a tiny sign in the cafe window the day before,” she says. Earlier this week, she met with other Poles in Inverness to elect a committee for a Polish Association that would help integration into Scottish life with Scottish-Polish music nights and a Saturday language club for children.
Weizynczek thinks it sounds a good idea, and has already suggested bringing over some of his friends from Poland who performed at the Edinburgh festival.
“I think sharing cultures is a good idea, and I believe the Poles and the Scots have very similar characters,” says Weizynczek.
Although he admits that a lot of Poles come here simply to earn money and will either move elsewhere or go back, he is here for the long haul and wants to do whatever it takes to fit into Scottish life. “We have a family. We don’t want to keep moving. I want my kids to go to more after-school activities so they can learn better English.”
