"Shpeeking Eengleesh"

For years we used to refer to New Zealanders as "szpiki" (pronounced as shpeekee). Nothing derogatory, but we just liked to play around with words for amusement and "shpeekee" seemed a very appropriate word for people who continually asked us: "Do you speak (sounded like shpeek) English?"

For years, our New Zealand teachers frowned when they heard us speak Polish to one another and admonished us. To us, it seemed ridiculous to speak broken English to friends of longstanding who could much better understand Polish. But our teachers must have thought that we would never learn English unless we forgot Polish. Back then, New Zealand was a very isolated country and few people travelled to Europe. There were also some people who were so conceited that they could not imagine anyone who did not speak English to be able to think intelligently.

One, and I must stress one, senior Plunket nurse whom I was obliged to see when our five-year-old son was starting school was shocked when she caught me speaking Polish to him: "Don't you see what harm you are doing to him? How is he going to cope at school?" Fortunately, I was by then a much more self-assured person and was able to reply that if I, who had very little primary schooling and no knowledge of the English language when I went to secondary page 177school, could not only cope but surpass my classmates, finish university and become a teacher of English in a secondary school, I was confident that our son would cope very well. And he did. Fortunately, soon after this incident, the attitude of the educational authorities changed and new New Zealanders began to be encouraged to cultivate their ethnic culture and language. We, the "Pahiatua children", have been cultivating it for 60 years.