I 9th May 1994
In the autumn of last year, I received in London a letter from aunt Zosia who lives in Płock in Poland, to let me know that a sale of Leszczyn estate was being arranged by the government Agency responsible for the disposal of national land. She expressed a hope that I might be able to buy something, particularly the Manor House, for old timeʼs sake.
Leszczyn Ksiezy (Hazel-Abbot), situated not far from the cathedral city of Płock, was an estate belonging to my motherʼs family, and consisted of 650 hectares of good agricultural land, in a flat but pretty countryside, well watered with ponds, several springs and a small river flowing gently towards the Vistula. It farmed wheat, rye and barley as general crops and beetroot for a sugar-refinery; it had a herd of 150 dairy-cows with two bulls, and bred horses, a stud of sixty, known as remonty (remounts) for the army. It was a modern and growing farm business, with a narrow gauge railway built to the refinery 15 km away and a potato crisp factory. All activity took place around an extensive, four sided farmyard with granaries, cow-sheds, stables, piggeries, red brick potato-crisp factory building, stores for equipment and carriages, a smithy in one corner, whilst in the centre stood a tall derrick of the well and the main haystack. Activity which took place there was a joy for the young set.
Adjoining was a 19th century traditional wooden Manor house, a family home, on a slightly raised ground with a park and orchard, and a village nearby for people employed on the estate. It was a community together, with well defined, generous if paternalistic relationships. The house, had a Chekhovian atmosphere of family comings and goings - lord of the manor with his lady welcoming all - uncles, aunts and relations living-in permanently or others invited to stay over summer and winter holidays and guests, looking in for a day, so that the evening table never held less than twenty covers. The house made its own bread, smoked its bacon in large kitchens, and suppers were with poultry from the farm and fish and crayfish from the ponds. Afterwards, people made their own entertainment: joining tables playing bridge or chess, often with musical interludes at the grand, and a curé or mayor for politics, whilst old aunts were laying their patience.
I left Leszczyn (Leshchyn) on the 31st August 1939, a day before the war began. The story unfolded quickly: the very next day, uncle Tadeusz trailed the herd on the road to Sierpc, to save it from the invader while others joined the army. He was a vigorous man, with many jokes, full of laugher, shaking a heavy hump on his back, a result of broken spine in a fall at school, but this was no laughing matter. He came back, after a few days, in despair for having lost the herd, shot up, stolen, or dead in the field to be thrown out, with the rest of the family, by a Volks-deutsch who took over the estate. He died shortly afterwards, too soon, still in his forties.
After the 1939 invasion, Western Poland was incorporated into the Reich and large agricultural properties were confiscated and resettled with the invaderʼs nationals, from Germany, or newly occupied areas such as Memel or Sudetenland. At the time nearly 130,000 Poles and Jews were booted out from their homes in these areas of Poland, which were incorporated into Germany and thousands of Germans were re-settled and equipped, with the household goods that were taken from those expelled, to be themselves expelled at the end of war. I met one, when lecturing in Ulm, an old woman cleaning the studios - she spoke about the land of Mazuria with tears in her eyes saying: “I would walk on my knees, all the way, if I could go back”.
After the war these estates were nationalised by the Communist government, without compensation and the land was distributed to local farmers or incorporated into large government farms: the National Farming Units, known as PGR. Previous owners were not allowed to live within 150 kilometres of their old properties, in order to break a sense of dependency of the local people, who were largely their employees, before. The main yard buildings were burnt down at the time and were stripped of remaining materials for farm houses, while the manor, at first converted into a village school, was later left empty, dilapidated and open to all comers.
In 1990, a policy of privatising the national farms was adopted, but without restitution to the previous owners, and a Land Agency AWR, in Lodz was made responsible for selling properties accumulated by government. In November 1993 the Agency proposed to auction the remaining 78 hectares, of the PGR state farm in Leszczyn Ksiezy, as individual fields, together with old Manor.
I had not lived in Poland for more than half a century, though I visited, my native land, a few times in the intervening years and kept in contact with my relations there. At this time, the collapse of the Communist system and election of a Gdansk trade-union electrician to Presidency, made Poland into a kind of Wild West, with old laws disappearing and new ones not yet being put in place. Inflation exceeded 15 % and bank interest was even higher, while properties and industries were privatised, making a new social agenda, facing everyone with opportunities or ill luck. I am far removed from a mind set, of leaving England or making farming an occupation or a hobby, but Aunt Zosia assigned me her priority to buy and I took the plunge. I have a deep feeling that it is the right thing to do and that doing it continues a personal history.
Therefore, on this day in May, we arrive in the office of a notary in Lodz with Marian, husband of cousin Krysia and Yves an old friend from Avignon. The affair passes well, with notary being an elegant lady, in Paris summer fashion, adorned by a discreet décolleté, and fully equipped with latest computerized technology. The director of the Agency expresses his pleasure, that the 78 hectares are sold in one piece together with the Manor, to a member of the old family. The price was stiff, perhaps not eased by the fact that it was being bought by a foreigner; I had to take a large mortgage with the Agency to be repaid over four years. How times have changed - and today, when I signed - I became a farmer, restoring the Leszczyn tradition, after a break of 55 years.
From Lodz we drove back to Leszczyn, which is now more prosperous and more spread out, a different economy, with each farmer tending his own 8 to 12 hectares around his house and farm buildings, surrounded by a spinney of trees. As we walk inspecting the fields and the old Manor, the memories are rushing back in a haunting kaleidoscope - the local bush-telegraph worked fast and people passing, greet me in recognition and with wonder - as startling perhaps as mine.
Practical steps have to be taken quickly: to see that the land is no longer wasting and lying fallow. One has to find a place to put oneʼs tent and people who would know what needs to be done and help. The presence of the 78 hectares is overwhelming; there was a time during the war, when this land seemed light years away, the Continent was blacked-out and unreachable - now it is here, weighing like a mountain which needs ploughing and tender-loving-care. Seeing all this again, I tell myself: speed on, no waiting (nie czekaj), conquer Gaul.
A couple of days ago the Channel tunnel was opened, by the Queen and President Francois Mitterrand, re-establishing a ʻdry-footʼ link with Continent, for the first time in ten thousand years, since the days when: deer, wolves and the Stonehenge hominids could make this journey. It will open a straight road from Britain to Paris, Rome, Berlin, Warsaw and Moscow. What art and opportunities beckon.
Conceptual art is a truly international phenomenon: “It is not defined by medium or style; generally speaking it may be in one of four forms: a readymade, a term invented by Duchamp for an object from outside world which is claimed or proposed as art, thus denying both uniqueness of the art object and the necessity of the artistʼs hand; an intervention, in which some image, text or thing is placed in an unexpected context, thus drawing attention to the context: e.g. the museum or the street; documentation, where the actual work, concept or action, can only be presented by evidence of notes, maps, charts or, most frequently, photographs; or words, where the concept, proposition or investigation is presented in the form of language.”
What is art? Must it be unique, saleable item - or can it be an idea for a work that can be repeated endlessly? Are we all humbly Conceptual artists, whether farmers or storks, making bread or carrying babies?
