A Scottish evening with Wojtek the Bear.

One of the UK’s great strengths is its diversity. That includes some great cultural traditions. One of the best of those is Burns night. To celebrate this, we held an event at the Embassy. Very few of our events feature a pipe band and a sword dance, performed by the outstanding pipe band from Częstochowa. Even fewer an ode to that great Scottish delicacy the glorious haggis by the poet Robbie Burns, whose life we celebrate on Burns night.

But the star of the show was undoubtedly a bear called Wojtek, who became a mascot for Polish forces during World War Two and travelled all the way from Iran to Scotland, where he became much loved by the locals as well as the Poles, although he responded to Polish rather than English! Sadly, like so many others, he never made it back to Poland but as Aileen Orr, who has written a book about him, movingly told us, he was hugely popular in Scotland and a statue is now being erected in Edinburgh to celebrate his life. It is hoped one day to erect one in Warsaw too so that Wojtek will finally return to his beloved Poland.

Scotland is not just about culture. There are many first class Scottish businesses that we would like to encourage to export to Poland. Poland is already a big market for Scotch whisky but there are lots of other opportunities. So I’m planning a visit to Scotland soon.