Polish workers wait on a street corner for casual employment in west London Photo: AP
It's early afternoon at Victoria Coach Station, and crowds stare intently at screens listing departure times to domestic destinations near and far, discussing what flavour snacks might best pass the time on a trip to Gloucester.
But at the station's furthest extreme, Gate 20, the conversations run along different lines. The language of choice, with its crumpled mass of consonants, is Polish, and the final stop is not Walsall but Warsaw.
The 1.30pm bus to Poland takes more than 26 hours to reach its destination – an agonising marathon of motorways and confined, marauding children. But those queuing in the grim waiting room don't mind. They are heading home, back to the land they left years ago to make their fortunes in the brave new world of a border-free EU.
Some are off on short breaks and holidays, or to hand over in person the fruits of their labours in Britain – rolls of £20 notes stuffed deep into trouser pockets or hidden away in giant suitcases pushed far into the coach's undercarriage. These will come back.
But then there are people such as 21-year-old Krzysztof Doszko. He, too, came to make his fortune in Britain earlier this year, following in the footsteps of millions of other Poles who have come since their country joined the EU in 2004. He, too, wanted to exchange the frustrations and poor job prospects of his rural community near the eastern Polish city of Lublin for comparatively high-earning employment here.
"But," he confides, perched upon his suitcase as he waits for what will be his last bus back to Poland, "it didn't work out like that. I wanted to stay longer. But I am going home."
He is not alone. The Polish government is being warned by its economic advisers that up to a third – 400,000 – of Britain's Polish population could follow Krzysztof in the next 12 months.
Increased prosperity in Poland and the prospect of a severe recession in Britain mean that the economic gap between the two countries is closing fast. The dream of fast cars, fast living and fast fortunes is as attractive as ever but, for many Poles, the odds of achieving it here are lengthening fast.
For Krzysztof, there was little glamour at the potato farm in Cambridgeshire where he ended up, working back-breaking, 12-hour days for the minimum wage. "I worked a very hard job," he says.
Once, even such a low hourly rate translated to a substantial sum when saved and sent back home to Poland. No longer. The pound has slumped against the Polish zloty. Where Polish labourers working here could once depend on an exchange rate of seven zlotys to the pound, they now get about 4.7. Earlier this year, it hovered around just four. Coupled with average wages nearly doubling back in Poland, the incentive to remain has disappeared.
"Life is better in Poland now," says 32-year-old Dani Gryniewicz, who worked with Krzysztof on the potato farm and is also heading home. "I wanted to find a good job for my family, back in Poland, where I left my two children. But now, my husband in Poland has a better job and earns almost the same as I do here. So why stay?"
Many aren't. Because of the EU's open borders, we don't have the figures to prove that an exodus is under way. But the statistics that do exist show a huge downward trend in the numbers of new Polish immigrants to these shores. In the second quarter of the year, 32,000 new workers from Poland signed up to the Home Office's registration scheme. Over the past three months, the total decreased to 25,000.
"In 2007, the number of Poles coming over was more than 150,000," says Robert Szaniawski, from the Polish embassy in London. "In 2008, we estimate fewer than 100,000." He believes "a much higher number" are going back: "If there is a chance to find a good job back home, they will, since our economy is growing and unemployment is rising here. Back in Poland, the banks are not in crisis. People are buying new homes, they need plumbers there."
This dramatic reversal of fortune has not come about solely because of the recent cataclysm in the financial sector, and its knock-on effects on the rest of the economy. According to Chris Watts, a Briton who has lived in Poland since 1993, the "tipping point" came earlier this year. He has spent the past three years exporting Polish bus drivers to local authorities from Devon to Scotland, all desperately short of staff on their transport networks. In that time, 400 drivers and 20 mechanics have come over.
"At the beginning there were so many applications that we were swamped," he says. "And that was just recruiting in two small regions of Poland. We had 100 applications for every 20 jobs.
"Until autumn 2007, the number of applicants was still high. Then the exchange rate went beneath five zlotys to the pound and applications dropped off. Some successful applicants even resigned.
"This March, for the first time, we reached the tipping point, with more vacancies than applications. Since then, we have had another change. Because of the economic crisis in the UK, the vacancies have dried up, too, so the whole business has come to an end. We have simply stopped the process."
Poles are not coming any more. The era of cheap credit is over, and cheap bathroom and kitchen installations have had their day. Like those transport authorities who came to rely on Polish drivers, we must all now learn to do without the vast numbers of immigrants whose arrival we so feared when the Eastern European bloc joined in 2004.
It will be quite a learning curve. For what, as the Monty Python team might have once said, have the Poles done for us? Apart from providing workers for the construction boom that fuelled our economy for the past few years, of course. And sending over qualified doctors and nurses for the NHS. And coming to the rescue of our agriculture, with cheap labourers such as Krzysztof picking and packing.
But apart from the economy and the NHS and the farms, what have the Poles done for us? We may find out, as we try to build Olympic venues without them (they could well be back home building football stadia for the 2012 European championships instead). For my suspicion is that if Seb Coe and his merry men have to go back to local efforts, all might not be well: "Olympic Stadium, guv? Yeah, we can do that for you. No problem. When d'you wan' it for? 2012? Ooh, guv. Not sure about that." [Sound of sucking teeth] "I could probably get it done by 2035."
Then again, perhaps not. For while there can be no doubt that many Poles are going, they are not taking everything with them. A little Polish attitude, for one thing, will endure.
"Culture is a thing that always stays behind," says Joerg Tittel from the Polish Cultural Institute. "Polish culture means hard work. Also, family and personal relationships are very important. It's a far less cynical society than here. We [Poles] are importing old-school notions that history has proven work rather well."
Indeed, one can argue that Poles have brought with them something far more important than just a way with the towel-rail: a no-nonsense ethic that mines a deep nostalgia in Britain for an age of hard-working, Hovis-delivering simplicity. In an age of financial products so complex that even the bankers don't understand them, that outlook is sure to grow more popular still.
"The Polish influx was like importing our parents' generation into today's UK," says Paul Statham, professor of sociology at Bristol University. "It has been about values – a mass arrival of people with traditional values that have been eroded here."
Allied with "a Catholic way of viewing the world, with family and community values at its centre", Prof Statham argues that Poles have effected a "basic cultural trend".
"Simple things like being treated politely in bars and restaurants had all but disappeared before Poles arrived in large numbers to work here. Now that has changed and will remain changed. Britain is changing itself."
So farewell, fair Poles. Thank you for the economy (while we still had one) and the healthcare, and the farmwork. But most of all, thank you for a reminder of the good old days. As the recession bites, they will look better and better.
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