Fortunes of war – the epic journey that led to Yorkshire

Millions of people were dead and millions more found themselves

marooned in foreign countries, their families ripped apart, many never to be reunited.

The war was one of the defining moments of the last century, but while some stories became ingrained in our consciousness, others have slowly slipped from our memory.

However, one story – the epic journey of thousands of Polish refugees to Britain – is being told in a community play produced by a South Yorkshire theatre group. A Distant Country, written by local playwright Sylvia Le Breton, charts the life of a Polish soldier during the Second World War as he and his comrades travel from Poland to Yorkshire via Siberia, the Middle East and Italy.

Le Breton, founder and director of the Grass Roots Theatre Group, based in Cawthorne, near Barnsley, became interested in the story after talking to a friend.

"The lady who used to do the costumes for us told me about a Polish man who had lived in the village who came here after the war. I knew his daughter and when I spoke to her, she told me about her father and it was just an amazing story, a story that I felt people needed to hear."

The story has its roots in the aftermath of the Allied victory. Britain and the United States had effectively handed Poland over to Stalin who installed a communist government. Exiled Poles were then left with the unenviable choice of returning home, or making a new life elsewhere, and around 300,000 chose to come to Britain, with many arriving in Yorkshire.

Some of those who did ended up in the picturesque surroundings of Cannon Hall at Cawthorne, which was used as a temporary camp. But when

Le Breton began researching the play, she found there was very little evidence of the camp's existence. There were no records or official documents, which meant she had to track down survivors and use their recollections along with first-hand accounts from villagers.

The refugees' story is one of courage and resilience, but although many of those who arrived at Cawthorne had survived Hitler's invasion and Stalin's Siberian labour camps, some still met a tragic end. "When they were at Cannon Hall, some of the men decided they would go back to Poland," explains Le Breton. "They were frightened, but they told those who stayed behind that they would send letters and if they were written in pencil, it was safe to go back, and if they were written in ink, it wasn't. But in the end they didn't get any letters at all and nobody knows what happened to those poor men."

Despite their ordeal, not all Poles received a warm Yorkshire welcome. "Some people were very kind, but there were unpleasant things said and the usual prejudices that face people who come from a foreign country – why can't they go home and why are they taking our jobs? But, of course, they didn't have a home to go to," she says.

"A lot of the fathers didn't want their daughters becoming friendly with the Poles. They used to have dances at Cannon Hall and all the local girls would go and they loved the Polish soldiers because they were so romantic, they kissed their hands and bought them flowers, they did everything the English men didn't do."

A Distant Country is being staged at the revamped Barnsley Civic next week accompanied by an exhibition of photographs showing the history of the camp. Several Poles whose grandparents first arrived in Yorkshire after the war are appearing in the play and, 65 years after the war in Europe ended, Le Breton believes it's a chapter from our past that is still relevant. "I think it's important for young people to know a sense of history. We have lots of Polish people living in Barnsley now and they get a rough ride from the BNP.

"But if people understood more about why they came here, they might think differently."

But she insists the play doesn't have a moral message.

"It is a tragic story but there's a lot of Yorkshire humour in it so people won't be sat there po-faced. I just think this is an incredible story and it's what community drama is all about to me, it's about telling the stories of ordinary people."

n A Distant Country runs at the Barnsley Civic from June 7-10. For more information or to buy tickets, tel 0845 1800 363, or log on to www.grass-roots.org.uk