Poles Apart

William Lloyd Ellis, purveyor of handbags in Pwllheli, bought a Super 8mm camera in 1958 to film his locality. On his doorstep was 'Penrhos Home', a permanent camp for ex-service men and women from Poland who had remained in the UK after WWII. He took his camera along and, as well as the people, he recorded the camp's flourishing flower and vegetable gardens, and beautiful paintings and cushions created by the residents. His daughter, Fiona, helps in the garden.

Two miles from Pwllheli, on the Llyn Peninsula, is Penrhos, a village to which the RAF first came in 1936, the Air Ministry acquiring the 250 acre farm 'Penyberth' as a base for a bombing and gunnery school. Three notable, literary Welshmen – Saunders Lewis, D J Williams and Lewis Valentine - were imprisoned when they set fire to what was regarded by many as an unwelcome school . At the end of the war, no longer needed by the RAF, the site became a demobilisation camp for Polish servicemen and women and, when it became clear that many could not return home, it became a permanent camp, the 'Penrhos Home'. This film has a commentary but the Archive is unfortunately unable to transfer it at present.